Structural Insulated Panels - SIPs

Walls of a house must be solid and warm, meaning they must be heat insulating. There are, of course, more requirements for a building material, but these two issues are most important. Houses with a good heat insulating walls not only keep warmth during winter time but also keep comfortable temperature during the summer heat. This allows shortening expenses on both air conditioning and heating. Moreover, there’s no need to winterize walls.

Concerning building materials, it is usually vise-verse. Solid constructional materials usually do not keep warmth and materials with a good heat insulating qualities often are not firm because they consist mostly of air. In order to keep warmth well, walls must be really thick. Much thicker then it is needed to fulfill strength requirements.

A thermal conductivity of traditional constructional materials can be enhanced by making them more porous or perforated (foamed concrete, perforated brick, foam glass etc.). While enhancing material’s thermal quality this process lowers its firmness. Walls built from such materials are not strong enough and do not keep warmth good enough.

The solution is found - composition of two materials. One must provide good thermal insulation and the other must take strength load. For example, a wall made of bricks or wood winterized on the outside with styrofoam or mineral wool.

Still, the best example of combining two materials in building a house is framing. According to this technology, you first build a frame wich gives your building shape and structure support and then you fill in this frame with wall panels. For framing material, usually, you can choose wood or structural steel. For wall panels, it is better to choose good heat insulating and waterproof material.