Exterior Wall Sheathing Thickness

In theory builders should make sure that any rigid foam installed on the exterior side of wall sheathing is thick enough to keep the sheathing above the dew point during the winter.

Exterior wall sheathing thickness. But in practice most walls with too thin foam won t fail. Minimum plywood thickness the international residential code specifies 3 8 inch plywood for sheathing walls with a standard stud spacing of 16 inches if the siding is nailed to the studs through. Structural exterior wall sheathing ties framing studs together making the walls resistant to twisting and bending. 5 8 exterior gypsum sheathing has a type x core for use in fire rated assemblies.

Gypsum wallboard manufactured by american gypsum contains no asbestos. The death of the 8 sheet one of the biggest items when sheathing a wall vertically is that the sheathing has to be continuous 602 10 4 5 which meant that an 8 sheet wouldn t cut it in many places so longer ones were required. Exterior wall sheathing strengthens the wall system provides a nailing base for the siding and gives a layer of protection against outside elements. Standard panels are 2 by 8 4 by 8 and 4 by 9 feet although some can be purchased in fan folded panels that run up to 50 feet long.

So companies like norbord started creating tallwall windstorm panels to help alleviate this. For covering existing siding 1 2 inch and 3 4 inch thicknesses are commonly used. Exterior wall sheathing is either structural or non structural.