Dick Mills

 It is not that labor intensive we built our own delivery system unlike any other in China like most products the technology has come a long way..the other questions should be anwsered by my partner
  Gordon Ritchie gdritchie@shaw,ca he's the mad scientist

Whoa here folks! I asked for some factual information on the safety of this product and I haven't see the following addressed...so stop the bickering and personal jibes here please adults! Let's look at:

1. I have NOT seen CCMC approval. Nor is it in our ABC.
2. I have NOT seen any other CANADIAN approval on the product.
3. I have NOT seen or read any info about lack of off-gassing.
4. No one has addressed the real issue: This is a product made in China for goodness sakes...why would I have to buy something from China (bulky/heavy) to ship half way around the globe and call it BUILDING GREEN? C'mon here, SURELY we can do better in Canada with CANADIAN products and CANADIAN labour?
5. Quality product issues from China. Yes, MagDaddy has addressed this with his product, thank you.

My whole purpose to be involved with SIPs is BUILDING GREEN. I fail to see the benefits in obtaining materials from half way around the globe, whether it is China, Australia or Germany...SURELY we can obtain and do the same here in Canada?

AND FINALLY:

The fear mongering about fire is totally invalid. It is NOT fire that kills, it is SMOKE. Ask any fireman. When a fire starts, it does NOT start on a wall! It starts in a cigarette, pot of oil on the stove, defective space heater or candle most often. When there is smoke, of course your smoke detector (change your batteries NOW!) and your NOSE (assuming awake) will tell you there's an ISSUE.

People who are awake will leave the house. I don't give a rat's patoot about my MAG SIPs at that point, or OSB or whatever SIPs, it's meaningless! If you've seen a house burn, having fire resistant materials are in fact worse for it...it reflects the heat and energy back into the structure and causes deeper burning and incineration inside. I have seen an ICF house on a First Nations reserve burn and it did this exactly...the insides were just ash. In a stick built home, you can recover many personal artifacts that get smothered by debris and when the walls finally collapse, the fire is soon smouldering. Not so with fireproof/fireresistant or ICF walls.

So this leads me to conclude:

1. OSB will remain much more cost effective than MAG for SIPs. It is harvested from purposefully grown plantation trees and is GREEN.
2. OSB SIPs, built by 98% of the SIPs manufacturers out there and used in 96% of stick construction is the right sheathing material to use.
3. OSB is structural, and the OSB sheated SIP is structurally approved.
4. The MAG board SIP is not structurally approved, it is a stressed membrane.

The point is that SIPS are for building GREEN and that means every ounce of embodied energy must be considered. And cost. 95% of reluctance to build with SIPs is due to higher initial costs. I know that this can spark a massive debate and there are other areas/forums that discuss cost. But regular tract builders would be the first to adopt SIPs if the cost was right.

So this MAG board SIP debate hasn't provided a lot of new factual material unfortunately. I thank the contributors and hope to hear more.

Meanwhile please continue to build with SIPs, enjoy the many benefits and BUILD GREEN with LOCAL materials.

Paulcf let me respond

 Our panels have been tested by Intertek I have all the testing results for North American approvals and I can send them to you we have 80 panels at NTA inc now being tested for certification in all 50 states with QC for our manufacturing plants will be done in June with reports and as I said we have already tested by Intertek in Canada and it out performs OSB in almost every test.
 Thers is no off gassing what so ever.. no VOC's.. formaldahyde,, carstegenics ..silicates we use Canadian foam Canadian glue and Canadian labor in our Edmonton plant...Green.. no trees are cut down wether there fast growing trees or slow growing trees .. that is green ..most kids i know love trees fast or slow growing...Shipping and energy cost carbon foot print divide the number of containers on a ship say 4000 by the amount of energy used and you will find out you burn more energy going to your grocery store in your car.

  Fire..O smoke and o flame spread..if there is a fire it will contain it in one room once the fuel source is none burning so is the fire it will SAVE LIVES this is not a JOKE my man...watch our fire video and talk to fireman they wish all houses were made out of MgO ask the fire chief in Edmonton

Cost effective stand my wall and your ready to finish.. no drywall ..no house wrap.. no mesh,, no rain screen..if you compare apples to apples...I can build a better building that is green safe healthy at a better price point all day long...My board is structural more so then OSB..and the only reason 98% of houses are built with OSB is most builders never heard of MagBoard...watch what happens over the next couple years OSB will be obsolete in my humble opinion..is far as R factors and eenergy saving same as an OSB SIP..we are doing a study now and we think we can scare the heck out of stick built with our Magplus finishing system maybe even beat it..  and as far as buy locally its a global economy and  the percentage of a building built with MgO is small compared to the over all cost of your project but the benefits are massive..if you new the facts I am sure you to would live in one of our houses..
we to BUILD GREEN with over 95% LOCAL MATERIALS..any other concens please respond..I will probally know where to get the anwser..... MagDaddy

Forgot a couple things... 5% of the earth crust is MgO it is basically a salt solution left over when the earth was covered by oceans and MgO board  is made at room temperture.. no heat.. slurry mix.. low energy and no pollutants go into the atmosphere now that is GREEN...lets leave the trees alone not live in them

MagDaddy, I have to correct you on this.

MgO isn't a salt. MgCl (Magnesium Chloride) is the salt in the solution. Hence the name Magnesium OxyChloride (MOC). And the best sources (at least in the US) for MgCl is from the Great Salt Lake. It turns out that it is much easier to extract from salt water than from land, and salt water derived aqueous MgCl generally works better in MOC formulations.

And, the MgO which is the rock that is mined from land deposits, is generally is calcined which is a heat treatment that generally removes the volatile fraction of the material, and oxidizes the material that wasn't already. And, you are probably using what is termed Dead-Burned MgO, which is pretty energy intensive - and produces a fair amount of CO2. So, while your plant might not be doing the calcination, the company that you purchase MgO from is.

But, that is also the biggest reason that MOC is so fireproof. Dead Burned MgO is used in refractory applications, because of the fact that it is thoroughly burned (calcined) and also because it has very minimal thermal conductivity. But it takes temps in the 1500°C - 2000°C range to calcine - and that's a lot of energy.

What LEED points does MgO board qualify for?