Roof Plywood Or Osb

Talking about plywood or osb for roofing you cannot miss the information of the cost.

Roof plywood or osb.

Because of this manufacturing process osb is at least half the cost of cdx plywood. Find the area of a roof. Unfortunately an osb is less resistant to water compared to plywood. Plywood is made out of laminated sheets of veneer.

It is generally believed that osb is cheaper than plywood. Thankfully there are osb materials today that are designed to be moisture resistant. Because of its construction some manufacturers actually make larger sheets of osb. It is true as the price of every osb board is around 15 20 per sheet 4 8 sizes.

A few other downsides to plywood. It s a top choice because of its characteristic wherein it expands evenly when exposed to water unlike osb wherein only the edges expand. To find the amount of plywood needed to cover a roof start by finding the area of the roof. Once the area is known divide by the area of a 4 8 sheet to find how much sheathing is needed.

Despite its common use as such we don t recommend using osb for subfloors but that s really just for aesthetic reasons. Plywood is better than osb for subfloors. New homes will usually see a few rainfalls before a roof is on and as noted above osb doesn t handle moisture well. Speaking of osb it s a top choice of homeowners looking for something more affordable than plywood.

However you might find that osb can better suit your needs than plywood for the roof. For plywood it is like 5 to 10 more expensive. Oriented strand board isn t plywood nor is it a type of particleboard fiberboard or wafer board and although it is a newcomer to a plywood dominated market its use for exterior sheathing is. Both cdx plywood and osb tend to come in standard sheets of four foot by eight foot 4 8.

Osb boasts a more consistent density. This is one of the reasons why some people prefer using plywood for their roof or subfloor. While a sheet of plywood might be 5 to 7 plies thick a sheet of osb is made from as many as 50 strand layers packed and compressed into the same thickness. Osb is made by combining glue resin and wood chips and pressing them into the shape of a plywood sheet then baking everything together.

Osb panels can be manufactured in lengths up to 16 feet or sometimes even higher while plywood is generally limited to 8 to 10 feet. Both osb and plywood absolutely hate water lipinskiy mentions going on to say that the most important part regardless of which decking option you choose is that all penetration points on a roof are sealed. It becomes soft and weak when it delaminates.