New Build in Chanute, KS

[Bernie Neyer]

I sort of began this in another forum, but didn't find the category about new builds until later and felt it really belonged here. As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I will be posting pictures as the build proceeds.

Chanute, KS is a small town in SEK with a population of ~9,000 people. I've lived here now for nearly 40 years. I began investing in rentals about 20 years ago, with most of that locally. I did have some investments in towns near by, but problems with finding managers or tenants I liquidated the holdings and changed my external focus to Wichita, KS. 

 Chanute is where I live and we needed some up to date rental housing. I wanted to build a unique structure, but the city prevented me from doing so, so I decided to build a duplex on a lot I had. I started late due in part to the Corona shut down and the sub contractors had to be released for other projects. We have not been able to smoothly schedule them, but the build should be done by August 1st. 

[Bernie Neyer]

The actual construction is of SIPs, Structural Insulated Panels. Normal stick built construction, you frame up the walls, stand them up, put OSB (oriented strand board), set the trusses, OSB the roof. The rest of the process in finishing out the framing.

With SIPs, they are manufactured at the manufacturer's building an trucked to the job site. You can see the size of the panels from the pictures. When I went to work they were unloading some of the panels and I thought I'd skip out of work about break time an see how they were progressing, but a fellow worker who came by the job site about 9:30, told me they were 75% done. The first picture was what I found when I got there.

Keep in mind that there were only two framers and a crane doing this work. When I did construction there probably would have been 4 to 6 workers on this site.

You can see how they used the crane to lift the panels into place.