ADUs, shops and small builds around the Monadnock region

The panel system is often thought of as a whole-house decision. Some of the best uses are much smaller.

New Hampshire and Massachusetts have both loosened accessory dwelling rules in recent years, and the effect around Keene, Swanzey, Peterborough and over the line in Winchendon has been a steady run of small buildings: in-law apartments, rental studios, heated workshops, garages with a room above.

Why small buildings benefit disproportionately

A small building has a lot of surface area for its volume, which means the envelope matters more per square foot, not less. It is also the kind of project where a general contractor’s mobilisation cost and a multi-trade schedule are painfully large relative to the build. Collapsing framing, insulation, sheathing and vapour barrier into one delivery and one trade changes the economics of a 600 square foot building more than it changes a 4,000 square foot one.

The interior panel

The 3.5-inch interior panel was designed with tiny homes and small studios in mind: R-28, four structural studs per face at 16 inches on centre, up to 4 feet wide and 12 feet tall. For a detached studio, a quiet room or a rental unit where every inch of interior floor counts, it is often the right call over the thicker exterior panel.

Shops and garages

A heated workshop is the project where people notice the difference fastest, because most shops in this region are miserable in February. A continuous R-51 shell with a small heat pump turns a two-bay garage into a space you use in January without a kerosene heater and the fumes that come with it.

Barns and agricultural buildings

Walpole, Northfield and Antrim have all seen agricultural work: equipment storage, produce and cold storage, processing space. The panel is used for commercial freezers for the same reason it works in a house — a continuous, thermally broken, non-organic envelope.

There is no minimum

We are asked this constantly. There is no minimum order that rules out a small building. We have supplied everything from a shed to a six-storey structure, and the drawings, labelling and delivery work the same way at either end.