As a contractor who's built energy efficient and traditionally made homes, along with my expertise in siding and roofing, I've come up with solutions to build quicker, more durable, and cost effective methods.
Come along with me as I share some insights into the possible future of building solutions.
First you have to decide what you are building. Is it a single family home or a multi unit apartment block?
Let's suppose you are a property investor who wants to build multi-family units, whether it is 4 or 100 plus units the methods can be the same. Start with prefabricated wall panel systems. Whether you get a shop that has a framing machine, or hire a framing crew that fabricates on site, on the ground, doing a wall panel system is key to gaining efficiency in building and saving on time and labor.
Traditionally wall panel systems frame the studs and the sheathing in squares. Wall panel systems are typically used on multi family apartment blocks ranging from 70-150 Units. It is much quicker than stick framing and allows framing crews to finish in historically fast timelines compared to traditional stick framing.
Where my proposal comes in differently is: ADD THE SIDING WHILE FRAMING THE WALL PANELS.
However this would not work with any siding material. And there any many considerations to account for, which we'll go over in this blog.
To make sure adding siding to a wall panel systems works (while is it assembled on ground or in a shop) we must ditch the traditional, most common siding system. Planks. And switch to a vertical board and batton.
Here's where the potential for more savings comes into play. If an engineer and local builder inspector would pass this change, you can ditch the OSB sheathing altogether and use an LP expert finish panel as structural sheathing. This is a fully painted, fully finished siding panel. The sheathing would need to be structurally fastened with spiral shank nails every 6 inches per stud, and 3 inches on the perimeter of the sheathing.
If your local building code prohibits you from trying this method, you can also install the LP expert finish panel over OSB sheathing and still saving on time and money.
What are the saving? on a 150 unit apartment block, $250,000 in labor, and equipment rentals. Along with 40 out of 50 labor days for installing siding. As the battens would still need to be installed, although to save on time and material less battons can be used.
Bringing typical 150 labor day job of building an apartment block to 110. days. This doesn't include any gains made from finishing a project early and the potential extra rent earned.
This is one way, of potential saving in modular energy efficient building methods, and does not cover the potential savings from interior building methods. Stay tuned for more blogs in regard to savings in building methods and the future of affordable housing in Canada. If this you are a developer and interested in partnering for a build, please reach out to through our information found on this website. Traverse Siding would love to help you develop your energy efficient building(s).
