Today I went out to the site and found this:
This is our external walls!!! Large panels of aerated concrete – goes up extremely fast so we should expect to have the external walls in place within about 3 days of when they start installation. Having said that, we don’t expect installation to start *just* yet…
Part of our requirements with this build were as much insulation as we could possibly get. Part of that is formed with sarking. We have it written into our contract that the sarking is to be installed shiny side out to ensure maximum heat reflection in the summer. I called our fabulously wonderful site supervisor yesterday to say how thrilled we were that the external walling system had arrived, and we wanted to make sure that the sarking wasn’t installed until the problems with the frame had been remedied (there’s a few loose bolts, missing tension straps, a stud need replacing, etc – nothing that takes too long) (read, we don’t believe that you are planning on doing the sarking and wanted to give a gentle reminder without actually saying “did you forget the sarking?). The response? “Sarking isn’t used with power panel”. I told him to check the contract as it is absolutely in there and definitely required.
I note, with some amusement, that the hebel website has a bunch of specifications and such available for their products. The architectural specification for using powerpanel recommends using DuPont Tyvek HomeWrap (yes! Sarking!!) =)