Obviously I am a newbie but first would like to let known my appreciation to this forum. There is a lot of great information and positive participants. I just wish i did research prior to building. I am not the only one with problems i spoke to a few others and we are all at a loss. As in many posts all MGO is not created equal. This is very true to my experience with a 40x60ft shop and a 1665sq/ft house. Located northern Alberta. The nightmare! inferior MGO high Calcium Chloride base. moisture absorption at a high rate Structural missing or lacking engineer rubber stamped. non certified MGO and wall system. sold as 65min fire rated but no certification 75% of my MGO absorbs allot of moisture. causing corrosion of the screws supplied and installed by the Alberta manufacture. Mold development issues and future structural spline rot. there is over 400ft of cracks mostly south walls, some measuring 2.65mm wide, due to the sun heating the walls to over 74C even on clear sunny January day with ambient of -19C thats a 93C diferential. in the matter of 2 hours. They are exposed MGO board and batten finnish, as per the manufacture, installed strips to cover the seams and painted with benjamin moore aura paint. Fasteners above grade installed and supplied are all gold deck screws, and are now corroding due to the moisture levels and calcium chloride base. 9 independent Engineers investigated but only 2 would take on the final reports. But verbally they all came to the same conclusion, your screwed. Due to no certification and the MGO failing 1/3 the support required for snow load and 0 no lateral racking support besides the foundation and roof. I contacted the manufacture his proposed resolution is just over 4000.00 and supply calking for cracks with a catch of sinning a extortion letter voiding walking away from any and all warranty. We did not agree obviously. Upon contact with Alberta Municipal Affairs Building safety code department. Verbally engineer from there department agreed with the other engineer that the buildings should not passed application step. But at the time of application was prior to there new rules that requires a variance now. so i am prior by 8 months so tough luck for me and others basically. just because a crooked engineer stamped it all is good for construction and will last 50 years or 10, that's fine if it were a toaster. municipal affairs wants us to contact APEGA the governing body for engineers in Alberta and they will step on the original engineering. But all this does is reduce this from happening to others and nothing for existing houses there is one i know with a stop work order at electrical wiring stage by the local inspector over a year ago. now his mandatory new home warranty has canceled due to lack of confidence of the product. now he has 2 mortgages. A house in construction that he legally cant Finnish. My local building development department told me not to worry about it because i now have my occupancy permit. So all is good just stay out side during a windy day or if there is snow on the roof, and wear a respirator for future mold development. Where do we go from here we cannot afford legal one individual is over 50,000.00 and getting legal runaround till he cannot afford it anymore, we have invested every thing into dream homes that are failing around us.

a Link to some pictures to big to upload https://photos.app.goo.gl/UDxbYP9jw5e2Hc6C9

Albertamike; sorry for your experience , it gives a black eye to the industry

Posted By cmkavala on 27 Jan 2019 11:41 PM
Albertamike;
sorry for your experience , it gives a black eye to the industry

it's basically what I have been preaching about for the last 7 years .
My MGo experience as been about, moisture absorption, corrosion and brittleness of the skins.
unfortunately the photos show a catastrophic failure

I forgot to mention that the pictures of the cracks are after 6 months and growing every sunny day as the sun sets. I received my occupancy permit October 2018 but did not argue due to living in a holiday trailer for a year was enough. the screw pictures are from the interior of the garage never seen rain and pulled 3 months after install.

not all MGO sips are created equally there is some good products and manufactures standing behind there work due to there own testing prior to building with and fully tested certified board. one company in Alberta is http://rccorp.com/ my dad built with them 3 or 4 years ago and a great experience with the only CCMC certified mgo sip in Canada. I find out now a little to late.

Yeah that's why you have to be very brave or crazy to use SIPs for wall structure. See same problems with OSB SIPs too but hardly any with Steel SIPs. Using non US and non tested or approved SIPs is big part of problem too. Sometimes you get what you pay for and dealing with building structural failure will be crazy expensive. Very sorry to hear of your sad saga...

The walls were definitely not cheap $160,000.00 siting on site not standing or footings just panels, the company advertised certification and when asked they confirmed it but cannot provide any thing now. I just want others to be extremely cautious and get proof prior to payment. CYA

Albertamike, Do you have a set of shop drawings that you could share with us? If we could get a look at them we may be able to make some recommendations that could help. I assume that the drawings will show any structural elements that have been incorporated into the SIP's. As Chris Kavala stated, It is always sad to here that anybody has had a bad experience with SIP's in general. It gives the industry a bad name. Those of us that have been in the business for the last 30-40 years have seen and heard it all at one time or another.

Thanks in advance for any help. the shop drawings, here is a link to the drawings they are to big to upload. so put on my google drive. The worst problem is the MGO that was used. The south walls are the worst failing after a sunny day when the sun sets they crack more. tonight another 8 ft. this is not gradual they sound like hitting with a hammer and 4 ft crack appears. soon racking lateral load support will be gone! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R87BO1QKbRYbEGVs42FDNSYbbLlmAbUj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uOdjy3kEjDFXlw7IlH3iwpEtCVc0iMRU/view?usp=sharing

Thats one of those things that I can't unsee now. Why in the world would any one put MGo below grade where it can absorb moisture , it's not allowed in wet shower areas on the interior, let alone were it can absorb freeze -thaw on the exterior. the problem is all the way to the footing , this should be condemned

Resent update from a good engineer. His evaluation is that the MGO has to come off down to the footing. add studs to for proper roof point loads. add lots of lumber to the basement due to a PWF system now. This is bad due to the house is finished up and down. His evaluation is Start over and build it properly. now the fight starts with insurances because it has not failed enough for them to consider this. the government is handing it around passing the buck because there is over 200 built this way and they are avoiding the responsibility. so now i live in a house adsorbing moisture beyond limits hrv over-sized and dehumidifier running constantly. but heating cost going up as cold front here -22F, -30C at night.

Posted By Albertamike on 11 Feb 2019 08:33 PM
Resent update from a good engineer. His evaluation is that the MGO has to come off down to the footing. add studs to for proper roof point loads. add lots of lumber to the basement due to a PWF system now. This is bad due to the house is finished up and down. His evaluation is Start over and build it properly. now the fight starts with insurances because it has not failed enough for them to consider this. the government is handing it around passing the buck because there is over 200 built this way and they are avoiding the responsibility. so now i live in a house adsorbing moisture beyond limits hrv over-sized and dehumidifier running constantly. but heating cost going up as cold front here -22F, -30C at night.

you should beg the building official to condemn your house and then make a claim on your homeowners insurance for a total loss

I would seriously be concerned about total collapse while I was in it
EPS and splines are the only thing holding it up

Albertamike, Based on what I am seeing, you have double 2x8 treated wood vertical splines at 4' on center in all the panels. You have a section of wall at the door openings that is 2x6's. Is that correct? There is also a horizontal double 2x spline at the center. Is that correct? There are some options for moving forward that I can recommend based on the shop drawings you have provided and how the panels are assembled. I would prefer to have a conversation on the phone if that would work for you. I have a lot of additional questions that would be easier to address on the phone. Feel free to contact me. I am on the east coast. Kevin Casey 716 880-5620

contacted local building officials they are coming out for a re-inspection next week will see.

Albertamike, Thanks for calling yesterday and providing the documents that I requested. As I mentioned on the phone, I will start to get into this with some of the people I know in the industry and see what I can dig up. I will keep you updated when I receive anything that could be helpful. In the mean time I would like to open this discussion up to anyone that has had any experience with MgO or MgO SIP's that they want to share, good or bad, so that we have something to compare our findings with. Thanks, Have A Great Day!. Kevin Casey

Thank you for your help so far Kevin i have lots to think about now.
My wife noticed that we are using double the amount of wood pellets compared to last year with the same temperature, my thoughts is that the mgo moisture adsorption is wicking into the EPS Type 1 0.9pcf. if so this will reduce the R value considerably or its just me overthinking.

Mike, Attached is a document detailing the effects of moisture on EPS in a below grade application. I realize that this would only apply to a portion of your structure, but I think it will address your concern. I agree with you, there may be a minor loss of R-value but if it is allowed to dry out it will return to within 5% of the stated R-Value. https://www.epsindustry.org/sites/default/files/Below_Grade_101_33116.pdf What you may also want to possible consider is that the fracturing of the MgO board and the fact that it is securely laminated to the EPS could maybe cause a fracture in the EPS core. Not that you need anymore bad news. I would suggest that you take a very thin strip of plastic or metal and see how much force you have to exert on it to slide it into one of the fractures. I think this my answer this question. Let me know how you make out.

Yikes, I feel for your position. We completed an MGO SIP house over a year ago but have been very happy. We did get some cracks at the splines, but we were warned about that as the splines were just taped and mudded. I'm surprised the heat and moisture caused such cracking...it seems much more of a manufacturing defect then anything else.

I wonder if you can just frame a 2x6 wall on the interior of the house. You will lose some floor space but if they sit under floor joise of each floor up to the roof it should provide all the loading you need.