Exterior Wall Sheathing Thickness

So companies like norbord started creating tallwall windstorm panels to help alleviate this.

Exterior wall sheathing thickness.

According to the california uniform building code the minimum recommended thickness for structural panels used in wall sheathing is 5 16 inch for studs 16 inches on center and 3 8 inch for studs. But in practice most walls with too thin foam won t fail. 5 8 exterior gypsum sheathing has a type x core for use in fire rated assemblies. 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.

Structural exterior wall sheathing ties framing studs together making the walls resistant to twisting and bending. 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. Exterior gypsum sheathing is available in 1 2 5 8 thick 4 wide square edge product. 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.

Foam board thicknesses range from 3 8 inch to 4 1 4 inches. For covering existing siding 1 2 inch and 3 4 inch thicknesses are commonly used. Gypsum wallboard manufactured by american gypsum contains no asbestos.