Every day, we hear about the affordable housing crisis across the US. Of course, it’s more acute in places like Silicon Valley and New York City, where the rents for a single bedroom apartment exceed the mortgage payments that most Americans pay.
It’s why there are serious moves afoot to change zoning regulations to allow what used to be called in-law bungalows be built- and be used by non-relatives in a slew of cities across the US. (These structures are now called ‘auxiliary dwelling units’ or ADU’s.)
This is why Module (based in Pittsburgh, PA) makes prefab housing (and these houses can be expanded as your family grows). Or Icon and Apis Cor that deal with 3D printed homes. They are all responding to the need for affordable housing.
The problem is that these houses are still not cheap. Consider the 1000 square foot, 1 bedroom Module unit. That starts at about $ 150K (house, cabinets, appliances)- but you still need to buy land, prepare the site, connect the utilities, etc.
And, then there’s FutureHaus. This prefab home was developed by the students at Virginia Tech. The student team (about 100 in total, but there were 10 key folks) is interdisciplinary- some undergraduate, some master’s level, and a few PhD types.
Sure, it won first place at the Solar Decathlon Middle East (Dubai). (The Solar Decathlon was conceived in the US back about 17 years ago. It’s become an international competition, where students design and build the various entries.)
This house is, indeed, energy self-sufficient and a smart home. But cheap? No way.
The house is totally modular. (Oh, wait, they call them ‘cartridges’, each of which can be prebuilt in a factory.) Bathroom. Office, Spare Bathroom. Bedroom. Kitchen, Dining/Living Room. The structure (the winning one of the 2019 competition) that is now being shown off Route 1 in Alexandria (right near where the new Amazon/Virginia Tech campus will be) was assembled in two days.
So, let’s tour the 900 square foot house. (It consists of 18 prefabricated cartridges, the largest of which is 3 by 12 feet.)
We enter via the entry module (d-uh). Which includes a half-bath- and a slew of electronic controls- for lighting, temperature, and appliances, as well as security features. (This house is NOT connected to the internet any longer, so it’s not atypical to see a different date and time displayed in every room of the house.)
We veer to the right to enter the kitchen area. To keep things safe, 
only induction cooking is used, so nothing is hot unless there’s a pot atop it. (No burned hands for you or the kiddies.) The cabinets move up and down, so folks of any height (or wheelchair-bound) can access same.
Doing a 180 provides us access to the living/dining area. The picture here is NOT the way the model home appears. Imagine that there are no table or chairs- and the room is bifurcated by a wall. That wall separates the living room/dining room from the office area. (The wall on the left actually moves to create either this great room as shown or to provide an office/living room area.)
Then, we proceed to the left to the bedroom. To ensure that the bedroom has multiple uses, there is a Murphy bed. You can pull the bed down to sleep (or nap) or leave it up for more space. (Behind the Murphy bed are receptacles to hold the pillows, blankets, etc, that will be needed to afford comfortable sleep.) As you can see, there is a mirror affixed to the Murphy bed both to fool the brain that there is more space and for checking one’s appearance.
The final room in the home is the full bathroom. The bath gets filled from the ceiling (laminar flow water, which they claim splashes not); this is contiguous to a shower stall. The toilet can be raised or lowered as needed, and the sink, while slick, leaves no purchase for soap, toothbrush, etc. (The floor in the bathroom has a weight detector, so it can adjust the height of the toilet to fit the person who stepped (or rolled) into the bathroom.)
The panels on the roof of the structure produce 18 kW of power- more than enough to heat and/or cool the home and to provide the power for the appliances- as long as the sun is shining. (There is no provision for energy storage in this design. As far as I’m concerned, that is a major failing.)
The final picture I am showing is the electrical hookups that are outside the home.This would be where the excess energy produced could be uploaded to the utility (assuming one lives in a geographical zone were that is tolerated).
I thought the house was slick. But, my buddy, an experienced builder, thought it too orthogonal- he thought folks would want more curves and nooks.
No energy storage is a big problem and I want greeen walls /vertical garden .Everything else is cool .
I agree with the energy storage. I am positive you could create hanging gardens- but would lose some usable space, Dr. A.
Hi Roy,
There are a lot of interesting features in this home and a lot of questions too. You mentioned it was being displayed near Amazon. Will I be able to order modules from them and will they be able to deliver them to my mountain top property by one of their drones? I am not sure that all of those features will make it more affordable or just more desirable.
The housing costs have to include the cost of serviced land and the cost of the services and the, of course, the taxes levied on the home and property.
Has anyone define what cost is affordable and what are the minimum requirements for such a home.
In the early 1950s soldiers returning from the war were determined to build a home for their growing families, (Baby Boom) A few standard models were being built in newly developed subdivisions. They were minimal designs and construction and were called War Time Houses. As the economy improved these were often expanded with additions or, a neighbour’s lot could be bought and a bigger more robust home could be built. Many were later demolished and more modern structures put in place.
In some places, the building standards that have been put into place to protect the buyers are being waved in favour of the builder being able to make a greater profit.
What is affordable and what is suitable? Does the cost of commuting justify moving to the suburbs or is it better for the environment to build to a higher population density. How do these decisions affect crime rates and safety in the event of environmental disasters?
I guess if it was an easy problem it would have been solved already. That reminds me of the meme that says “where there is a will, there is a way’ or maybe more accurately, the way my mother said it: ” whether there is a will, there is a way”.
In the meantime, Blog on!
Doug- in order…
These are pre-manufactured. So, assuming you can afford drone delivery in the first place- I’m sure it can be accommodated. And, with assembly in two or three days, there’s much to be said for that.
The current taxes would be no different than other homes on the property. But, you are correct, we must include the cost of purchasing and preparing the property upon which the house will reside. (I am sure leveling the mountaintop won’t be a really cheap price!
Affordability is in the eye (or is that the pocketbook) of the beholder. Modular home run from $ 70 to $ 130 per square foot- with is 10% to 24% cheaper than those built via carpentry.
The Levittown homes of which you mention were pretty close to premanufactured- all the wood was precut, each design was identical, and by building multiple units at once, the labor could move from site to site, keeping those costs (often the largest component of home building) very reasonable.
The cost of commuting- both in fuel and time is but one cost; the cost to the environment (pollution, road building, global warming) is often a higher, unconsidered costs. As is the difference in providing services to a compact community in one location compared to multiple diffuse communities.
And the owners individualized the Levittown houses the minute they moved in!
These modular houses are a bit pricey.
There IS a market for communities of tiny houses – organized for people with common interests – but those homes need to be in the 60-80K price range, with mortgages available, for the one group I know who is considering a place where people who have chronic illnesses can live in community – but in their own independent units (and can leave, and take it with them, if they need to).
You’re right – zoning laws are part of the problem.
Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt recently posted..New after a year Low-dose Naltrexone
Actually, Alicia- few of those Levittown homes were altered for the first decade. (Unless you want to count painting the insides.)
I don’t see any homes coming to market for under $ 80K, unless they are in rural areas. Because the price of the land is so high.
That’s quite unique, I like if or 1 or 2 people. However if you have to add the price of land on top of this, it doesn’t sound like it will be very affordable to those looking for affordable housing.
This house is way too technological to be truly affordable- but for those who want (or need) all those accommodations- and would put hem in anyway- it may be just the ticket. Not needing to buy any electricity for 200 days a year (since3 there is no storage for those days when there is excess production) can make this house more affordable, too.
The small home is the newest craze and often they are as expensive as larger homes.
I am not sure they are that expensive at all- unless you mean per square foot- and even then, the data doesn’t quite indicate that, Anna.