I've been talking with a SIP contractor, provided a crude floorplan, etc.  I just heard back today with a ballpark.  It's definitely higher than I had expected, since I keep reading that the total cost for a SIP house is pretty comparable to a stick-framed house.

I don't know if this is enough info to go on, but I'd appreciate feedback if you guys have any thoughts..

The house is approx 2000 sq ft split bedroom ranch, with a walkout basement & attached 3 stall garage.  Basic dimensions of the house (not including garage) are roughly 60 feet wide by 30 feet deep.

The plan was for ICF basement, 6" sip walls, 10" sip roof, and 4" sip garage walls.  Garage roof-trusses.

The ballpark included the following -

footings
icf walls
floor system for main floor
sip walls & roof
steel superstructure


Not included -
basement floor
garage floor


The price I was given was $148,000. 


Before I looked into sips, our builder said that for what we wanted, we'd be between 100 & 105/sq ft for a stick framing, with a few extras (1" spray foam, extra insulation in attic).  For a 2000 sq ft house that prices out in the 200-210 range. 

So my question is, can everything else not quoted (electrical, plumbing, interior walls & finish, cabinetry, etc.) all be done for $60-65k?  It seems unlikely that the total project would be in the same ballpark...

jerkylips;

what area of the country?

WI - Green Bay, specifically. There's really only 1 SIP supplier close, that's the only one I've worked with so far.

To add one thing.. I talked to our builder the other day to get a ballpark for the same work, done conventionally. He recently did a very similarly sized(1950 ft) ranch with exposed basement. 2x6 exterior walls, 1" spray foam then blown blanket (the stuff with the net). He said that gives an r26 exterior wall. He also did pretty extensive spray foaming in the box sills & roof, along with blown in. I think he said he was getting r60 in the attic. Basically it's very tight & well-insulated for a stick framed house.

Looking at his numbers, the excavation, concrete, framing, & insulation, including labor, was $52,000. This is a guy I know, and have seen many of his homes. He does nice work.

I'm holding out hope that the sip guy added wrong or something. I asked him to re-calc, with a few changes. One of them was to do 2x6 walls in the garage rather than 4" sip. I'm sure he'll come back lower, but unless it's A LOT lower, I don't see how we can justify it. Payback on an extra $100,000 is getting into grand-children era......

sent you an email to the address in your signature...

If you want to take the time to figure it out I can give you some material costs and then you can see what his mark-up is. Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules, I'll delete it if I get any complaints.

 

MGO SIP walls 6"-$6.75/sq ft

Floor joists/beams/ and 3/4" tg sheeting-$3.50/sq ft

My truss package was $10 000 for 1600sq ft parallel chord cathedral ceilings

I think my ICF quote was $12/sq ft but I just did 2" XPS exterior and spray 2lb interior

If you need more let me know, I can't help with excavation and footings as that was a friend but you could probably get that for less than $8000 around here.

 

Sean

thanks!

his bid was actually for osb sips, not mgo.  I've seen things on this board about $3.50/$4/foot.  Using those numbers, I came up with around $70,000 for the walls & roof.  I hadn't seen a per foot estimate for icf's, I'll have to figure that in.  Somehow I don't think that the basement is going to come in at $75,000.........................

Jerkylips - That estimate seems quite high to me, at least here in Alabama.

Do you have drawings posted somewhere? Is there a complex roof line? Using trusses or Ridge beam(s).

I did post a pic of the floorplan somewhere out here a while ago, but I'm not sure where, anymore. I have it on my laptop, so when I have a chance to boot that up, I can post it. It's a pretty straightforward ranch, though - about 2000 sq ft, essentially a rectangle except for one bumpout in the back, & a pretty straightforward roofline. btw, Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Wait. Are these estimates in Canadian dollars?

For my build that was around 4,000 sq. ft.
SIPs (OSB), headers, etc = $40k (6.5" walls, 8.5" roof)
footers, foundation = $10k (10" poured walls, drain tile, sump, waterproofing)
Floor, trusses = $20k
right around $70k.
No labor in the SIPs, floor systems. Footers, Foundation has labor included.
Did the SIP contractor include labor but not the stick frame one?

good questions. SIP ballpark included labor. I'm pretty sure the stick-framed estimate included labor too but I don't know that I specifically asked. Since we don't have our plans drawn yet, these are pretty preliminary. I talked to the sip guy & am waiting to hear back, but with the holdays I have a feeling it may take an extra couple days so I'll just have to wait it out..

Not sure if you can do what I did but I got my plans drawn up for a stick framed house. Added in to the "Notes" section I had some things added. For foundation I had poured concrete or ICF, Walls were 2x6 or 6 1/2" SIPs, Roof was trusses engineered by supplier or SIP panels, etc... It gave me the chance to get my plans through and approved by the city and in the mean time I went out for my quotes. This way I got things moving and didn't waste too much time pondering what I should do and I wasn't forced into making any rash decisions. It took three months for my final building permit from the date I first applied for it. Sean

Many permitting agencies would not review such a non-specific set of plans

below are the floorplan & a pic of a home with a similar roofline.  I think it's a pretty simple roof.  Keep in mind that the floorplan is my "sketch" - not to scale or anything.  The basic size is around 2000 sq ft & overall dimensions around 60x30.

A couple things I don't recall mentioning - the ballpark I got was assuming SIP roof panels.  I asked about using trusses - he told me that they really don't recommend it since you have much greater heat loss through the trusses and if you insulate them similarly to the SIP (several inches of spray foam) costs are pretty comparable.

His estimate included 4" SIP's for the garage.  I have since told him that I don't want to do that, since we don't plan to heat the garage.

Hey Jerkey lips, how does that compare with an all ICF house? Are you willing or able to do any of the work yourself or no?

The house that's going up next to our lot is 2500 (main level) ranch with a walkout basement - done as a all ICF.  They're just putting the roof on now, but I talked to the builder & he said that the budget is about $400,000 construction costs (lot was about $60,000).  He said they're doing relatively high-end cabinetry & stuff, but it doesn't sound like finishing the basement now.  Using those rough numbers, that's around $160/sq ft - much higher than our budget.  It's hard to say exactly what "high-end" means to him.  He's also building it for a family member, so there may be a couple "breaks" there. 

I sent him the drawing I posted here & he's going to give me a ballpark - I'm hoping to hear something back this week.

And no, I can't really do the work myself - I talked to our builder & he's not really comfortable with that - he wants to have control over all of his subs' work.  AND my wife is really picky so I don't want to have to deal with her "inspecting" my work...

Thats fair enough. High end means so many different things to so many people, who knows what that means. Regarding your builder not being comfortable with you doing some work.....who's money is building the house? It's yours and he does work for you. I wouldn't ask, I'd tell him you are doing the work. :) If you don't want to or can't do it thats another issue and it's fine to have the builder do it all. I like to see owners get involved because it's allows them to be informed and aware of what is going on and how things work. You can put some sweat equity in the house by helping if so inclined. But if your wife says so....well, she wins. :) What brand of icf did he use?

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm ok with his position.  We did talk about the possibility of me GC'ing it, doing some work, etc., early on.  His take is basically that as the builder, his name is on it.  Quality is his utmost concern, and if he can't guarantee that the finished product will be up to his standards, he'd rather not take the job.

This is a person I've known for years and have a great deal of respect for, so I believe that he means what he says.

And as far as me doing the work..we owned a old fixer-upper as our first home & I did a lot of work myself, but it was kind of "learn on the job".  I don't have any background in construction or carpentry.  I'm honestly more comfortable leaving up to the guys who know what they're doing.  Now, if I could save a few bucks by doing some unskilled grunt work, I'd be willing to do that if it fit into my schedule..

I didn't think to ask the builder what brand of ICF he used - I thought of that after I got off the phone w/him.  I'm going to find out when he calls me back.  He mentioned that there can be a huge difference in price between different brands/types of forms..

Can anyone explain this? I just got a ballpark from another company. This was for 6" sip walls, raised heel trusses, 2x6 garage. No foundation, but it was $40,000. This estimate was materials only, no labor - but still. If I add in $20,000 for excavation & foundation, plus labor, I'm at HALF of the other bid. I'm confused....

I got quoted a SIP roof when I was trying to convince the city that spray foam can actually go into a ceiling and it was very expensive. I went with all clearspan parallel chord trusses 20" deep and will get r40 2lb walltite eco for about half the price. I would have liked to go with the SIP roof but for the price I can add a lot of extra insulation. The spray foam gets a lot cheaper the more you want, with the ceiling, joist ends, cantalevers and such my basement walls are practically free. Sean