Full Description

For millennia, house building was a one-house-at-a-time, site-built process. Since the early 1900s, off-site-produced homes have been appreciated for their affordability but not necessarily known for their high performance or energy efficiency. This paper shares key metrics for companies that are combining off-site construction techniques with certification to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home program to create homes that are both cost effective to construct and high performance to live in. Key performance metrics and measures for modular, panelized, and SIP homes are compared against all homes in the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program and against new homes built to code. These metrics show that off-site construction homes achieve energy performance similar to or better than site-built homes, and in the case of modular and panelized construction, at considerably lower average cost. The paper also highlights the experiences of two DOE Zero Energy Ready Home builders who employ off-site construction methods. One builder constructs production homes using pre-assembled panels. The other builder designs and ships kit homes all over the United States. The paper will focus on the optimum value engineering aspects of the panelized construction processes used by each builder to identify management and production practices employed by the builders to operate profitably while meeting high energy performance goals, despite a year marked by skyrocketing materials costs and supply chain and labor shortages. Cost and labor savings methods will be discussed in the context of these two unique business models.

Product Details

Published: 2022 Number of Pages: 8 Units of Measure: Dual Product Code(s): DBldgsXV-C060