I'm in the final design stages of my fictitious workshop (plans to break ground in spring), and I have just discovered Structural Insulated Panels.
Can the experienced among us give me some tips/tricks/things-to-keep-in-mind?
SIPs seem mind-blowing awesome for construction.
No direct experience, but the only places I've seen built with them were all post and beam construction and the SIPs were basically curtain walls. Can they be used as load bearing walls without the posts and beams?
Yes, they can, at a residential scale. If you're building a 25x40 shop, probably not. But if you're building a 2-3 car garage, yes, they should work. Look up manufacturers on teh interwebz and see what they say.
SIPs are solid and have been widely used in Europe for many years. They have been available stateside for just as long but have never caught on as well. They really aren't any cheaper than conventional stick building, but they are faster and tighter. How big a structure are you considering?
As an architect, this is relevant to my interests. Check out the pdf linked below - the first half is definitions and such but the latter portion has some generic details to help you out. It's really not radically different than typical stick built construction.
http://www.sips.org/downloads/19presciptive-method-for-sip-wall-systems.pdf
My next door neighbor built a garage with SIPs a few years ago. It went together very fast; they brought in all the sections on a semi truck and set them up with a crane. He's happy with it - the building is very well insulated, plus it's very quiet. I think he did have to look around for a while to find a contractor who was experienced with SIP construction.
His garage has a second story for his wife's art studio; they used SIPs for the walls and roof, while the floor for the second story is truss joists. There is a big structural steel ridge beam that runs the width of the garage, and the SIP roof sections rest on it so the entire second story is completely open - no support beams or cross ties or any of that.
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