By Stacy Hunt
With finishing touches being added at the last minute, the 2007 PATH Concept Home saw its grand opening on June 6, 2007. The home, which appraised at $205,000, combines 2,000 square feet of craftsman style living with the latest in innovative systems and technologies.
The ribbon cutting and first tour of the home welcomed approximately 250 people, including Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Assistant Secretary Darlene Williams; Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey; builder Fernando Pages; and HUD Regional Director Macie Houston, Kansas City Field Office; as well as representatives from Fannie Mae, the U.S. Green Building Council, manufacturers, builders and the general public.
James Lyons, project manager with Newport Partners, the contractor managing the PATH Concept Home project for HUD, said that the completion of the home provides an opportunity to reflect on what worked and what didn't. "There are quite a few areas where we've learned lessons. For example, prefabrication really worked in the house as a technology to achieve better building efficiency and shorter cycle time, reduce material waste and improve quality. The foundation was prefabricated with insulated concrete forms, the building shell, and even the window trim packages were prefabricated."
However, prefabrication requires added upfront planning. Says Lyons of the window trim packages: "The system is fantastic, but accurate measurements for the windows are critical, so that when it [the trim] arrives, it fits." That may seem basic to some, but onsite fabrication of items such as window trim allow for a much greater margin of error. As a result, building teams aren't always familiar with accurate measuring for prefabricationo.
The PATH Concept Home team also learned that it's not that hard to make strides in all areas of sustainability — such as resource efficiency, sustainable materials and the footprint of the home — even on a reasonable budget. "Some of the things we did in the Concept Home you could do in any home, like duct sealing," said Lyons. On the other end of the spectrum, the home showcases a greywater recovery system, which isn't feasible in affordable housing, but is a highly effective approach to water conservation.
Visitors were particularly interested in the flexibility aspects of the home – both short-term, and long-term. In the short term, there was interest in the ease of changing out fixtures. In the long term, they liked being able to reconfigure the floor plan, add a residential elevator if necessary, or add on by simply enclosing the front porch.
Fundamentally, the project was a success. The Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) strives to apply innovative technologies, learn lessons about challenges in their application, and catalyze the development of appropriate solutions, and those objectives were achieved in this project.
"It sounds like a no-brainer," said Lyons. "When you're integrating a number of new and emerging technologies, you run into challenges. You've got to understand that it takes a lot more planning than if you're using familiar systems that the builder and contractors have been using for 20 years, and you have to account for time to navigate code and regulatory systems."
The PATH Program is intended to be a series of homes that continue to raise the bar, year after year. Newport Partners is in the process of interviewing builders for the 2008 PATH Concept Home, which will be built in Charleston, S.C. The standards will be higher in the 2008 home, which will feature additional technologies featured by the PATH program, as well as focus on hurricane and flood resistance and technologies appropriate for hot-humid climates.
The 2007 Concept Home features an audio tour, with stops at each area that features innovative systems or technologies, and will be open throughout the month for private tours and events. The house will be sold at the end of the month with a subsidized mortgage to allow purchase by a low-income family.
Stacy Hunt is a consultant and writer on building technology and green building. She is the former business manager of BuildIQ.
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