I am in the proccess of starting my new home.   Land has been bought and I have a shop built at the moment.  I am curious as the the structural limitations of SIPS.

http://www.eplans.com/chateauesque_...L10150.hwx

The link above shows the exact plans I have purchased.  I am hoping that someone may be able to tell me if I would be able to build this struction with sips, or would the roof design be to complicated?

Thanks in advance for any input.

I have "panelized" a design like this once before. Yes it is quite complicated. Here are some of the issues. If one looks closely there is a pitch break near the eave. This can be conventionally framed on top a of a SIP roof or it can be made of two separate roof panels. Either way the panel bearing point at the eave will be complicated. If you eliminate this detail the character of the design will be diminished. Also with french provincial roof lines like this one, the roof slopes are very steep and are not equal front/back verses the sides. This causes the "hip" beams to have very skewed connections which are difficult to frame. Ceilings in a design like this are usually tray and or vaulted, because there are no trusses and lack of the useful truss bottom chord, framing the ceiling will be more complicated and costly. Also, there will be cavernous volumes of space above the ceiling that one will kick one's self once one realizes it will have no access or use. This design because of the steepness of the roof probably has roof planes that may be longer than a manufacturers maximum length of SIP so additional beam supports will be needed.

The design chosen evolved from "rafter" framing and does not easily translate to SIPs. My advise to you is the use SIPs for the walls and ceiling and frame the roof conventionally with trusses.

I had thought that may be the case. So basically I would be forced to build an airtight box with a pretty roof on top. Now I'm wondering how tough and cost effective it would be to do such a thing. I'm located north of Dallas Texas. About sixty miles north. Is there anyone in this area you know/trust to take ob a task like this?

bambam0084;

we have done similar projects in the flat like this one http://southernsips.com/job_lechenier.html in Louisiana,  however we no longer use OSB SIPs. We would certainly do our system in the flat but would recommend rafters instead of trusses

Check out my thread under SIP's: " SIP's, no support from Timber Frame Manufacturer" Check out the picture of my failed roof after 11 years. Run like HELL from SIP's on the roof!

Posted By BadAttitude on 31 Mar 2011 10:30 PM
Check out my thread under SIP's: " SIP's, no support from Timber Frame Manufacturer" Check out the picture of my failed roof after 11 years. Run like HELL from SIP's on the roof!

Yikes...  I wonder if that is more of an issue with OSB sips than steel sips.  Thank you for the heads up either way.  I would hate to see the estimate on repairing that.

bambam0084;

no matter what the SIP type used is, if it is improperly designed, used or installed. It will not perform as intended

Just a quick note.
This will be a fairly hard house to build for energy efficiency. By my count, you have 37 exterior corners, and a lot of surface area to livable space. That is a lot of thermal bridging to overcome. I would think you want to plan to use exterior insulation to overcome that.
As far as roofs go, you have many different roof planes and intersections Lots of places for leaks. The house will need large gutters, there are several spots on the front where water will funnel into a very small area.
I think you would probably build this stick built with outsulation or ICF. The roof would probably all be done as a truss package albeit an expensive one.

Eric

Yikes...  I wonder if that is more of an issue with OSB sips than steel sips.  Thank you for the heads up either way.  I would hate to see the estimate on repairing that.

Six men for six weeks and they have done an outstanding job inside and out!

Posted By BadAttitude on 24 Sep 2011 10:21 PM

Yikes...  I wonder if that is more of an issue with OSB sips than steel sips.  Thank you for the heads up either way.  I would hate to see the estimate on repairing that.

contact with water is a always an issue Six men for six weeks and they have done an outstanding job inside and out!

Couldnt find Attitudes thread or pic.

Run like hell from advice that rules out a product because it was poorly installed. SIPS and timber frame are a perfect match.

Posted By Springtime on 26 Sep 2011 06:34 PM
Couldnt find Attitudes thread or pic.

Run like hell from advice that rules out a product because it was poorly installed. SIPS and timber frame are a perfect match.

Brian; if you buy a sheet of 1/2" plywood designed to span rafters @ 24" on center and you decide to span 8ft. on center. When it fails, Who is at fault the product or the installer?