The baseline
A 2,000 sq ft code-built house in Keene typically wants somewhere between 850 and 1000 gallons of oil a year, or the propane, pellet or cord wood equivalent. That is the number a percentage saving has to be measured against.
Home / Service Area / Keene, NH
Steel insulated panels in Keene, NH.
Keene sits in the bowl of the Ashuelot valley, where cold air pools on winter nights and heating degree days run well past 7,000. It is also a city of tight in-fill lots, historic districts and a downtown where a build has to be quiet and quick.
6AClimate zone
R-61Effective wall R-value
50%Less framing labour
75%Less heating energy
Urban core · Cheshire County
What Keene projects ask of a wall.
Downtown and Court Street lots leave little room for staging. A panel package lands on one or two trucks, gets set in days, and the site is closed in before the neighbours lose patience.
A panel package suits this better than a lumber delivery does. Bundles arrive in wall-line order and go up as they come off the truck — there is no lumber pile, no cut station, no offcut dumpster and no open frame standing in the weather while trades wait on each other. One crew closes in the shell instead of four trades queuing for the same scaffold.
What we typically supply in Keene: Custom homes on the west and north sides, accessory dwellings behind historic properties, additions, and multi-family in-fill near downtown.
The arithmetic in zone 6A
What the wall is worth here, in fuel.
Zone 6A runs roughly 7,000 to 8,000 heating degree days. A code-minimum wall spends a large share of that season conducting heat straight through its own framing.
The same house in panels
At an effective R-51 to R-61 with the studs thermally broken from the exterior face, heating energy typically falls 70 to 75% — on the order of 230 to 300 gallons. At current delivered prices that is thousands of dollars a year, every year the building stands.
The upfront return
A design load that low lets the mechanical system be sized at roughly half. Smaller equipment, smaller ductwork, less dedicated electrical service, and on solar-paired projects a smaller array and battery bank. That money never leaves the construction budget.
Baselines are typical for the climate zone and floor area, not a promise about your building. Send plans and we will run the numbers on the actual design.
Four products, one panel
Structure, insulation, sheathing and vapour barrier arrive together.
Each panel bonds light gauge galvanised steel structural members to EPS with a patented composite joining technology, and does the work of four separate trades. That is why the framing phase for an average house is about three days rather than three weeks.
Exterior wall panel
5.5″ or 7.5″ thick, up to 4′ × 12′, effective R-51 to R-61, up to 42,000 plf LRFD, ready for direct application of the final cladding.
Roof panel
Load bearing, so trusses open to every 4–6 ft. Two panels connect at the ridge for cathedral ceilings and A-frames with no intermediate support.
Interior and ceiling panels
3.5″ at R-28 for partitions, tiny homes and quiet rooms; ceiling panels pre-chased and ready for direct sheathing.
Floor and below-grade
Concrete floor panels span up to 50 ft with minimal shoring and cut concrete volume by around 40%; below-grade panels are rated for foundation and retaining walls.
How it works
Four steps from a Keene sketch to a finished shell.
01
Send what you have
Architect’s drawings, a plan-service set, or a hand sketch with rough dimensions and a note about storeys and roof. We will tell you what is missing.
02
Free take-off and price
We panelize the building on paper and return a package and a delivered price to your Keene site — no cost, and an honest comparison against building it the usual way.
03
Shop drawings
Two to four weeks. Our drafters work with your architect and engineer: every panel numbered, every rough opening located, beams and headers integrated.
04
Delivery and assembly
Panels arrive bundled in wall-line order with track, screws and hardware. One framer and two helpers close in an average house in about three days.
Code and compliance in New Hampshire
Your plan reviewer has seen this before.
New Hampshire has adopted the state energy code statewide, and a documented effective R-51 to R-61 wall clears its envelope requirements without exterior continuous insulation.
Structural
IAPMO load tables for construction types II–V, signed and sealed by BEI Engineering. Up to 42,000 plf LRFD in bearing and 2,420 plf in shear with a 2.0 safety factor.
Fire and acoustics
Two-hour load-bearing, one-hour load-bearing and two-hour non-load-bearing assemblies. EPS smoke and flame spread, self-ignition and flash ignition data. STC-rated assemblies for party walls.
Envelope and weather
Intertek thermal performance assessment, thermal zone map, ASTM E283, E331 and E330 air and water penetration testing, HUD Bulletin 1072 compliance and documented manufacturing tolerances.
Questions from Keene
Straight answers before you commit.
Will steel panels pass Keene's historic district review?
The panel is the structure and the insulation, not the finish. Clapboard, shingle, brick veneer or standing seam all attach directly to the studs, so the exterior you present to the review board is whatever the district calls for.
How do panels handle a tight downtown lot?
Panels arrive bundled in wall-line order and are set with a small telehandler or by hand — a 4' × 12' panel averages 45 lb. There is no lumber yard on site, no cut pile and no dumpster of offcuts.
Can panels work on a site with no storage area?
They are close to ideal for it. Panels are manufactured to the shop drawings, bundled in groups of six in wall-line order, and numbered to match the plan. A crew can set them straight off the trailer, which is why constrained urban sites are one of the strongest cases for panelizing the envelope.
What documentation will the building department want?
IAPMO load tables covering construction types II through V, two-hour fire-rated load-bearing assemblies, one-hour load-bearing and two-hour non-load-bearing tests, STC-rated party wall assemblies, and ASTM E283, E331 and E330 air and water penetration reports. All of it is on our resources page, ready to hand over.
How much schedule does it actually save?
Framing labour drops by roughly half, and the building is weathertight sooner, which pulls every interior trade forward. On a financed project that is months of carry; on hospitality it is an earlier opening date.
Do you really deliver to Keene?
Yes. We supply the whole of New England from our base in Keene, New Hampshire, with panels manufactured in Radford, Virginia. Freight to Keene is a quoted line item on the estimate, not a surprise at the end, and it is a small number against what the wall saves over the life of the building.
Is it more expensive than building with lumber?
The panel package costs more than a lumber package. The finished wall usually costs less, because the panel replaces framing, insulation, sheathing and vapour barrier and cuts framing labour by roughly half — then the mechanical system shrinks by about 50%. We will price it both ways so you can see the whole picture rather than one line of it.
How do I get a price for my Keene project?
Send plans, a sketch or a description with rough dimensions to our team. You get a panel take-off and a delivered price at no cost, usually within a few days, plus a note on anything in the design that is fighting the system while it is still cheap to change.
Building in Keene? Let’s price it.
Plans, a sketch or a napkin. We will tell you what the panel package costs delivered to your site — and what it saves against stick framing.