Comments on: SIPs Delayed Another Week & Lessons Learned

By: SIPs and Sips | 100K House Blog

SIPs and Sips | 100K House Blog — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:37:45 +0000

[...] of you know about our oft-delayed SIPs Week which will finally be starting on Tuesday, Nov. 4th. This will be a training event for contractors, [...]

By: Grant

Grant — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:24:41 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I plan on Owner-Building, and such insights will hopefully help me plan better to avoid delays. Having never done this before myself, your experiences are being added to a growing checklist for my project management controls.

By: chad

chad — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:17:55 +0000

Kevin – I’m confident we have the right team to build on site with SIPs in less time and cost than any prefab manufacturer in the country. Maybe not this time around, but we will be faster the second time around.

Also, there are about three prefab projects that started well before us in surrounding neighborhoods, and from my observations, I am pretty sure we will finish our construction ahead of theirs as is.

We have been fortunate with inspections so far and I don’t think we have actually had a city caused delay yet. The lull in construction projects and Nutter (our new kick-ass mayor) expecting better service are in our favor in this area.

By: chad

chad — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:13:11 +0000

Thanks for the link Rob. To clarify, I am not expecting everything to go smoothly or really all that disappointing with our delays. We expected delays and planned for them by padding our construction schedule.

We are simply documenting our lessons for next time around just like everything else we have documented on the blog. Before we embark on the next project, these posts will be invaluable to review and set measures in place to improve upon the entire process the second time around.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:45:11 +0000

Chad, first off what you are trying to do here isn’t exacty charted waters, so a few bumps in the road had to be expected. And I commend you and your team for the product that you have produced so far. In a little less than three months we will have evidence of all of your successes. The end is near, so to speak (for the first two houses at least).

Regarding the foundation details, they aren’t exactly easy, but I agree they could have been figured out before hand. The best resource that I know of for residential construction details is “The Builders Guide to…” series by Joseph Lstiburek. Found here

http://www.buildingsciencepress.com/store/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=2

The information in these books is not typical builder details. I currently have and have used the 2000 edition of Cold Climates, which is the guide that pertains to PA, though we could be considersed Mixed humid as well. In general Lstiburek’s books are very good, though I have not read all of them.

By: Kevin D

Kevin D — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:38:34 +0000

Welcome to SiteBuildingintheRealWorld.com!

All this Murphy’s Law stuff tends to nudge us toward modular builders who deal with State for the inspections, and don’t really have subcontractors per se, and way fewer permits. As the State becomes familiar with their product, inspections are minimized.

The developer has just one point of contact, so the finger pointing is minimized.

Now, is it possible for one of these modular builders to assemble a house from SIP panels in a non-factory-like setting? Yes.