Hi my name is Mandy Knebel and I live in Cambridge (The town of trees) in NewZealand.
I am married and we have two adult children, 2 dogs and 3 chooks.
One of my passions in life are dogs and that is why I love my work so much because I am a dog groomer. Another passion is architecture and house design in particular energy efficient warm healthy homes.
We opted to use FPS, Frame Protection Systems to wrap the house, we chose this system as its watertight and breathable. Frame Protection System, FPS® Weathertight®™ system is a comprehensive roof and wall underlay system for timber and steel frame, panel and prefab building elements, providing both interim and permanent weather protection plus moisture control within the wall or roof structure. FPS® Weathertight™ is certified to allow internal work to proceed to completion before the roof and wall cladding are installed. You can purchase the products from ITM and possible other similar companies. We dealt directly with FPS as we want to make the house airtight and they were really keen to give us the training needed so we apply the products correctly. (I believe FPS is Passive House certified.) FPS is weathertight and UV guaranteed for 3 months. So we have to have the house clad within the 3 month window but at least it is weathertight to work on! This pic below, the roof is...
Sips (Structural insulated panels) and why we chose to build with them! So this is what my blog is about today. What is Sips you may ask.... well it is panels made of rigid insulation between structural facings. Sips can be used for walls floor and roof and depending on what the facings are made of they can be used as the interior finish so you can save on interior cladding! But the big part is the air tightness ability is really good and the R value is superb(R value is a rating which measures how well insulation can resist heat flow) . That is two of the many reasons we picked Sips. This is a picture of Sips that I got of the website so you can get the idea.. Sips is also a very strong structure and has a good spanning ability and has its own bracing, it has 2 to 6 x better insulation than standard build code stick and fluff (timber frame and batts) and yes Sips is a bit more expensive and the reason is because the cheapest panel you can get from Sips get is far more super...
Good morning to my wee group of blog followers... I don't think I have gone into why we chose MAXRaft for our foundation... I chose it because as far as I am aware it is the only fully insulated thermally brocken slab design available in NZ. It has a super high R value (4 to 4.5 R value) and it will save us shed loads in heating bills. It is not the cheapest way to do your concrete floor slab but for the extra cost (aprox 10% more) in my view its a no brainer. I did not want heat escaping out of my floor in my warm healthy energy efficient home so it was an obviouse choice. The way I look at it... compare it to yourself in winter, would you wear warm thermals and a jacket then go out in bare feet or jandals, no no no well I would not, I would be putting my wooley socks and boots on, so why would you insulate and watertight your walls and roof and not fully insulate your floor! The pic below is a drone shot (thanks Gary) of the site with the freshly delivered MAXRaft in...
Hi my name is Mandy Knebel and I live in Cambridge (The town of trees) in NewZealand.
ReplyDeleteI am married and we have two adult children, 2 dogs and 3 chooks.
One of my passions in life are dogs and that is why I love my work so much because I am a dog groomer.
Another passion is architecture and house design in particular energy efficient warm healthy homes.