Among the many breakthroughs in building materials and home construction, structural insulated panels (SIPs) are one of the best. SIPs are rigid foam sandwiched between factory-bonded oriented strand ...

A net-zero energy home or building is one that generates as much power on-site as it consumes over the course of a year. To achieve this, architects specify renewable energy sources such as rooftop ...

As an architect, I’ve been using structural insulated panels (SIPs) since 1992, when they were relatively new. Since then, I’ve designed several hundred residential and commercial projects using SIPs.

The panels are then cut to size, timber edge pieces added and any openings formed. The same type of structural insulated panel is used for building the external walls, any internal loadbearing walls ...