The most common practical question we get, answered properly.
Every electrician who has not worked with these panels asks the same thing on day one: how am I supposed to run cable through steel? The answer is that you do not run it through the steel. It has already been arranged for you.
The raceway
Every panel comes with a 1″ × 2″ wire raceway running horizontally, 11 inches up from the bottom of the panel. Cable runs in the raceway, along the wall line, without a single hole drilled and without a bushing or grommet in sight. On a conventional steel-framed house, drilling and protecting every penetration is a real part of the electrical labour. Here it simply is not.
Boxes and verticals
Device boxes attach to the studs the way they normally do. For a vertical drop to a switch or an upper outlet, the EPS is easily cut with a hot knife or even a pocketknife — the foam gives way, the steel is untouched, and the chase is filled and sealed afterwards. Keep verticals short and use the raceway for horizontal distribution and the job goes quickly.
Plumbing
Wet walls are best designed as interior partitions, exactly as they would be in any well-built cold-climate house. You do not want supply lines in an exterior wall in Cheshire County regardless of what the wall is made of. Where a line has to cross a panel, foam is cut back with a hot knife to make the run.
The hot knife kit we recommend is on the resources page; it is inexpensive and every crew that works with these panels ends up owning one.
Sequencing
Because the panel is already the air and vapour barrier, mechanical rough-in does not disturb an assembly that later trades have to fix. There is no poly to patch, no dense-pack to displace and no batt to compress. The electrician works after the shell is closed, in a dry, weathertight, insulated space — which in a New England spring is not a small thing.
Tell your subs early
The one avoidable problem is an electrician who finds out on arrival. Send them the assembly manual a week ahead. It is a two-hour learning curve for a trade that has framed and wired before, and it goes badly only when it is a surprise.
Building in the Monadnock region?
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Keep reading
What a 425-year wall means for a house you plan to hand on
Most stick-built houses that get torn down in this region are under fifty years old. That is worth sitting with.
Why developers panelize the envelope on multi-family and hospitality
On a three-storey building, the argument stops being about R-value and starts being about the schedule.
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.
Get a price on your project.
A panel take-off and a delivered price, at no cost — and an honest comparison against building it the usual way.