The Wall and Roof Systems

A combination of super-insulation and excellent air-tightness.

Roxul installation complete on a passive house built by TDS Custom Construction in McFarland, Wisconsin

The walls of this house are 2×8 construction with dense-pack cellulose insulation (R-27), ZIP sheathing for the air barrier and 6” Roxul insulation (R-24) for a total insulation value of R-51. To maintain a continuous air barrier, the Stego Wrap is connected to the ZIP sheathing on the walls which doubles as the air barrier.

The roof is constructed of manufactured trusses with loose-fill cellulose insulation (R-90). The zip sheathing continues onto the ceiling plane of the roof trusses. The joint between the ZIP sheathing on the walls and ceiling were taped and sealed in order to create a continuous air barrier.

The windows, manufactured by Kneer-Sud, are high-performance, triple-paned, extremely air-tight, tilt and turn windows with thermally-broken frames. They are heavy and beautiful and easy to operate. The doors were also sourced from Kneer-Sud and are equal in quality to the windows.

The series of photos below lends more detail to the wall and roof construction. Stay tuned for our next blog post, which will cover the mechanical systems and blower door results.

Stego Wrap is taped to the ZIP sheathing just behind the aluminum wrap on the exterior of this passive house built by TDS Custom Construction in McFarland, WI — Unfortunately, we didn’t catch a key picture, but if you had X-ray vision, you would see that the Stego Wrap is taped to the ZIP sheathing just behind the aluminum wrap.

ZIP sheathing installed on 2x8 framing, taped and sealed to create the air barrier on a passive high performance home built by TDS Custom Construction in McFarland, WI — Unfortunately, we didn’t catch a key picture, but if you had X-ray vision, you would see that the Stego Wrap is taped to the ZIP sheathing just behind the aluminum wrap.

Read Our Passive House Series

Back in 2017, we wrote a series of blog posts as we were building a passive house for a client on Mud Lake in McFarland, WI. We invited our readers to join in and follow along with our process of building this passive house—from the foundation to the wall and roof systems and beyond.

Get In Touch

Tell us about your project, and Jackie, our Selections Manager, will get in touch with you to get started. Contact Jackie using the form below or at [email protected].

Published on Jun 12 2018

Last Updated on Dec 21 2023

Categories: Passive House

Tags: cellulose, energy efficiency, high performance, insulation, new construction, new home building, passive house, roof, wall, zip sheathing