starENERGY 18×36 Small House Kit

This new complete house kit on Amazon makes a 648 square foot small house. It is small, but big enough to be a home. Or add it beside your house to use for guests, office space or to earn extra money as a long term or vacation rental.

It is not a pre-built house or a modular. It is a kit with all the materials and instructions that make it easy to assembly your own small house.

House Plans

1-Bedroom, 18×36, 648 sq ft

The 1-bedroom house is 36’ wide by 18’ deep, 648 square feet.

It has an open floor plan with a full kitchen, dining area and living room area. The bathroom has a door from the bedroom and from the hallway. There is a large walk-in closet and even a laundry area and pantry.

The walls are 10’ high. The exterior shows an angled roof. In this picture of the kitchen you can see the roof angle.

2-Bedroom, 24×40, 720 sq ft

The two bedroom version is a little larger, 720 square feet, 40’ wide x 24’ deep. It has two bedrooms and two baths.

The bedrooms are small, one is 10’,5’x 9’, 10” and the other is 10’x9’. There are two bathrooms. There are two full bathrooms and plenty of storage. There is even still the laundry area.

You can modify the design and have a custom kit with plans that match what you want.
What is IRC compliance?

The description says the house is an IRC compliant and permissible structure. IRC means the International Residential Code. It is a comprehensive building code for houses, duplexes and townhouses. Your state building code may go beyond it, but the parts in this kit should work with any state building code.

The design and materials are made to comply with every state. The house can stand up to high seismic events. It is rated for Seismic Design Category A, B, C, D, and E.

It can withstand sustained winds up to160 MPH and gusts up to 240 MPH.

The roof is rated to withstand 25 pounds per square foot snow load. If you live in an area where a lot of snow and ice pile up on the roof during winter storms, you can order a kit that will take up to 70 pounds per square foot snow load.

What’s Included?

The house kit is nearly complete.

It includes the SIP wall panels that are customized to make the house plans. This is not only very energy efficient, but there is less waste and construction goes very fast.

The kit includes:

• Wall panels
• Roof panels
• Metal roof sheets
• Lumber
• Nails
• Adhesive and screws
• Windows
• Doors
• Door knobs
• 2×4 interior framing partitions
• Floor plans
• Assembly instructions

The kit can be ordered with a SIP floor or you can provide a concrete slab or other foundation. The foundation is not included. You will have to pay for grading and a block or slab foundation. You could even put it over a basement.

The kit is ready for roofing materials, the tar paper and shingles or metal roof, but it doesn’t include it in the kit.

The standard kit does not include any of the electrical or wiring. You can provide your own romex, boxes, outlets, switches, and the rest. Or you can order a kit with everything you need.

The same goes for the plumbing. You can choose your own or have it as part of the kit.

It takes about four weeks to get your kit from when you confirm and order it, depending on where you live.

SIP Panels

The kit includes SIP R30 walls and floors. A sip panel is a construction panel with rigid insulation between two layers of structural board. The board can be metal, plywood, reinforced plastic, cement, OSB or other things. The insulation is expanded or extruded polystyrene foam, some other kind of foam or a composite honeycomb.

SIP Panels are usually OSB panels around polystyrene or rigid polyurethane foam.

The materials cost a little more than traditional construction, but a home built with SIPs is tighter, less potential for drafts. The walls are better insulated. SIPs take less time to build. The materials are not cut. They are delivered ready to be put together, so it takes fewer people to do it and can be built by less skilled laborers.

I’ve written about Zip Panels before. Zip panels are made by Huber Wood. Sip stands for Structural Insulated Panels.

Huber’s website says

Panels for use in Structured Insulated Panel (SIPs)

Huber Engineered Woods manufactures engineered wood panels specifically designed for manufacturers to use in Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) construction. SIPs are energy efficient, high performance building panels used for roof, wall and floor construction. SIPs are typically manufactured using rigid expanded polystyrene (EPS) or polyurethane or polyisocyanurate foam insulation bonded between two OSB panel skins.

ZIP System® from Huber Engineered Woods >

Delamination Warranty

The SIP panels come with a 20 year R-value and delamination warranty. R-value is the thermal resistance. It is the same numbers you see on windows. But what is delamination?

This is actually related to the R-value, that’s why they put them together. Early SIPs and some cheaper imported SIPS use a kind of foam insulation that may off gas (or in gas). This makes the foam shrink. When the foam shrinks, it doesn’t insulate as well, which is bad.

But what is worse, the panel delaminates. That means the foam shrinks away from the rest of the panel and the panel warps or falls apart.

These panels are made in the USA, in New Mexico.

Who is starENERGY?

starENERGY SIP Panels, LLC manufactures Structural Insulated Panels in New Mexico.

The have just started making small house kits, but have been in business for over 30 years.

Their facilities are a 22,000 square foot building at 117 Antone Road, Sunland Park, NM.