Timeline breakthrough: SIPs

Once people understand that Sam and I are serious bout this and are actually going to build and live in a Tiny House, the next question is usually about our timeline, and the fact that it's remarkably short. We want to go all the way from planning to move-in day in about 5 months. Most people think that's crazy, and I have to admit that up until this week I was a little bit in agreement with them- especially when you consider the fact that we want to get most of our actual build done in just about one month, and included in our 5 month timeline is a 2 week international vacation. Realistically, I had no idea how we were going to make this happen, and so I was hoping to just get the exterior watertight before potentially heading off to Cambodia for two years- any thing after that would be icing on the cake. But this week I stumbled across two blogs written by individuals who built their tiny houses using a building method called SIP paneling, and suddenly our timeline became a lot more reasonable.

SIPs, or Structural Insulated Panels are best described as large plywood-insulation sandwiches (technically SIPs use oriented strand board- OSB- rather than plywood, but the idea is the same) which take the place of traditional dimensional lumber framing in a build. You order the SIP panels in exactly the dimensions you want from the SIP manufacturer, and they come to you ready to assemble like some giant ginger-bread house kit. Building the tiny house with these panels will take framing, sheathing and insulating the walls and roof from a weeks-long job (at best) and turn it into something that can be done in a weekend!

The best part of this is that using SIPs will not only save us time, but will also result in a better finished product than we could produce on our own. When amateurs like Sam and I build using SIPs, it's practically guaranteed that the final house will be more square, tight and structurally sound than it would have been if we built using traditional stick framing methods, and on top of that it will be better insulated because the SIPs are a class II vapor barrier, and thermal bridging is minimized by avoiding the use of studs and rafters. 

Sam and I are over the moon in love with this building method, and are looking into ways that we can get our very own Tiny SIP House. Stay tuned for more updates on that process. In the mean time, if you're interested in hearing from other people who have built Tiny Houses using SIPs, check out these two blogs: Tiny SIP House by Art Cormier and Long Story Short House by Joe Coover.