Also, there is another meaning for SIP. Did you ever hear of the first little pig who built his house all out of straws? That building practice came to be known as sip. It is cheap, and saving the money keeps the wolf from the door.

Those holes in the concrete are from the concrete pour. These are not tilt panels as tilt panels are cast lying flat and do not have the holes apart from 1 or 2 from lifting. This concrete is insitu cast. The walls would be formed up with form ply, lvl formwork and the ties. The holes you are talking about are from the formwork ties. As concrete, when wet, is extremly heavy and fluid. The concrete is constantly trying to escape the formwork and get to the ground. The avoid formwork blow outs from the pressure, they use tie rods between the form walls. These rods go through conduit pipes which are in between the formwork. They use the conduit so the tie rods are not encased in concrete making them a permanent fixture. Once the concrete is cured, and the formwork is removed. The tie rods can then be taken out leaving only the conduit. These are then tapped out leaving you with those holes you talk about. If you wish to replicate the look, it will require an engineer, plans and permits and an experienced formworker and concretor. I will attach a photo for further understanding. Scott.

If you go for down lights you will need to leave a gap around them of 100 mm between the recessed part and insulation so the insulation doesn't catch on fire. This also creates a problem with the thermal performance of your home because heat can move freely through the ceiling where there is no insulation. It can make a big difference even if there are only a few down lights. Also, down lights are very directional (send most of their light straight down) so you need to put more in to get the same effect. You could try track lights that attach to the ceiling instead. If you want a pendant go for something cheap and easy to replace if it is damaged by toys/clothes or whatever being thrown around. Ikea have lots. FYI dimmers don;t educe the power consumption, merely reduce the intensity of the light.

Hi Liana / Louise The home was a single storey and was done approx 9 years ago. It still looks the same as the day it was installed and there are no cracks. It also meant timing was shorter as we went from slab down to lock up in approx 4 weeks (ie roof on, windows in, cladding etc) RE maintenance, a pressure wash every 18 months or so depending on location is all it needs. If you want to keep it looking new, you could re-coat it every 10 years. I do not paint over texture coat but you certainly can do that. RE thermal performance, the entire system far exceeds brick. A standard double brick cavity wall R value is around R 0.5 from memory. The Hebel allows for an R2.0 batt in the stud work which takes you to a total of around R3.0, or approx 6 times greater than brick without the thermal mass. We also found that unlike brick, the walls didn't radiate heat into the house at night and aircon wasn't often needed ( I like it cool at night) As I said previously, the methodology is important. For example, during the design of the house the stud framing capacity needs to take into account the fact that the Hebel is being used. The panel size (height) needs to be selected and laid out taking into account both the set down in the slab (exterior course is lower than internal) and the height to the eaves + 50mm. I always go a longer panel so that I don't have joins everywhere rather than patching short ends Control joints need to be properly spaced (these are the gaps in the panels at long intervals to allow for movement that are caulked) Positioning items such as window in increments of 300mm from each other eliminates extra joins and pieces. In relation to cracks, the use of a textured acrylic such as Acratex means it is an elastic (movable) finish and if it is properly installed you should have no issues. I have seen people just render and paint the exterior and as this isn't flexible enough it will likely crack. I would not do it this way and do not ever recommend a render. Texture coating is the more expensive finish but is far and away the most durable in this case. As an aside, upmarket homes are almost always texture coated here in WA. I would suggest you simply take your plans to your local CSR Hebel supplier and work with them. They will plan the panel layout for the job with you or the builder can do it with them. The supplier will also point out changes that can be made to your advantage ie panel sizes, joint locations in effect all the things I have mentioned above they will do. There is also a web site available called Hebel Matters that is a blog style and you can get lots of info from that. RE the foam, we had experience with that in Melbourne when we lived there and I am not a fan of it for anything other than a second storey. As I said at the outset, if you set it up properly and finish it in a quality texture, you will not regret doing it for the advantages you gain in thermal performance. Cheers