Insulated Studs? This is a BIG Innovation in Framing!

For the last 100 years or so, when you go to build a house in North America, you call the lumber yard and they leave you a bunch of sticks like

this

, although the problem with traditional frames is everywhere you have a stud . You have a huge inefficiency on your wall. You have a huge thermal bridge in your wall. In today's build show, I'll show you a new type of frame that you've never seen before. Today's video is sponsored by T Stud. we're going okay, so let's first look at the traditional 2x6 lumber standard right here, what's the problem with that?

I have built many houses with two-by-six wood, very strong, but the problem is that about 25% of our house ends up being wood. and wood isn't particularly good at insulating, you'd never build your refrigerator out of wood, would you? This is approximately our six point eight, whereas the cavity between our 16 inch uprights we'll put, say, our nineteen bat there, so compared to the center,

this

upright is very, very inefficient. Now in today's video, we're about to take a tour of this house that has been framed with this new product that I've never seen before. It's called a T-stud and this is what it looks like in the bare version what you're basically looking at is a truss that's 2 by 3 on both sides and it's connected structurally with dowels and then what they make is in the factory that actually They use closed cell spray foam. in the middle so remember that 2 by 6 that was an AR six point eight this is not our twenty can you imagine this is as good as that cavity without our bat 19 so now we don't need outside insulation that big blanket that I talked about put up all those houses because the

studs

themselves don't conduct heat through our 20s, that's great, without further ado, let's go out to the house and show you what it looks like in an entire house framed with the T. stud, okay , let's start here guys, this is a simple part of the house, we're in the extra room above the garage and I think this will give you the basics of what the T-stud is all about, so first of all, run. these at 24 inches at the center marks and you can see this is the T stud, it's actually five and a half inches deep, so it's the same depth as a standard two by six and then here on the front, although this is where it differs. we actually have two and a half inches wide at the flange, so in effect it's two by three with another two by three and then those rods and you can see here that they arrive at the job site on a platform already with foam in the center , but if you look at this from a wide angle, you can see what I really like about the system: we have a single bottom plate here, you have stiles and 24-inch centers and then you also have a single top plate here with the T-stud as well, because that T stud is a truss, you have a lot more strength and we'll talk to the inventor in a minute and he'll tell us the details, but I love it if you look at this exterior wall right here.

Basically you have that foam that's in the center along the entire length of the wall and that's how you can put them on an AR 20, so now when we put our 19 bats on, let's say on this 2 by 6, you actually have more value of isolation. in your

studs

than in your cavity, which is totally different now that the electricians are just starting in this house and there are a couple of interesting things as well when it comes to the electrical, the electricians are actually going to poke around here because there are a vacuum and you can do that with a screwdriver and then always what you're going to do is stab your wire through no drilling necessary.

Now in this case we have a frame underneath us, so they hold on with these screws right here because we have those two and a half inches. wide bottom plate you can't just use a standard 16 cent nail, you actually need at least a one inch pin Edmund, so you'll see that they have staggered these screws and screwed them in now in other parts of the house where they are on a level concrete slab, they're going to have a Jay bolt that's going to come up in the center of this foam here and then they're going to have a big, wide plate that's going to go on top of that so that Jay bolt is going to transfer its holding power to this bottom part or excuse me guy of top and bottom wire, so to speak, on this T-stud and then use the walls, come together, it looks like the drafters framed this wall here separate from this wall that they put a strap on.

You'll see that in typical homes with standard top plate frame or single top plate with advanced frame and that's what they've done here, they put a strap there, they also did it in this corner here where they've tied the corner. together and frame this with what we call a California corner, so this lumber here is just going to hold the drywall and they've done a good job of retaining it a little bit inside the corner so the insulation can go all the way. Back, man, what a wild and totally different system than what I'm used to seeing.

Well, this is also something interesting. They have used it for headers. Let's look at this one first, so it looks like an eight foot patio door. here it's no bigger than that, it's actually a nine foot patio door. Now we're on a gable here, so we don't have much loading, but look what they used, they used T-studs for the headers. Also, in effect you have an

insulated

header, they've put this single horizontal top plate all the way down and then they have three T-bolts that act as a header, same thing with these windows here if you look at these The windows here have a single bolt.

T shaped in the center which again is

insulated

, it's 20 bolts and then they basically just pack the cavity. The editors said it was actually easier to do it this way than to put a bunch of little cripples in there, so again you have that continuous top plate all the way through there and then here you have your kingpin and your jackpin and those two from there they're also helping with the loading and then these two the studs here are basically drywall nailers, they just hold it up, but again, since it's an AR 20, they provide insulation, so now that you have a structural head insulated, you can basically eliminate all the normal wood that you could use it for headers so that your LS LS your levels all those things that we might have to build in the field and a sandwich type capacity with some insulation in between you can eliminate that and you do with the T heel, pretty good, it wasn't what a unique system, simple but something I'd never seen before, pretty wild.

Let's go find Jesse the Builder and see what he thinks about these. Hey guys, I'm here with the Builder of this house. Jesse Jesse, thank you for inviting me to your work. pleasure, this is your first time using the T stud, oh this is not it, this is probably the 15th time we have used the T studs. We have been solid T studs for a little over two years. Damn, did you tell me before that your own house was the T stud? The house you built, that's right, a little over two years ago, my personal house was the first T-Star house built, but the first one is not a house, so two years later, how has it been?

You know, as a builder, the biggest difference. What I've noticed and come to appreciate is the fact that we have this freeze and thaw cycle that we have here in Minnesota, yeah, you tend to get callbacks from your builder on your nails, your drywall settling and stuff. so, and we've seen a drastic reduction in any of the ones that are going to call that there's a one year marker that you normally come back to fix those things much less because of this, what do you attribute to that? Do you think for us? I think it has to be like that.

T-stud stability and thermal break in your traditional wood studs are in this climate, you know you're building in the rain, you're building the snow of those things that tend to dry out and can bend, so by We just see a lot of stability with these posts Jessie, would your framer think of this the first time or now, 15 houses later? Yeah, well, we have a couple different

framing

teams and like everything in this industry, guys move around a bit. slower, so the first time they saw this there was definitely some swearing, but by the second or third house they rushed to another T house and really came to appreciate the differences in the

framing

. the lightness of the walls, so they can actually speed up T-beam houses a little faster than they can with a traditional house because of the lower weight, which is a great thing, less frames two foot wood on center versus 16 on center simple top plate, so yes, they can support longer walls with fewer people.

I hadn't thought about how you have a single top plate to sue now that the walls are a little bit lighter because you have a little bit less weight overall, two feet on center, single top plate That's cool, tell me about Calvo, you know? When we receive a typical SPF frame package, let's say there's at least 5% of those hits that go back to the lumberyard or the trash or come from blocking what's your waste factor. these ones with the T-studs, you know, we're probably looking at less than 1%, we rarely send one back and if we turn a little bit there, then we just end up using it like in our window or something is very good, very little waste, that's cool hey guys, I'm here with the inventor of the teesta Brian Iverson, now Brannon knows that people watching this video right now are thinking, can this really replace a 2 by 6 for structural value?

Would you say that? I can tell you that we are actually four times a 2x6, no matter if they are made lvl or LSL level, everyone feels that they call it the , that's wanting to curve basically exactly because we turned the perpendicular of the board, we stopped the board's ability to deflect under a load on that x-axis, so that was the only way we failed, it's like a tree standing on the forest, we want the weight to go down, so we lower the weight all the way down, so we're certified to hold eight thousand. six hundred pounds versus only about 2,200 pounds for a 2x6 and about 900 pounds for a two by four Wow, a little stronger Bryan, that's cool, yes I can admit it was impressive, a two foot man held thirty thirty and six thousand pounds, oh God.

God that's crazy yeah Bryan when I look around the house I don't see any color difference between the bottom plates and the studs. Are you selling pressure treated or how do we keep termite rot out? That kind of thing happens on the bottom plates. We are going to start treating all of our products with the next generation, so it is a four in one solution, mold, fire and termites all in one, so you will have the option to buy them with everything treated or just with the posts of simple teas so I can actually I can get a Class A rated T stud that's right that's it now Bryan tell me about the options this is the tea that they said they used here which is basically like a two by six replacement What are the other options we could buy from you?

Okay then this? We call this the bare tea post, so it's the same frame. If you are going to spray foam into the cavity, you can spray it in the field itself to frame the house with the bare tea post, there is no insulation anymore. this is on the wall properly and this is your demo to show it, so here's your siding on the outside, the tea stud is now here and then you could spray from the bottom plate, let's say from the slab, spray in the middle and continuously from the slab to the roof line correctly and you run, put the Barenaked tea posts, run all your old electrical wiring security system, whatever you want to get through so you can get whatever you want in there and then spray foam with us and inside.

So you can know one, two, three inches, or all five and a quarter inches of foam, whatever you want to see, and that way you've solved almost all the transitions where you might have air leaks. that cavity and also, if you have two pounds of spray foam that you're spraying, you're adding a ton of structure. I've seen tests before with two inches of closed cell foam and only half inch sheets where a two by four shot at a hundred miles an hour can and will bounce, so I'm guessing you'll also add a lot of tornado resistant hurricanes to the house if you apply this method, so we already meet the hurricane requirements and We meet the seismic standards by ourselves with just this T-stud, this T-stud, we know that we will be able to pass all the hurricane tests without the cladding , that's pretty amazing and then tell me about this guy here that we actually did the Boston Passive House. conference and they asked us for a 30 t hour stud because they want to get rid of all the staggered stud walls, so this is an AR 30 version, our thirty spot is basicallya two-by-eight where we have the same strength as a two-by-eight stud. eight on a wall up to 16 feet high with that, but we only have five inches of fiber, that's pretty good at our value thirty, so we heated that wood member to 200 degrees and had no transfer to the other side after eight hours.

Wow, that's pretty cool, so that's awesome Brian, I have to say I've never heard of this before. It's completely intriguing, so for people watching this video, whether you're someone who's about to build a house or a builder, how do we buy this? How do we source all of your product? You have a couple of options. You can have your sawmill contact us and we will set them up as a stocking distributor right away, that's fine, if there is no one stocking in the area, we will pack up whatever you need and ship it directly to you, just have a forklift there to pick it up and we will ship directly from Canada.

I don't or we will send partial loads to the sawmill. We will do whatever it takes to get the tea stones out. That's great, so how can people contact you? Brian, what's the best way to Contact you guys sales at T Stud comm, the letter T, then Stud, calm, calm, him, Stud, calm, Fred, can you help the builders? Let's say if I have a house in two months, I'm going to serve a slab for, can you help me do the takeoffs if I have a traditional frame house and I turn it into a two sub takeoff?

Yeah, well, we'll do them right away. In fact, we'll try to compare ourselves halfway to a 2x6 or whatever you were going to do, especially when it comes to value calculations or the average r value, we can show you the U value through this for those of you who have education, the value for this is 0.03 to 3. Last question from Brian. I know people will ask about cost, tell me about, say, a standard 2500 square foot home, what's the Delta? How much more are we going to pay for an amount compared to the traditional number? Well, so the average house in North America is 2,500 square feet, so that's an extra thousand to fifteen hundred dollars compared to a two-by-six.

Wow, so the more complex the house is, obviously, the more costs involved. We have a couple of 2,800 square foot two-story homes right now. Full basement strikes are extremely complex. ten feet on the main floor, second floor, nine feet high and we have an additional 5,000 and that's the current retail price which is incredible and then there will be some deduction, right? I guess with a twenty stud you'll probably use it. With less heating and cooling, you may be able to forgo the geothermal energy you might have wanted for efficiency because now you don't really need it. You could use more standard equipment, say VRF, and you'll get a fantastic result. tightness when you combine this with a Huber zipper system on the outside right because we have a very tight envelope, it's pretty impressive guys, thanks Brian for inviting me to sponsor today's video, what an amazing trip from Texas to Minnesota to see. what are these guys doing watch TC calm down if you are not familiar with my videos we have new content every Tuesday and every Friday hit the subscribe button below; otherwise follow us on Twitter Instagram, see you next time on the build. show