T-Stud Framing, is it the Future?

I'm Jake Bruton with AeroBuilding and today I want to talk to you about this, a truss for your walls. So we are at our Hilltop Aero project. We are in the framing stages and behind me you can see that we are using this, a T-stud. This is a 2x6 framing member replacement for your exterior walls. This is an engineered solution that is stronger than a 2x6 and allows for greater R-value than a 2x6 wall. How is that and why does it work? So let's talk about strength first. One of our framers, I was just having that conversation with him, and he politely pointed out, well if you are fully sheathing then you don't have to worry about that bending force. That's quite possible that full sheathing takes care of some of that. But in a lot of the markets in the United States where full sheathing doesn't take place, you now have a little greater compression strength. So if you think about, let's take just this piece for a moment. If you think about that as a 2x6 in the wall, when it's compressed it can bow in or out. Not in or out of the wall, side to side inside the wall. And what they've done is they've actually oriented these in opposite directions. Meaning that the bending force that direction is counteracted the opposite direction in the other plate here or in the other half of the stud here. This is two different pieces of 2x2. They're the same size oriented oppositely and connected with glue and what looks to be a hardwood dowel. Their website claims that this is up to four times the strength of a regular 2x6. That is impressive that they get that strength change. However, a 2x6 meets your strength requirements. So we're not necessarily using this for the strength requirement. It's just an added benefit. We're using it because we're talking about our value. When you look at a wall in an infrared camera, a traditional wall 2x6, 16 or 24 inch on center, there are cold spots every once in a while. If you drive through one of your local neighborhoods in the morning and there's a little bit of frost out, you can actually see where the studs are behind that vinyl siding. Sometimes even behind that fiber cement siding. The reason you can see that is because this sucker is acting just like a copper wire. It's a conductor for that indoor heat temperature transferring to the outside and you have a clear pathway that is much less insulated with a 2x6 or 2x4 that actually is connected to both sides of the wall. All they've done here is created a thermal break in the middle of your framing member so that you don't have that conduction through the wall. A regular 2x6 in the wall cavity is like roughly an R6 or R7 somewhere in there. It's a very small R value. It's a R1 per inch. But when we put this in the wall cavity, and I believe you can see that behind me here, when we put this in the cavity we have the ability to have insulation in that void. And now we have a piece that's an R3 and an R2 and or an R2 and an R1 and they're separated and we actually are able to get insulation in there. So in this house we're able to fill with a loose fill blown insulation and we're still trying to cut down that conductivity by using a ZipR product on the outside. In a house where we didn't have that ZipR we probably would upgrade to a spray foam insulation so that this void would be filled with the highest R value we can possibly get in that space. This is our first time working with the product and I'm a little new to it. So there's a couple things that we've done here. We're generally not going to use it for all of our outside corners. We're not going to use it for jacks or king studs. You can, it's rated for that. It just was new framers on this job, us being new to t-stud and us going, you know what, let's not jump all the way into the swimming pool. Let's go in off the steps and let's just try a couple things before we get started. I'm excited for the electricians in the exterior walls. They're not going to have to drill those exterior walls and our framers are diligent enough that all of these are set at equal spacing and they're actually stacking them so that they all align so that our electricians will be able to pull wires and even the wires will run straight through the wall without us having to do any drilling or having the wire snake up or down. There is a definite market for this in the double stud wall community. In the northern climates where we're more worried about condensation in the wall or heat loss through the walls or for that matter one of the things that we always forget to talk about when we're talking about heat loss is places like climate zone one where we have a cooling dominated climate. You're still trying to keep that heat from outside from transferring in and that cool from inside transferring out. Think of it as I paid to condition that air inside my house. I want to keep it inside the house for as long as possible and so therefore we're going to do everything we can even if it's with a t-stud to try to create an assembly that is durable and energy efficient as possible because that creates a healthy and comfortable home for the client. Cost wise, yes this is an upgraded cost but so is the zip bar, so is the zip sheathing, so is advantech subfloor. It's just what measures you think are appropriate for your house, your client, and your goals. It doesn't mean that it's out of the price range for all builders or some builders. I have a feeling the longer these guys are in business the cheaper this product is going to get and I could see this finding its way onto some production builder job sites real easy because then they're not they're not upgrading to exterior insulation. They're able to just stick with the house wrap methods that they have now and get a thermally broken wall. So stay tuned for more from our hilltop aero house here. I'm sure we'll have another conversation about these t-studs and how they worked for us. Make sure you check out Buildshow Network. Every day of the week there's new content. Matt Reisinger, Steve Basic, Brent Hull, and Wade Paquin are putting up videos every day of the week. I'm really excited to be involved with that and I'm really happy at the content those guys are putting out and I'm really happy that they allow me to be part of it. Don't forget to check out the Unbuild It podcast and me on Instagram jake.bruton on Instagram. Thanks for watching the Build Show. Till next time, check out T-Stud.