Foam Board or OSB

[mreynolds]

I am weighing 2 exterior wall options for my house. It seems that the standard framing in this area of PA is to sheath a house in 7/16 OSB. I also realize that in some areas of the country, people don't sheath their entire house this way, they use cross bracing and cover it in rigid foam insulation. If I chose to go with metal cross bracing at the corners and through the mid spans as described here http://www.buildingscience.com/housesthatwork/advancedframing/default.htm. What kind of problems could I get into? This is really tempting because 1. 7/16 OSB is nearly 18.00 a sheet. 2. Owens Corning Formular 1 inch is 10.99 a sheet and to boot it will give me an r-value of 5. By the time I add that in with r-19 to r21 cavity insulation(2x6 walls), I get a pretty tight house. What are some thoughts? :roll:

[Rich]

If the cross bracing gives you what you need for shear strength I'd go for it. Installation of the cross bracing is what will determine it I think. Follow the recommendations and you should be just fine.

[mreynolds]

Rich,
I had a chance to go to a home show this weekend and see some builder set ups in this area that actually used Tuff-R and products like it. The metal T bracing was pretty cool, they had a home set up so you could see all the framing details. I did some pricing and it seems like the 1/2 inch foam materials will probably be the most cost effective. They have an r-vale of 3 and cost 7.99! Compared with OSB at 17.00, that is a huge! The other thing I wanted to share is I found a calculator at DOWs website, http://dowbp-us-consumer.buildscape.com/tools/savings/esc/, this thing rocks. Now of course it uses only their products, but it makes a great cost benefit calculator when trying to price out all these options. :wink: