SIP panels - strong and lightweight wall material

The market of building materials is often replenished with some novelties. The fashion to build houses from CIP panels came to us quite recently. It is very interesting both in terms of its design and performance characteristics of the material.

Panel construction

The SIP panel consists of two Oriented Strand Board and a rigid expanded polystyrene foam between them. OSP, in fact - a more modern, environmentally friendly analogue chipboard. The difference between these two materials is that the OSB is made from fine chips, which is glued together by resin under high pressure, and not from industrial waste, such as chipboard. Unlike the latter, the Oriented Strand Board (in translation - a plate with oriented wood chips) contains no harmful formaldehyde than a conventional wooden massif.

Despite its light weight and apparent brittleness, the CIP panel is a very durable material capable of withstanding enormous loads. If you put this plate vertically, you can put a weight of up to 10 tons per 1 m2 of the panel from above. Imagine a five-story building, where the first floor is made of such panels, and the rest of the brick is one and a half meters tall. That's about the weight they can withstand.

In the horizontal position, the CIP panels are also strong enough. Weight, which they can hold without deflection - two to three tons. However, in this respect, their characteristics are not particularly distinguished. In addition to strength, they have remarkable thermal insulation properties and a high level of noise absorption. In addition, the OSB is not afraid of moisture and mechanical damage.

Application

Construction of houses from SIP panels assumes, first of all, the use of this material for the construction of external and internal walls. Sometimes they are used as slabs of zero and attic floors, as well as roof finishing. You can not make them floor-to-ceiling. The fact is that these panels very well miss direct shock noises (roughly like a drum). For zero and interfloor overlapping, they are also used quite rarely. To the panel does not bend, it is made narrower than the wall, and put on beams. Therefore, more often it is more convenient to arrange conventional overlapping.

Convenience, for example, of zero overlap from the CIP panel can only be that you do not need to arrange a rough floor. Laminate or other finishes are placed directly on the OSB plate. For walls, this material is an ideal option. The house can be assembled for 2 - 3 weeks by the forces of only two people. The foundation is packed with a bundling beam, then corner panels are installed with level control. Then they put all the rest. They are fixed with regular self-tapping screws. All joints and crevices are fixed with mounting foam. Cut slabs can jigsaw, and polystyrene - a thin wire, parallel to the cuts on the OSB. From the inside, walls are usually finished with plasterboard without the use of a guide profile, and then pasted with textural wallpaper.

Many have already built houses, using for the walls of CIP panels. Reviews about them are often positive. For example, even in places where the air temperature reaches -50 g in winter. Celsius, in the buildings of this material the heat is very well preserved. In addition, such panels are easy and do not require the erection of a powerful foundation under the house.