800-356-2396 info@ecopanelsoftn.com
What is a SIP panel?
A SIP panel, or Structural Insulated Panel, is a manufactured building component that replaces conventional stud framed walls on the exterior of homes, commercial and industrial buildings. Eco-Panels of Tennessee SIPs offer:

  • Incredible energy efficiency, resulting in lower energy bills for life.
  • Superior strength, keeping its occupants safe.
  • Is a manufactured building component, making on-site construction much faster.
  • Organic based polyurethane foam with no VOCs, etc,. which is better for you and the environment.

Video Transcript: What is a SIP panel?

Hi. I’m Rob Clutter with Eco-Panels of Tennessee, here at our manufacturing plant in Hermitage Springs, Tennessee.

I want to talk a little bit today about, “What is a SIP panel?” 

SIP panel stands for S.I.P. which is Structural Insulated Panel.

So technically when you say SIP panel you’re saying structural insulated panel panel, but that’s the common term that most people use.

So a SIP panel is basically, and I’ll kind of go through the different parts, but it is a form of building a structure, a home or a commercial building, a wall structure, that is different than conventional stick framing or 2×4 or 2×6 framing. And here’s how it’s different. 

So you know with a regular stud wall, inside this the wall would be a a stud or a support member normally every 16 inches. In a SIP panel wall we’re replacing those studs with a solid panel that’s pre-made at our plant here.

This panel consists of a structural inside covering and a structural outside covering. We’ll talk about the outside in just a little bit. The inside covering as you see here is an oriented strand board or what’s known as OSB. Now this can be also different things. We can use plywood here and some other materials that we’d love to talk to you more about.

This forms the inside of the wall. The center of the wall is a solid foam core. This foam that we’re using is a closed cell polyurethane foam. This foam is rated at R-26, or this wall is rated R-26, for this four and a half inch thick panel. 

Question I get a lot is, “Well are there studs in there?” No there’s not studs in there. This is actually the inside skin, the outside skin, and a solid foam core.

This wall structure, because it is made all in one piece, is actually two to three times stronger in stress tests then a regular stud frame wall. You have a lot less moving parts and pieces here. A lot less chances for there to be air leaks and breakdowns. So it does form a stronger wall. 

The big deal is it’s much more energy efficient. We don’t have any kind of thermal breaks in here where heat can transfer to the outside. So not only is the R-value larger than a conventional framed wall, but in addition to that we’re sealing up all the cracks and spaces where air can escape from your home. Air that you’re paying to heat and cool. 

Now let’s step around to the outside of the panel and we’ll talk about that a little bit as well.

So here we are on the outside of the panel. And you can see that the outside of this particular panel is sheathed with this green board. This green board is a product made by

Huber Lumber and it’s called the ZIP System, Z.I.P. You can look that up on internet as well. 

What we really like about this particular product is the outside of this is waterproof, and because it’s made that way the outside edges, the seams, would be sealed with a special tape. And you do not have to use a Tyvek or a house wrap on your house. So it’s kind of an all-in-one type sheathing that you can use which saves you time and saves you money.

You can see here that we have an electric box, if you look for one of our other videos we’ll talk about electrical. This is obviously like a porch light i guess since we’re outside currently.

We do have several options of what we can put on here. The ZIP is our standard sheathing, but we can use regular OSB out here, we can use one of the cool things that we can use is an LP Smart Side. So if you like the board and batten look on your home we can actually go ahead and put the siding on the outside of the panel when we make it. Which again saves you a lot of time and could save you a lot of money on your home.

If you’d like to find out more about our panels and all the options and different things we would love to talk to you.

Shoot us an email, the email address is: info@ecopanelsoftn.com

We hope that helped!

Have more questions?

Visit Our FAQs
Loading...