Hello Everyone, I've been meaning to write this up for a while but I never seem to have enough time. Before I get started, I would request the following 1. If you are reseller, representative of or associated with alternate building technology (OSB and Steel SIPS, ICF etc), please refrain from commenting. 2. If your a reseller of MGO panels, please also refrain. This is not an advertising thread. Too many of the these threads descend into thinly veiled questions designed to show a weakness or fault in anything new or different. Or the opposite, that MGO is perfect and all other building processes should be burned!! There is no perfect building method. And there are more than enough houses built in this country for multiple building systems. This post is not an attack on your business ;-) With that out of the way. This past year I undertook the job of being the GC for our new house. After much research and searching I decided to go with an MGO SIP panel. It was quite the project and I know there is a lack of info when it comes to working with MGO SIPS so I thought I would post my results here for others to learn from. I'm certainly not an expert, but I did make my way through it successfully and over I'm happy with the results. But I'm happy to share the good, the bad and the ugly so others can learn. We have had a fair amount of people travel up to see our house and thought I would post about it here. This forum comes up alot in google. To start, I had to decide where to get these things from. I contacted several USA vendors and only two were shipping products. Pricing was far greater than OSB SIPS....most in the $7-8$ per sq all in cost. I was pretty close to going with General Panel OSB SIPS (their pricing was great) when I decided to look at China. Now, MGO is still a bit like the wild wild west. There is a lot of junk MGO. It breaks down, gets brittle and can weep acid (fun right). I actually got several samples that where just terrible. I did find several Chinese manufactures that had verifiable manufacturing and ISO certifications. High quality MGO solved these issues. In fact, I ended up going with an MGO Sulfate board. Which is actually a little different than pure MGO. For over a year I had several samples tested at labs and on my own. I had samples submerged in water for months and tested for all sorts of nasty chemicals. I do not have a general fear of products from China like most. My day job is running an IT firm. 99% of all IT gear is manufactured in China. I had sample SIP panels shipped to me and had them tested by a lab here in the states. After selecting the final manufacturer, I had 3 40HQ containers full of 264 6.5" MGO panels shipped and trucked to my construction site. The process is not for the faint of heart. The vendor was great, but the 3rd party shipper was not. I lost about 3K when the shipper held my shipment as a ransom. And unloading a 53" tractor trailer on a rural muddy building site was not alot of fun. But the panels where packaged perfectly. Palletized and wrapped in plastic, every single panel arrived in perfect shape. Our manufacture was able to modify the SIP panels to our requirements. We had them put channels for electrical, spline connections, etc to meet our requirements. I also used a 3rd party inspector to verify at several stages with design goals. Most people ask about cost. The panels + shipping worked out to $2.80 per sq foot. That was with a 5.5" 1lb EPS center. I had the panels made at 4'x9'. In some areas we saved even more (drywall cost and finishing labor was cut in 1/2). Some areas cost us more...the metal roof. I could type for days on our process, but if anyone has any questions please ask. I'd be happy to list what worked and what did not. Here are some pics of the process: https://photos.app.goo.gl/z9P2XZay7ih6E6Tc2 Some design decisions we made: 1. All floors are hung on the walls. 2. We used trusses and set panels on them for the roof. Primarily we did this to create attic rooms. Sure we could have done another floor, but attic trusses are surprising cheap. Doing so really eased alot of design decisions. It also allowed us to order all the same panels. When your panels come on a boat, running short would not be fun. This really saved our butts when we did the roofing. 3. We had the panels made with OSB splines. 2x6 for the top and bottom plates. Matt

Hello Everyone,

I've been meaning to write this up for a while but I never seem to have enough time.

Before I get started, I would request the following

1. If you are reseller, representative of or associated with alternate building technology (OSB and Steel SIPS, ICF etc), please refrain from commenting.
2. If your a reseller of MGO panels, please also refrain. This is not an advertising thread.

Too many of the these threads descend into thinly veiled questions designed to show a weakness or fault in anything new or different. Or the opposite, that MGO is perfect and all other building processes should be burned!!
There is no perfect building method. And there are more than enough houses built in this country for multiple building systems. This post is not an attack on your business ;-)

With that out of the way. This past year I undertook the job of being the GC for our new house. After much research and searching I decided to go with an MGO SIP panel. It was quite the project and I know there is a lack of info when it comes to working with MGO SIPS so I thought I would post my results here for others to learn from. I'm certainly not an expert, but I did make my way through it successfully and over I'm happy with the results. But I'm happy to share the good, the bad and the ugly so others can learn. We have had a fair amount of people travel up to see our house and thought I would post about it here. This forum comes up alot in google.

To start, I had to decide where to get these things from. I contacted several USA vendors and only two were shipping products. Pricing was far greater than OSB SIPS....most in the $7-8$ per sq all in cost. I was pretty close to going with General Panel OSB SIPS (their pricing was great) when I decided to look at China. Now, MGO is still a bit like the wild wild west. There is a lot of junk MGO. It breaks down, gets brittle and can weep acid (fun right). I actually got several samples that where just terrible. I did find several Chinese manufactures that had verifiable manufacturing and ISO certifications. High quality MGO solved these issues. In fact, I ended up going with an MGO Sulfate board. Which is actually a little different than pure MGO. For over a year I had several samples tested at labs and on my own. I had samples submerged in water for months and tested for all sorts of nasty chemicals.

I do not have a general fear of products from China like most. My day job is running an IT firm. 99% of all IT gear is manufactured in China.
I had sample SIP panels shipped to me and had them tested by a lab here in the states. After selecting the final manufacturer, I had 3 40HQ containers full of 264 6.5" MGO panels shipped and trucked to my construction site. The process is not for the faint of heart. The vendor was great, but the 3rd party shipper was not. I lost about 3K when the shipper held my shipment as a ransom. And unloading a 53" tractor trailer on a rural muddy building site was not alot of fun.

But the panels where packaged perfectly. Palletized and wrapped in plastic, every single panel arrived in perfect shape.

Our manufacture was able to modify the SIP panels to our requirements. We had them put channels for electrical, spline connections, etc to meet our requirements. I also used a 3rd party inspector to verify at several stages with design goals.
Most people ask about cost. The panels + shipping worked out to $2.80 per sq foot. That was with a 5.5" 1lb EPS center. I had the panels made at 4'x9'. In some areas we saved even more (drywall cost and finishing labor was cut in 1/2). Some areas cost us more...the metal roof.

I could type for days on our process, but if anyone has any questions please ask. I'd be happy to list what worked and what did not.

Here are some pics of the process: https://photos.app.goo.gl/z9P2XZay7ih6E6Tc2

Some design decisions we made:
1. All floors are hung on the walls.
2. We used trusses and set panels on them for the roof. Primarily we did this to create attic rooms. Sure we could have done another floor, but attic trusses are surprising cheap. Doing so really eased alot of design decisions. It also allowed us to order all the same panels. When your panels come on a boat, running short would not be fun. This really saved our butts when we did the roofing.
3. We had the panels made with OSB splines. 2x6 for the top and bottom plates.


Matt

Sorry for the double post...I could not get the original thread to format....firefox hangs and Chrome looks good until I hit submit.

Hi!

I'm really interested in your project! your house looks awesome, how did you manage to pass the code with SIPs from China? and more important, what company?

Thank you!
Warm regards.

In PA they use the IRC 2009 code.

I am not an expert but AFAIK the IRC only deals with OSB faced sips. Which means they only way to pass code is
1. The manufacture has an ICC-ES report to meet code. Ours did NOT have ICC-ES.
2. You need an engineers stamp.

We got an engineer to review and stamp it. It was surprisingly cheap (a few hundred bucks). Now we purposely built our house design using typical SIP construction methods.
Our vendor also had all the 3rd party loading and performance reports. So all our engineer had to do was do a quick review to make sure it met or exceeded OSB sip designs and it was all set.
Our MGO panels had a higher axial load than any OSB panel and equal to them in other properties.

I suspect that if you treat an MGO panel the same way as an OSB panel. most engineers won't have trouble running the math. If your design used non-standard building methods it could be more trouble.
Our blueprints included all the normal language around SIP building guidelines and limits.

Our building inspector (who is different than the one that approves the plan) has been great. As long as we built according to the plan he treated it like any other OSB panel.

So that was the key! get the engineers stamp!

BTW, I also work in IT, I'm sure you always wondering why everyone keeps building with regular stick framing instead of other methods. Building with MGO SIPs means, 1/4 of the time, crew, cost and time, more R index, perfect insulation, fireproof, no termites and in the long run, savings in heat and cooling.

I sent you an email, it probably ended up in your spam folder but, feel free to send me an email or phone number of your engineer guy and the company you got the SIPs. It's kind of sad that everyone I've been contacted has no idea about SIPs, or wants to charge me 30% more for the total cost of the house.

I've been buying a lot of good stuff from China, specifically from Alibaba (more than 10ks of electronics) and it's been always delivered on time and with good quality, would be great if you can elaborate more about what exactly you bought and from who.

Once again, congratulation on your house!

While I certainly am proud of my mgo house and the work I did to make it happen....it certainly was not a 1/4 the speed or cost of traditional stick.

In my area sips in general are rare. So finding crews that would work on it was not easy which increased my cost and slowed us down. We had several companies come out bid and just say no....they just weren't comfortable not knowing how it would go. Stick is well established they frame in 2 days...no real difference with sip.

The mgo skins create a challenge for roofing which also drove up my roof cost.

Overall I'd say it cost 1.5x as much as stick. And twice as long. But still worth it.

I had to laugh when I saw the Amish guys on your roof after the "English" said no thanks. I had the same experience with an AAC block house in Pa. Masonry outfits wouldn't touch it. I built it with a adventurous moonlighting mason and myself and my Honduran friend as tenders. Is there is an industry that is more resistant to change than residential construction?

What’s the problem with roofing as it relates to MgO?

"Overall I'd say it cost 1.5x as much as stick. And twice as long. But still worth it." I'm curious why it would be worth it if it cost 50% more and took twice as long. Is there some upside you didn't mention?

The upside is the standard selling points of any SIP home. We haven't hit a heating season yet but all the normal marketing fluff over energy efficiency applies here. Our blower door test was .5 ACH50....super tight. Of course, thats just good SIP design and not specific to MGO SIPs.

I would say that MGO sips make it a bit easier to achieve tightness. Because the interior walls are finished like drywall there was no SIP tape to apply and just a bead of caulk at the floor.
In addition, the MGO will never rot unlike a OSB sip that can rot due to air leakage/bad installs. So if you screw up, at least your roof isn't rotting away.

It may be a bit misleading to say the cost was 1.5x. Most of that cost was in the standing seam roof. We had NOT planned on it, but the MGO will not take a roofing nail so we had to look at plan B.....furring strips and metal roofing. So while it blew up the budget, the standing seam roof is certainly a better roof than standard shingles. That cost could have been shaved down any number of ways

1. Using classic ribbed metal roofing (you know, the big 4x8 sheet types)...much cheaper than standing seam.
2. Using furring strips, layer of OSB, standard asphalt shingles....cheaper still.

Once we realized the standard (cheap) roofing method was not gonna work we just decided to go all standing seam.

I'd suspect the MGO SIP could be done cheaper than stick frame. If you are happy with simply painting the exterior with a good water driven paint like SW Luxon XP you would have a very cheap exterior. And some MGO makers are claiming a roll-on roof coating will last as long as asphalt.
Frankly, my wife would have none of it. We still used stone veener and JamesHardie siding simply for aesthetics.

Bottom line:
1. MGO SIPs can allow for a much cheaper / air tight building than you can get with stick frame or OSB sips if your ok living in a bland "solid concrete looking" bunker.
2. Buying my MGO panels from China was still much cheaper than every single OSB SIP panel quote I received....by alot. So for a SIP based house, I feel I'm ahead of the curve.
3. If you want a nice looking house, stick frame is still cheaper. Followed by MGO SIP and then OSB/Steel SIPS.
4. It was super fun and I like to be different. Which is great as long as no one gets hurt or you go bankrupt ;-) We had dozens of folks travel to see it under construction from all over the country.

If your not sold on SIP's in general, then there would be no reason to look at MGO SIPS.

Sorry for the lack of formatting above. I tried!

You'd think with as much traffic hits this forum (via google search) they could update the forum software a bit. Formatting is so hit or miss.

We used OSB splines because we did not want the house to fall down ;-) MGO has little to no screw/nail holding power. MGO claims strong "nail pull out" but that testing is done perpendicular to the nail...ie hanging a heavy object on the nail. When you screw or nail into MGO you can pull the nail straight out with your hand. Screws hold "ok" if you do not let it spin. As soon as the screw head hits the surface, the threads will just drill out the hole. You can't do it reliably. But with an OSB spline you can suck a screw right into it.

The panels are surprising non-fragile. In fact, I'd say only one panel go its corner mashed (dropped off the 2nd floor). MGO sheets by themselves are fragile (a little less fragile than saw fibercement board) but the surface is very tough. So on a panel its pretty tough. We moved the wall panels around using a material lift/pettibone. But two strong people can muscle them around. So we made stacks in the middle of the floor and then you just stood them up into the 2x6 channel on the subfloor by hand. Similar to standard OSB SIPS. The roof is where the weight of the panels are felt. We would lift them up on the lift and then muscle them into place. Not sure of the weight but I have about 20 panels left over, I'd have to get a scale under one of them.

We used standard top hung i-joist hangers. So you have a wall panel, 2x6 that sits inside the top channel of the panel. Then a top hung joist hanger and then the subfloor for the second floor goes directly over that. Here is the plan details: https://ibb.co/bJpF4y

From the outside the panels are split by the 3/4 OSB subfloor. Because we finished the exterior with normal siding, we didn't have to do anything special but I guess you can finish it with an exterior joint compound. RapidSet works great on these panels. Before we installed housewrap we would get huge amounts of water sucked into the house from that joint. When it rained that inspection just channeled the water right in. And its a pretty tight seem with foam adhesive...so you would really want to do some due diligence if that was not covered.

Thanks a lot for sharing your MGO SIPs, Looking forward to having photos of your finished SIPS BUILDINGS

Hello! I don't know why all of my previous messages I posted were deleted...

Any clue about the manufacturer you used for your SIPs? That information would be much appreciated, you can email me directly at ck99 at live dot com. I previously posted some links but looks like those were deleted as well.

Thanks
Warm regards.

thanks so much for your post it is very useful. please shoot me an email gtiramani at boxabl .com I would love your input on our MgO sips project. thanks

Brad,
I am also interesting in the SIP Manufacturer, and any data you are willing to share. I have been combing through alibaba etc but like everyone has a fear of ordering a product with unknown qualities. I'm happy to hear you were able to find and test such a product. We are looking to build in central florida and I am interested to use MGO SIPS.
Please email any info you can to info (at) mpm-properties dot com
Coincidentally I'm also in the IT field and work at one of the largest home builders in the US ( that DOESN'T use SIPS )

Well, for those who are still interested in this... I've been doing my homework very diligent, followed the newest IRC 2018, found some manufacturers in china blah blah...

I'm going to order some samples for testing (380USD for shipping!) now I just need to find someone who can perform chemical, fire and strength tests here in USA, if someone knows who can do that please drop me a line at ck99 at live dot com.

Cheers!