Is Osb Plywood Good For Roofing

Sheets of 7 16 inch thick with no edge support can be used in an area where the snow load is 30 pounds per square foot.

Is osb plywood good for roofing.

We form the layers by shredding wood and then joining them together with adhesive. When osb does get wet it also tends to swell along the edges and those edges stay swollen even after the material has dried out. They work equally well for these uses are just as easy to drill into and have equivalent ability to hold nails. With edge support and the same snow load 3 8 inch osb can be used.

But still no one will blame you if you choose plywood over osb. University of massachusetts meets most building codes for roof and wall sheathing. Typical types of wood used for roof sheathing are oriented strand board known as osb and plywood the most popular being osb. 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.

There is no question that plywood is better then osb. Plywood holds nails or staples much better. While plywood remains a good and viable option the fact remains that osb is now the preferred choice. Both plywood and osb are used for sheathing roofs walls and subfloors.

According to dmitry lipinskiy owner of roofing insights there is a 5 chance that older homes will need a completely new decking system when their roofs are repaired. Use 5 8 inch c c pts grade for your overhangs and 5 8 inch cdx for the rest. Although oriented stranded board osb has similar uses to plywood it has a much coarser finish. As a homeowner if you find yourself in this position know that when you install a new decking system you will have to decide between using plywood or osb.

Today you can find osb in thickness from 7 16 to 1 1 8 for different applications from roof wall subfloor i joists and everything between. 2x greater shear strength than similar sized plywood source. However with osb the layers are more cross oriented. Like particle board and mdf osb comes from wood shavings.

Just make sure it is exterior grade ply so it will not delaminate if it gets wet. Despite its common use as such we don t recommend using osb for subfloors but that s really just for aesthetic reasons. New homes will usually see a few rainfalls before a roof is on and as noted above osb doesn t handle moisture well. Osb takes longer to get wet than plywood but also takes longer to dry out.