FAQs

SIPs stand for Structural Insulated Panels. Check out our SIP page to find out more.

Performance, panels, prefabrication. These features and benefits are what makes a SIPs home different to a house made from lots of little pieces of anything.  SIPs homes are:

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Airtight - providing superior interior comfort, making quiet energy efficient homes 

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Strong - with better earthquake and weather resilience

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Prefabricated - meaning less waste, greater accuracy, and faster build speeds

You can, and many of our clients do.

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Once you start thinking about living more lightly on the land, reducing your energy footprint (use and generation) often follows.

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A SIPs home can go pretty much anywhere you can.

We are based on the North Shore in Auckland. We design and build homes all over New Zealand.

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Our location

Council approvals depend entirely on what you want to build.  Our homes have plumbing, wiring and services in them, and so need Consent, but some of our smaller buildings don’t.

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Whatever you are building, our structures are engineered and designed in detail to exceed Council requirements.

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Work that doesn't require building consent

For our pre-designed buildings the ‘Base structure’ elements are known (and updated every 6 months).  These will have added the costs for materials finishes and cladding selections you make.  Then we look at performance upgrades - things like window frames, glazing choices,  underfloor heating, ventilation systems right up to Passive House upgrades. 

Further adding to this mix, we must consider where these buildings are going. Is your site flat or sloping, accessible or not, on or off-grid?  Often there is no such thing as a ‘cheap site’. But difficult we can do!

Of course! 

We live in these buildings and ‘walk the talk’ of High Performance living.  We also have lots of proud clients - happy to show folks around their building sites and in some cases finished homes.  Contact us to see what can be arranged near to you.

Off-Site-Manufacturing does what it ‘says on the box’.  It is a major change to the way we make (buildings), and heralded globally as a way to reduce waste, improve quality, increase supply and improve skills in house building.

Most of us would not build a car from scratch in the driveway.  OSM fabricates your most important possession in a controlled environment off-site - much like a car.  Not all sites or budgets are suited to total prefabrication - so often a hybrid of on and off-site are best.