Casa San Miguel | First-Time SIPs Crew Frames a Home in 8 Days

Project Overview

A First-Time SIPs Crew Frames Floor, Walls, and Roof in Just 8 Days

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Eric L Meyerowitz had designed custom homes for over 20 years before Casa San Miguel became his first project built with structural insulated panels. The framing crew on site had never installed a SIP structure either. After a brief walkthrough from Phil Ligon, Premier SIPS' Southwest Regional Manager, a part-time crew of three to six people, with zero prior SIPs experience, framed the floor, walls, and roof of the 2,566-square-foot residence, plus a 230-square-foot studio and 542-square-foot garage, in just 8 days.

That speed mattered beyond the schedule. Phoenix summers don't wait for construction, and getting a fully insulated structure enclosed fast meant every trade that followed was working under cover, out of the heat, from day one.

"After some brief instruction by Phil Ligon of Premier SIPs, the floor, walls, and roof were assembled with little difficulty. Having a fully insulated structure for the remaining trades to work under has been a big bonus during the Phoenix summer. Now that I have seen how SIPs work, I can't imagine building future projects utilizing 'old school' methods. I would recommend SIPs to anyone building new structures today." — Eric L Meyerowitz

Why SIPs?

Most builders assume a panelized system only pays off once a crew is trained on it. Casa San Miguel makes the opposite case. SIP erection doesn't demand the stick-by-stick framing knowledge that conventional construction does; the structural, insulation, and air-sealing work is already built into the panel at the factory. That's what let a framing crew with no SIPs background hit a pace roughly three times faster than traditional framing, with no training ramp-up eating into the schedule.

The other driver was climate. In a Phoenix summer, every day a house sits open to the elements is a day working conditions get worse for every trade that follows. An 8-day enclosure meant the remaining trades were wiring and finishing inside a fully insulated, temperature-buffered structure almost immediately, instead of working exposed through the hottest stretch of the build.

Benefits of SIPs

No training bottleneck: A part-time, first-time crew installed floor, wall, and roof panels after only a brief walkthrough, proof that SIPs erection doesn't require a dedicated specialty trade to move fast.

Roughly 3x the framing speed: Structural, insulation, and air-sealing work arrives pre-built into each panel, cutting out the layered, sequential steps of stick framing.

Faster enclosure in extreme heat: Getting the structure fully enclosed in 8 days let interior trades work inside a temperature-buffered building through the Phoenix summer instead of an open frame.

One panel, three jobs: Floor, wall, and roof SIPs combined structure, insulation, and air barrier into a single installation step across all 11,860 square feet of the building.

Performance & Sustainability Features

→ Floor, wall, and roof structure framed in 8 days by a first-time SIPs crew

→ 11,860 sq ft of Premier SIPS panels (8" and 6" walls, 12" roof, 12" floor)

→ Home oriented for passive heating, cooling, and distant mountain views

→ Continuous foam core reduces interior noise, drafts, and temperature swings

→ Airtight construction supports indoor air quality control

→ Structure raised off the desert floor to meet FEMA floodplain requirements

→ Environmentally friendly materials and building systems used throughout

Construction and Innovation

Casa San Miguel is as much a proof of concept as it is a finished home. Eric Meyerowitz didn't just design the structure; he was on site for the installation, watching a crew with no SIPs background go from brief instruction to a fully framed, enclosed building in a little over a week. That outcome challenges a common assumption: that panelized construction only pays off once a crew has climbed a learning curve. Here, the learning curve and the build happened at the same time, and the schedule still beat conventional framing by a wide margin.

Key Features

• 2,566 sq ft residence, 230 sq ft studio, 542 sq ft garage in Phoenix, Arizona
• Floor, wall, and roof structure framed in 8 days by a first-time SIPs crew
• 11,860 sq ft of Premier SIPS panels
• Structure raised to meet FEMA floodplain requirements
• Designed by Eric L Meyerowitz Architect
• Watch the installation time-lapse →