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10 Energy-Efficient Home Upgrades You Should Make

Sheri Koones — 2013-04-22T09:00:00 00:00

Filed under: News

On Earth Day and every day, we need to find ways to be kind to the Earth, preserve our natural resources and minimize the energy we are using. There are a variety of things that homeowners can do to make their homes more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Adam Prince of ZeroEnergy Design recommends implementing what you can now, while also creating a simple energy plan for the future.

"If an opportunity arises, you'll be ready," Prince said. "Think ahead about your decisions to improve your building shell, systems, appliances, lighting, and possibly add renewable energy. Having an energy plan in place will help avoid snap decisions and instead make the right decision -- for example, if your refrigerator breaks, if the roof needs replacement, or if you are about to finish the basement."

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Sheri Koones is an award-winning author and journalist who has written several books about building energy efficient and environmentally friendly homes. Her latest book is Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid: Your Path to Building an Energy-Independent Home, published by Abrams.

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Hurricane Sandy Housing Lessons: How to Build a Better Home

Sheri Koones — 2012-11-05T16:50:00 00:00

There were important housing lessons to be learned from Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged a good part of the East Coast last week.

Thousands of houses were without power for more than a week, and some are apt to be out for much longer. If those houses had been equipped with some form of renewable energy with battery backup, such as photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, they would have been able to have power and, perhaps, hot water -- even when they weren't getting power from the grid. The added advantage for the future, when the local power is restored, is that the homes would be able to give energy back to the grid in most locations and help lower utility bills.

Many of the people who have lost their power are currently sitting in very cold houses. One solution for those who are rebuilding -- or for those who want to just build better -- would be to construct their homes with such a tight envelope and super insulation that if the power goes out, the house can retain the existing heat for days on end. Building such a house involves the use of more insulation than code requires and exceptional attention to air sealing. This includes windows that are high efficiency and are not leaking air. A blower door test performed on the house will indicate where leaks may be in the entire envelope of the house. These leaks can be eliminated, making the house more comfortable and saving on fuel costs.

People are often concerned that building a house so efficiently will be very costly, but in reality, any additional cost for building such a tight, super-insulated envelope will begin to pay for itself from the day the homeowner moves into the house. After having researched home construction for several years, I have observed many houses that have either no heating system or just a minor system and are able to keep their homes quite comfortable by building a well insulated structure.

Another option that homeowners should consider is building their home using prefabricated construction. Many of the homeowners who have lost their homes in this storm will need a new one quickly. Building prefab can vastly shorten the construction time from a year or more to several months.

When people build homes for the future, they should consider building them stronger. Several years ago, in August 1992, after the high winds of Category 4 storm Hurricane Andrew, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that "overall, relatively minimal structural damage was noted in modular housing developments. The module-to-module combination of units appears to have provided an inherently rigid system that performed much better than conventional residential framing."

These houses held up so well because they were built to a higher standard. The modules are built to withstand traveling 60 mph on the highway to the destination where they will be set. They also have to be strong enough to be lifted with a crane and set on a foundation. Typical on-site built houses could never endure this treatment. Modules are built under the close supervision of experienced workers and in protected environments where the materials are not compromised by exposure to the elements.

There are other advantages to prefabricated construction as well. Bringing in modules is far less obtrusive to the neighborhood; they are more predictable with fewer change orders, which end up costing the homeowner a great deal more money; and materials are saved, with many of them recycled in the factory. The homeowner is paying for all of the materials that go into a dumpster during on-site construction. Most of that debris is recycled in a factory setting. Wood cutoffs can be used on other houses, and drywall and metal are returned to the manufacturer to be recycled.

Two studies showed multiple advantages to prefab construction. In a study done several years ago, "Framing the American Dream," when two houses were built side by side, one built in panels and one built on-site, savings were found in man hours, labor costs and lumber for the panelized home, and there was less scrap and fewer dumpsters.

In another study in Philadelphia -- where construction costs were exceeding the amount that homeowners could afford to pay -- a coalition formed by a group of nonprofit and for-profit organizations found that replacing stick-built with modular construction would save $32 per square foot. The coalition concluded that "modular single-family-home construction significantly lowers the cost to build a new home in Philadelphia."

People who have read my books on prefab construction often ask me, "Why doesn't everyone build their houses this way? The advantages seem to be so obvious." My answer is always the same: "Prefab construction is the best-kept secret in America."

Now that we require a great deal of new housing on the East Coast -- homes that can be built fast and on a tight budget -- people need to consider these very efficient and expedient options. They should also be considered by anyone thinking about building or remodeling their home in other locations as well.

Sheri Koones is the author of six books on home construction, four of them on prefabricated construction. She has won two Robert Bruss Gold Book awards by the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Her latest book, Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid: Your Path to Building an Energy-Independent Home, was released in October.

See also:
Hurricane Recovery for Homeowners
Home Insurance: What's Covered, What Isn't
Hurricane Sandy Mortgage Relief: Federal Disaster Aid to Storm Victims

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Why Your Next Home Should Be Prefab

Sheri Koones — 2012-03-21T09:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Design,News,Economy

While picking up some prescriptions recently, my local pharmacist, who knows I write about home construction, asked me if I had any suggestions for how he should build his new house. Since I'm a big advocate for prefab, I suggested that he consider building his house modular. His response shocked me: "I wouldn't want to build modular -- it would upset my neighbors and bring down the neighborhood." I thought that type of thinking about prefab was ancient history, but his response was clear evidence that it is not.

After having written several books on the subject -- filled with evidence of the beauty and diversity of prefab -- I thought we had moved past the bias that prefab is synonymous with double-wides.

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Prefab Options

Prefabricated construction includes all types of buildings that are either partially or completely built in a factory. Modular construction is one of the most common types of prefab. Large boxes are built in a factory and then taken by flatbed truck to a site and lifted with a crane into place. A house can be built with one box or 36 boxes.

Another common type of prefab is panelized construction. Large exterior wall sections of the house are built in the factory and put together on site like a jigsaw puzzle. A similar method is building with structural insulated panels, known as SIPs, which are like sandwiches of oriented strand board, or OSB, fused together with insulation in between. Other types of prefab include concrete panels, prefabricated timber frames and even some log cabins. The savings varies with prefab, depending on the size of the house, location and type of construction.

With all that I've learned over the years, I would never consider building a house on-site. The feedback that I get from my readers, when they have acquired some knowledge of prefab, is that they've become believers -- and wouldn't consider the on-site option either.

Environmental Impact

My preference for prefab comes from years of investigating the best ways to build a house.

As an environmentalist, there are many reasons to prefer prefab. Much of the on-site construction debris goes into a dumpster -- the homeowner is paying for the debris, dumper and tipping charges.

In a factory, wood cutoffs are sorted and used for other houses. Many of the cutoffs from materials, such as drywall and metal, are returned to the manufacturer for recycling. Materials are shipped in bulk to the factories, so they cost less and shipping charges are reduced.

Prefab houses are built in an environment where the wood is protected from the elements and has less chance of developing mold and rot. And it and won't twist and buckle, creating thermal bridges where air will infiltrate. Furthermore, prefab houses are built by professionals under the watchful eyes of supervisors who are checking the work all along the process.

These advantages are all in addition to the shorter construction time and financial savings associated with building prefab.

Cost Advantages

Several years ago the Structural Building Components Industry compared the construction of a site-built house to a panelized one in a study called "Framing the American Dream." The panelized house took substantially fewer hours to build, used less lumber, created far less scrap and cost 16 percent less in labor and materials. Another study from a coalition of Philadelphia building experts, titled "Going Mod," found a $32 savings per square foot using modular rather than site-built construction.

Over the years that I have been writing books on prefab, I have became more and more conscious of the importance of building houses with healthier environments and increased energy efficiency. Heating and cooling houses currently accounts for about 40 percent of the energy used in this country. With the environmental and political ramifications of acquiring energy from fossil fuel, I thought there must be a way to build houses that require less.

I have also been influenced by the recent power outages in the Northeast. Twice in the last six months, it took Connecticut Light and Power almost a week to restore power to my neighborhood. I began to consider how wonderful it would have been to be somewhat independent of the grid (the power utility) and be able to sustain at least some of the energy in our house during those outages. Through my research I've found numerous ways of limiting the need for energy in the home and several ways to create energy without the need for fossil fuel.

These options would make the house more comfortable and save on energy costs. According to a report last week by McGraw-Hill Construction, the green housing market is growing rapidly, having tripled since 2008. Green homes, which comprised 17 percent of new residential construction last year, are expected to increase by 29 percent to 38 percent of the market by 2016.

Prefab to Prefabulous

About a year ago I decided to write a book profiling prefabricated houses that require minimal energy. I thought it would probably be difficult to find enough of these houses in this country. To my delight, I found more than I could possibly include in one book.

The houses I found are varied in style, location and method of construction -- but they are all smaller, very energy and water efficient, with healthy environments, and with a more sustainable use of materials. The result of this search is "Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid: Your Path to Building an Energy-Independent Home." (It's scheduled for released by Abrams in October and is available for pre-order this week.)

I hope you will send in your questions and follow this blog to learn more about the advantages of prefab and environmentally friendly and energy efficient home construction.

Sheri Koones is an award-winning author of five books on home construction, with the last several focusing on prefabricated construction. Her most recent book is "Prefabulous + Sustainable." Her latest work, "Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid," will be released in October 2012 by Abrams.

See also:
WATCH: The Pros and Cons of Buying a New-Construction Home
Don't Be Surprised by Costs of Homeownership
Homebuyer's Remorse: How to Avoid and Cure

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Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
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