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I didn't believe insulated metal panels could save that much time until I watched a crew put up a warehouse shell in 4 days
I used to think stick framing was the only way to go for commercial builds. But last month I walked a jobsite in Nashville where they were using IMPs for a 30,000 square foot warehouse. The contractor told me the shell was weathertight in under a week, compared to the three weeks it usually takes with steel studs and fiberglass. Has anyone else switched to IMPs for large projects and seen similar schedule savings?
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the_blair22d ago
@wadeyoung is right about the envelope, but I gotta push back a little on the thermal bridging thing. IMPs don't actually eliminate thermal bridging completely. The foam core does a great job, sure, but you still have the metal skins bridging from inside to outside at every panel joint and fastener. It's way better than stick framing with no continuous insulation, don't get me wrong, but calling it zero thermal bridging is a stretch. The real magic is that the foam gives you a continuous insulation layer across most of the wall, which cuts way down on the drafts you get with batts. Still a huge upgrade over traditional framing for energy performance.
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Don't stop at the schedule savings, that's only half the story. The real win for me was seeing how much tighter the building envelope was compared to traditional framing. I've been in enough drafty warehouses with fiberglass batts to know the difference. Plus the fact that you're basically eliminating thermal bridging with those continuous foam cores, that's a huge deal for energy costs down the road. Hard to beat a system that gives you speed and performance in one package.
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