Jordan Smith, a design-builder with Smith House Company in Austin, Texas, is working through a wall assembly challenge for a barn on a hill country property. The goal: match the look and feel of a traditional wood-framed barn without the cost or limitations of a standard metal building. Smith walks through several wall system options — weighing spray foam, OSB, ZIP sheathing, and corrugated metal — before landing on his preferred approach: plywood sheathing moved to the interior for structural shear and a finished look, with polyiso exterior insulation acting as the air and thermal barrier, and corrugated metal cladding on the outside.

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