Post And Beam Design: Structural Insulated Panels

Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) for post and beam design are foam-core panels that can either stand alone in place of stick-frame construction, or can be mounted to the exterior of a timber frame to provide a continuous wrapping of insulation.

Think of an ice cream sandwich.

The inner and outer surfaces (the chocolate wafer) of this sandwich are oriented-strand board, commonly known as OSB.

The vanilla ice cream part is composed of rigid foam insulation, commonly either EPS (expanded polystyrene) or urethane foam.

Any common interior or exterior finish for post and beam design can be applied, such as clapboard, gypsum board, stucco, and so forth.

Another common term you will hear is stress skin panels, also known as curtain wall panels.

These panels are non-structural, a little less expensive than SIPs, and can be used with timber framing, although most timber framers just go with the more rigid SIPs, because cabinets and other components can be readily fastened to SIPs, but not to the non-structural panels.

Doug Anderson of Winter Panel Corporation in Vermont tells me that the stress skin panels are often chosen as a roofing panel, as they will span up to four feet in an area with a 40 PSF (pounds per square foot) snow load.

With greater snow loads or greater spans, SIPs are used. Stress skin panels commonly have gypsum board on the interior instead of OSB.

Prior to the advent of SIPs for post and beam design and stress skin panels over the past twenty years, timber framers would stud out the spaces between posts and insulate with fiberglass, a labor intensive, time-consuming process which was not nearly as good as an insulation barrier.

Learn more from Rockport Post and Beam.

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