The Clayton i-house

All about low-e windows and SHGC

2011-12-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

Low-e glass, like that used in the Andersen windows of the i-house, is manufactured with a microscopically thin and transparent layer of metal or metal oxide that reflects infrared “heat” energy back into the home, greatly enhancing the thermal performance of the window.

There are two kinds of low-e glass, hard coat (pryolytic) and soft coat (sputtered), and they fall into three levels:

1. Low-e glass with a low Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC, 27% of solar heat transmitted, 64% of visible light transmission which is abbreviated VT on window specs) reflects and keeps much of the sun’s heat energy out, but not light, out of the home. This is the best choice in warmer climates dominated by cooling.

2. Low-e glass with a medium Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (39% of solar heat, 70% of light), for climates that use both heating and cooling equally.

3. Low-e glass with a high Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (71% of solar heat, 75% of light) that allows the sun’s heat energy into the home. This is for climates that require very little cooling, and most of the energy cost is for heating.

A single pane of regular window glass has an R-value (insulation value) of only .85 whereas a low-e insulated window will have 3.5. That is a significant difference, in a window's ability to hold the heat in, especially in a house with as much window area as the i-house.

For example, here in Santa Fe, the highest summer temperatures are around 90 degrees, and few people have air conditioning. There have been summers where I didn't even use a fan once.So, I would want the #3 Low-e with HIGH Solar Heat Gain Coefficient. It keeps the warmth in during the winter, but lets in most of the hot sunshine.

Low-e coatings weren’t offered until 1979, so the main window in my living room, for example, is completely un-coated, which lets in 100% of solar heat. It is very good for solar gain in the winter, but doesn’t keep the room heat in well, so I cover it with a thick blanket at night. I have queried Clayton and will update this post when I get an answer on the values of their windows, and if they offer a high solar gain window for people in colder climates who want to take advantage of passive solar heating from the Sun.

This information on SGHC of low-e windows might be a thing an individual dealer might say “doesn’t really matter.” Yet, an architect doing solar design, would definitely incorporate the best kind of window for a specific purpose and location.I hope you find it helpful no matter what home you’re looking to buy, or especially if you are shopping for replacement windows.

Here's a video of a rep explaining low-e glass. He doesn't even get into the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient issue:

Here is a brief explanation of SHGC and when he gives a value of .4 that translates to 40%, which is a SHGC suitable for warmer climates. The lower the SHGC value, the more heat from sunshine the window will block.

No news on the debut of the i-house II, but in the meantime, why not check out my most recent post on the little solar home by Cavco, in my other blog, Greenotter's Manufactured Home Reviews.

For those you who wanted a separate guest bedroom with bath, but can't afford the i-House, check out my post on Palm Harbor's Avanti III. It is a clean modern design with a beautiful interior, 2 bedrooms and 1-3/4 baths all for $70,000. There's one for sale at a dealer in Oregon.

Poor man's i-house

2011-05-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

As I was making the rounds of manufacturers’ web sites, this stopped me in my tracks.

I think it is made by Marlette (owned by Clayton), out of their Hermiston, OR factory, and this model is for sale is at a dealer in Everett, WA, THE HERITAGE HOME CENTER.

The 700 sq. ft. one bedroom, one bath, “Value Edition 1440A” model pictured, has a base price of $34,000, but with the upgrades, like the photo, it is $56,000. Even the V-roof is a $7000 upgrade.

It is pretty nice looking but with a 8’ flat ceiling inside, and insulation of R22 (floor), R11 (walls), and R22 (roof), it just doesn’t…well, the Karsten SF 50, with an additional two bedrooms and bath, super insulation, and a 9’ ceiling, and lower price, would be a better buy.

It comes with 2 x 6” walls, which is good, and putting R-21 in them would be no problem, since this is built at the factory where the ihouse is made. If you’re interested, ask about stuffing more insulation in the roof too.

One thing I like about this particular design, the porch roof is extended more than on the i-house

What I like about dealers in the Northwest, is they sell single-wide homes with 2 x 6” walls because of code requirements, which seems to be a problem in the South. California and the Northwest have the strictest codes.

In ihouse 2.0 news, they’ve presented an improved floor plan, with a more open kitchen, which is a no-brainer. They‘ll probably be turning out a few for customers later this summer.

How bamboo flooring is made

2010-12-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

THIS FLOORING VIDEO from the DIY (Do-it-Yourself) network's DECONSTURCTION program, shows how bamboo flooring is made. It is a full program comparing different types of flooring, including carpet.

They demonstrate how bamboo flooring is stronger than oak flooring.

HERE IS A LINK to another DIY video, this one all about WINDOWS. After seeing this informative video about windows, click on WATCH ALL 25 DECONSTRUCTION episodes to see what other topics might be of interest. Using this link search service at the top you can also do a search for other cable shows about fixing up or looking for a house, like Sweat Equity, My First Place, House Hunters, or Property Virgins.

Here's another DECONSTRUCTION episode I liked, about granite counter tops. In one test, they show an advantage to solid surface counter tops (the upgrade on the ihouse), since if you drop a glass, it is less likely to shatter than on granite. They cite a statistic I didn't know... in new homes, 48% of counter tops are now granite.

Here's a link to one of my favorite episodes from PROPERTY VIRGINS, a show which takes first time home buyers through the selection and buying process. This particular show is in Toronto (so Canadian dollars) and I like the last house. It shows how comfortable spaces in a smaller home can be, especially in a colder climate. Each episode is similar. First the couple or buyer is taken to their dream neighborhood where the Realtor brings them down to earth about what they can really afford.

Having the how-to-fix shows on the internet is especially handy since even though they are on cable, the HGTV channel, the internet makes it easier to locate and watch something specific to a project you're considering. Plus, I don't have cable!

The home-search shows are educational and entertaining because they show the decisions all people have to make -- ones like location vs. size -- no matter what price level they are looking at. Even people with over a million dollars to spend sometimes have to choose between the one with the best view, and the house with better interior.

HOUSE HUNTERS is staged. They find a couple who has already bought a house, but hasn't moved in, and take them on a mock tour of two others. Still, it is enjoyable to watch as the viewer doesn't know which house they bought. I like the host of PROPERTY VIRGINS, if only for telling people they probably shouldn't take a sledgehammer to a brand new tile counter top, because they want granite, if money is at all a factor.

One show I saw had a kitchen with new white appliances, and the buyer said she'd change them to stainless steel, "to increase the value of the house." That doesn't make sense. The only way stainless steel appliances are going to do that is if she lives there for ten years, and then buys new stainless steel appliances when it comes time to sell the house.

ihouse on the DIY network

2010-10-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Clayton ihouse 2.0 coming soon

2010-08-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

Fill 'er up!

These are the plans for the new larger ihouse 2.0. I like that they've added more overhang to the roof, but don't think they should have stuck with a butterfly roof design. It's bad enough getting leaves and blown dirt out of gutters but to have a large roof configured in a shape that collects them...

Here's Preston Koerner's take on the plans for the new ihouse, from JETSON GREEN.

I'll have more to add to this post when I look at them more carefully. It certainly doesn't look like it is going to be cheap, but the people clamoring for a larger house should be happy.

Here's the offical ihouse 2.0 plan form, where you can write about all you like and don't like about the house plans. (Frankly, this is what they should have done for the first incarnation! It's a very good idea.)

First Clayton ihouse in Santa Fe, sort of

2010-07-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

Click on photo for large size, and use BACK button to return to blog.

The ihouse and New Mexico skies go well together don't they? And it is only a few blocks from me! I know it well, because I put it there myself, with Gimp. (Free software like Photoshop.)

I might do another post on how this is done, if anyone is interested. Since the ihouse is quite different looking, most people might want to try doing this before buying the house, using a photo of their property.

I used my photo of the model in Albuquerque and then Gimped it in a photo I took of nearby land, in 347 easy steps. Well, to do it roughly would be easy and take only 10 or 15 minutes, but the refinements I did on this one took much longer.

Curious as to what the ihouse would look like in all galvalume?

Here are the two photos I combined:

You can see I even took out the reflection in the core unit's sliding door of a neighboring house, and also took the stickers off the transom windows.

This photo is eight miles outside of Santa Fe city limits, on the plain. Most of Santa Fe is not this void of vegetation, but it is where I live. However, I have views of four mountain ranges from my property, and my house was the least expensive property I could find that was habitable, when I bought it five years ago.

For those of you who want to try it HERE are my instructions of how to do it in Gimp.

Previewing wall paint colors on the Clayton ehome

2010-07-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

Previewing wall paint color on a Clayton ehome, using software. from Green Otter on Vimeo.

For full screen, click on the 4-arrow symbol to the left of the word "Vimeo" in the lower right. When it is done playing, press Esc key to return to blog.

Did you ever have a great idea to paint a room or a wall a certain color, and wish you could preview a number of colors before you begin?

Once I felt inspired to paint my bedroom a deep forest green. When I finished, it looked like a nightmare. So I painted it over, with beige.

Using a photo of the ehome, I devised a method to preview a number of colors on the walls. This is the “B” kitchen in the largest ehome. It helps to have a photo of a room that is white or light color. Medium or darker colors wouldn’t work as well as a base photo.

Using Photoshop-like free software called Gimp, plopping down the ehome on a photo of some open land a few blocks from here was easy. Doing the colors for the metamorphosing room was another matter. That took all morning.

This ehome kitchen, didn’t look good in white, but as I discovered, it was just a matter of changing the base color of the island, and then it looks okay. You can see that near the end of the video. However, probably the safest color for this kitchen, is beige. Believe me, in my own house, I’m not always safe…I use metallic colors, day-glow orange, (both of the latter only as trim), French wall, painted doorway arches.

If I had a new house though, I’d probably be safe.

White looks great in some rooms, and I thought it looked good in the ihouse, not so much in the ehome, but in general, I like a warm color on the walls, even if it is very light.

There’s some basic rules about choosing wall colors, that I’ve often ignored, and regretted doing that.

One is that you MUST hold the paint swatch up to the place you are painting, to see the color in that place, before you buy the paint. Beige in the store lighting, or outdoors, can look green, yellow, pink or gray when it gets on the wall.

The other rule is that the color looks much stronger once the wall is painted in it. Select a very light green, even if it looks white, until you hold it next to some white, when you get it on the wall, it will look green.

Which colors would I choose?

Click to make larger.

I'm leaning toward this chocolate mousse for the bar base, and burnt Cambrian umber glazed in a....just joking, I'd probably go with brown and deep orange.

Incidentally, the music playing in the background of the video is Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, for harp and other instruments.

The Clayton “Evolution,” a separate flex room, without the ihouse cost

2010-07-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Click on photo to enlarge.

Since there probably won't be a whole lot of Clayton ihouse news while sales are so slow (20 units nation-wide), mostly due to the real estate downturn, I’m going to blog about other homes, which share one or more characteristics of the ihouse, but which are lower cost. Clayton is big and owns a bunch of different brands, but please write to me if you see a non-Clayton home at a dealer or on the web, that you think it great, in terms of energy efficiency alone or nice looking and reasonably energy efficient.

A reader drew my attention to this house, which I’d never seen before. It is the Clayton 2009/2010 “Evolution” (37EVL16802AH10), 1280 sq. ft., 16’ x 80’, and they offer a two bedroom model where the second bedroom and bath are separated from the main part of the house by a deck/breezeway.

As long as this is available with 2 x 6” wall construction, 8’ to 9’ flat ceiling or higher-than-usual vaulted ceiling, and upgradeable to R22+/19+/30+ insulation, it looks like it might fit the bill for someone who wants that separate flex room (for guests, older child, other relative) but wants to spend less than $75,000, (my guess, it could be well under that) which is not possible with the ihouse.

Although it doesn’t have the style of the ihouse, along with the ehome, it’s at the top of the few single-wide homes that have attractive exteriors. Unlike the ehome, the Evolution (link to a place where there are a few more little photos) does not have its own webpage, and you’ll have to contact a Clayton dealer to see if it is available in your area. In ways -- transom windows -- the “Evolution” looks like it is a predecessor to their ehome.

If I find better photos of the interior of one, and more info about the specs, I'll edit this post. If you run across something about it, or more photos, please write.

Another reader found a plan similar to the Evolution at at the Karsten dealer in Albuquerque. It is the Karsten HD-12. It has a breezeway, 2nd bedroom separate as a flex room, but does not show it with a bathroom, but that is probably an option. So, if you're near a Karsten dealer, and interested in this 2-bedroom separate flex room plan, ask to see the HD-12 in their plan book.

Here's a tip on how to use the Clayton Homes search, for example in this page for the "Evolution" at a dealer in Paris, TN

During the slide show,click on any photo for a close-up. Then click the "x" in the left corner to exit and let the slide show start up again.

Inner beauty, the Karsten SF-50 single-wide

2010-06-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

Karsten Homes SF50, the best single wide manufactured home? from Green Otter on Vimeo.

Click on the 4-arrow symbol to the left of the word Vimeo in the lower right corner. Press Esc after the video is done.

CLICK HERE FOR link to high resolution photos of SF-50 on my Flickr account. When you get to Flickr, click on SLIDESHOW to see full screen photos. Some of these are very dark. I forgot to use the flash assist! When taking photos of a bright window, if a camera is on automatic, the surrounding will be dark or even black. Even outdoors, if you are taking photos of people, and their faces are in shadow, you can override the automatic setting and use the flash fill, or whatever it is called.
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Since before there was a Google to google, I used to search on the web and ask?

“What is the best single-wide?”

Manufactured home dealers were late coming to the web, but when they did, there was little promotion of single-wide homes. They are also called “single-section” or more commonly, “trailers.” If there were mention of them, it was talk from owners of the problems with older ones, their cheap construction. Most people thought they were becoming extinct, because double wide homes were sometimes available at nearly the same price.

Dealer’s/manufacturer's profit margins were higher on the better double wide homes. When information on manufactured homes finally hit the web, manufacturers featured some photos of their their most attractive or popular double wide homes. They were the homes in which most people were interested, at least people who used the web at the time.

Manufacturers are trying to get away from the trailer stigma. By touting the biggest ones with granite counter tops and a shape and size more like the average size stick-built house, the assumption is created the same company builds the best lower end homes as well.

Even today, some manufacturers have only a floor plan of their single-wide homes on their website, not even a drawing, let alone a photo. There’s a reason for that. Most of them are ugly. And anyone interested will just come in and git one?

As the average new home size doubled over 30 years, people also wanted bigger manufactured homes. Why would anyone want to spend $53,000 for a single-wide home when for the same price, you could get a bigger double-wide in a different brand or line of homes? Obviously, one good reason would be that a good single-wide could be higher quality and more energy efficient than a double wide of the same price.

There are still parks in California where you can rent a single-wide lot for over $1000/month and people are still buying them all around the country, but the “higher end” single wide started disappearing many years ago, after the double-wide came on the scene. There are parks across the country where a single-wide spot is cheaper than a double-wide, but why shouldn't the single-wide dweller seek good construction and energy efficiency?

So, which are the best ones?

The Karsten SF50 (or SF51) has to be one of them. Clayton’s new ehome, which I reviewed in my last post, is also a top contender, as long as the structural upgrades are added, like 2 x 6" walls, and more insulation. The best thing about a quality single-wide home is the price per square foot.

The Karsten home has several things going for it. Outside, it is plain, but look at the eaves -- made of Hardie-board and on all sides, which in itself is rare. There’s no superfluous trim that is going to fall off thirty years down the road. No place for water to get under and in. From a construction standpoint, just looks very well made, clean and functional. Even after a few decades, high winds are not going to blow that siding off because there's no edge for the wind to catch.

Even though the outside, in terms of visual rhythm of the window placement, has little going for it, after looking at several homes, and trying to wrap my mind around some of the gables, trims etc., it felt good to look at something that was smooth, and functionally crafted.

The Clayton ehome also has eaves but not quite as wide as the Karsten. Many single-wide homes do not come with eaves on the sides, because they are too easily damaged in transit, at least that is what I was told by one dealer. Well, eaves not only look good, they protect the entire wall of the home. On a home with eaves and a gable or shed roof, rain falls on the roof, and then clears the side of the house, instead of drooling down, as it would on a house with no eaves on the sides.

The Karsten is a 2 x 6” sidewall home, with R21 in the floor, R19 in the walls (or you can upgrade to R21 in the wall) and R50 in the ceiling. It has nine foot flat ceilings throughout, panel interior doors, and drywall throughout, all standard.

The model I toured is as the outlet near the Karsten Factory in Albuquerque. Karsten is owned by Clayton but continues to produce its own line of well-made homes.

If you can get past the plain looking box exterior (see snazzier facade that is available in some markets, photo below), and enter the SF50, it is a different world inside. From the kitchen to the baseboard, and door frames, and doors, everything is simple but just right, joints meet perfectly, good room proportions, simple lines on cabinets, trim, and counter tops, which won't leave the interior of the home dated looking in 15 years.

The floor plan is similar to the ehome and most three bedroom, 2 bath single wide homes of around this size. The SF50 is 1185 sq. ft.

The master bedroom is planned thoughtfully, with room for a seating area, a door to a medium size walk-in closet, which also had an entrance on its other side to the master bath. The master suite feels private, with good isolation from the kitchen and living room. Not shown in my video, a laundry area near the back door, with room for full size appliances.

The second and third bedrooms both have closets.

The house was completely decorated but doesn’t come decorated or furnished. At Karsten, they hire a good decorator for the model homes, and the homes have great wall colors, and the single-wide looked stately, no small feat for a single-wide. I wouldn’t mind seeing homes totally unfurnished, but a lot of people would.

If you ever look at a home that is unfurnished or doesn’t have beds in the bedroom, like the ehome I toured, bring a tape measure and know the size of your bed. Put some string down to mark it off, so you can visualize if there’s enough room for you.

On the outside, aesthetically, the window and door placements don’t do anything for the outside of the SF50, but inside, the windows are in just the right places. When I took the video and photos, the blinds were closed with drapes at the sides. It was a hot day and the AC felt perfect.

The blinds and curtains make it dark inside, and it wouldn’t be nearly as light-filled as the ehome, but it would also be easier to make dark, for daytime TV viewing for example. It might be better for a park lot, or private property where you couldn’t get a good southern orientation, or you just wanted more of a feeling of privacy than having a big wall of windows, like on the ehome or i-house. (However, on any of these homes, you can opt out of windows, or add them, as the plan will allow.)

Speaking of sunlight, if lights are turned on, turn them off in a model home to see what it looks like, unless of course at home you are planning on keeping all the lights on during the day.

I’ve looked at some new homes that looked okay at first, but when I looked closer, many things started to look cheap, cheap, cheap. And there are new homes where just a few things stick out as too cheap right away. There are many older single wide homes, that don't have one thing going for them…ugly paneling, hideous wallpaper, cheap looking fixtures, low popcorn ceilings, thin walls, cheap looking materials, ugly floors...and the Karsten doesn’t have one of those things.

I'm not crazy about the dining room chandelier and ceiling fans, but Karsten could probably swap those for others you like.

Outside, the Karsten SF50 it is so clean and simple, there is beauty in the simplicity and energy efficiency of this home.

Karsten SF-50 is not available nationwide like the ehome, but it is worth checking out for people who have a Karsten dealer in their area.

For the price, $52,500, many people who would have to stretch their budget for an ihouse without many options could afford a full solar system for the Karsten.

Apparently, the Karsten SF50 also comes in this more Karsten-ish look with two front gables, and I wouldn't blame someone for wanting this more attractive version:

There's probably a lot of great single-wides out there that I haven't seen (by Skyline, Marlette, etc.) If any of you have seen a good quality well-built energy efficient new manufactured home, single or double-wide, in the $40,000 to $80,000 range that really impressed you, please tell me about it, and what made it stand out as special for you.

Lastly, I understand that some people who buy single-wide homes are on a strict budget and can afford only a home in the $25,000 to $40,000 range. My suggestion there is to look for a better quality used home, with good insulation, drywall, at least 8 foot flat ceilings or higher if sloped. Make final acceptance of your offer contingent on a home inspection by someone experienced with manufactured homes. A quality used single-wide, five to ten years old, holds its value better than a bottom-of-the-line new single-wide home with low ceilings, minimal insulation, and cheap everything.

The problem with finding a high quality used or new single-wide, is that in most areas, for every one that has 2 x 6" sidewall construction and good insulation, there are probably a hundred that don't. That's what makes the Karsten a rare find.

For people fortunate enough to live within fifty miles of one of the better factories, like the Karsten factory in Albuquerque, there's the advantage of knowledgeable sales staff, who know the product, and know things which are not listed on the spec sheets.

The factory dealer is different from a regular dealer, in that there's no standing inventory to push, except in a rare occasion when they are selling one of the older models in the model lot. Instead, they build the home you want (to a degree), and can even accommodate some options which may not be listed as options.

Are you as trailer-nutz as I am? If so, you might enjoy reading my other blog: Greenotter's Manufactured Home Reviews.

The ehome, a breath of fresh trailer -- MY REVIEW

2010-06-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

ehome by Clayton from Green Otter on Vimeo.

(In the above video, for FULL SCREEN, click on the four arrow symbol to the left of the word "Vimeo" in the lower right corner. Press Esc key when finished with video to return to blog.)

NEW ADDITION: My Flickr photostream of ehome high resolution photos.

Here's Clayton's ehome Flickr set. You can see the light wood option, although note that the seamed wall version comes molding dropped from the ceiling edge. Some of these photos look "virtual."

The EHOME (link to official ehome website) is an affordable alternative to the ihouse, especially for a family who needs two to three bedrooms, two baths, with a fresh modern style, passive solar, for well under $75,000, which is only the starting point for a one bedroom, one bath ihouse.

There are three outstanding things about the ehome, especially for a house in this price range.

1. The façade has got to be the best looking single wide ever made. It just looks great, no period of adjustment required to get used to it.

2. The basic passive solar design is excellent; few windows on the North, with most windows on the South.

3. The combination of transom windows and a ceiling that slopes down from the outside wall brings lots of light into the rooms.

In an ordinary house or double-wide, the ceiling is either flat or slopes up from the exterior walls of the house toward the center. In the ehome, the ceiling is highest on the windowed side and the light shines on a gently downward sloping ceiling. It is about 9 feet on the high side and 8 feet on the low side.

There’s more light on the ceiling than there would be on a flat ceiling making it a very light-filled house to be in. The spaces feel in good proportion and none of the bedrooms are tiny. The house comes with nice style window shades.

I toured the largest of the three models, the e1140, and they also make an e990 and two bedroom e900. (The number is the square footage.)

It had an upgraded master bath, a kitchen with sink in an island, a monster entertainment cabinet (optional) with stone surround where the TV would go, and be extra safe if it ever caught fire. Of course, the TV is the “electronic hearth” of this age, so maybe the stone surround is appropriate for such a thing.

This house was full of the optional built-in cabinetry in the bedrooms. It also had drywall, outside overhang over the front door, gas range, and 2 x 4” exterior walls (eeek). Pricing it on the ehome site, it ends up being about $85,000+ yet the dealer is selling it for $62,000, and that is negotiable.

The things the home didn’t have which you would want in your home are:

1. OSB wrap (OSB board under the siding, between the siding and wall studs.) This is a must-have option for people who don't live in areas which have high code standards and require it anyway, like California.

2. Upgrade wall construction from 2 x 4 to 2 x 6. (Cost is UNDER $900).

3. Upgrade insulation to R22,19,30 (or more?). This may come with the above or may be extra. Cost is around $400.

4. Wind and roof upgrades. Get the roof upgrade (rafters are closer together) if you have heavy snow loads, or just want a sturdier roof.

5. Get the drywall option. The model I saw had drywall. (It didn’t have drywall in the closets, which is of course, unnecessary there.)

The optional built-ins, like the entertainment center, might be a choice for people who are painstaking about matching woods and cabinetry. You can see from the price list on their website, they can add up. I wouldn’t get any of that stuff. However, I’m not obsessive about kitchen cabinets matching the entertainment cabinet in the living room, or such things. In this house there was enough matching going on just with the kitchen cabinets (real wood, everything else is laminated wood), moldings and interior window trim and wide-plank laminate floor. Too many matching matching built-ins would be overkill.

The particular home had the dark laminate (fake wood) flooring but they offer a lighter color scheme with lighter floors and cabinetry and I’d definitely get that!

Laminates in general, whether floor or trim, the medium and light colors look more real than the dark ones. Between the dark floor, the dark kitchen cabinets, the dark optional living room cabinets in the entertainment center, the dark laminate window and door frames, and the dark laminated crown molding...well, as I mentioned, I'd want to see this home with the lighter color package, of trim and floor especially.

For me, dark crown molding is too craftsman/tudor/colonial for a nice modern style like this home. However, it might look nice with some color on the walls. White walls do not look good in the ehome with the dark trim, except I liked everything about the master bath I saw, including the white walls.

The center panel of the kitchen cabinet door is translucent. That was a surprise. The cabinets are wood but the window trim, and crown molding is all laminated wood, which matches the cabinets.

From the outside, the house is so good looking, it made the two doublewides on each side look ugly. It would look even better with a block perimeter. However, like the i-house the back side is kind stark or characterless. (See my wobbly video. I show you the side the company won't highlight in their photos.)

The roof line is unique, in that it is an offset gable, one side longer. Coincidentally(?), many months before the ehome came out I suggested that as something to break out of the single-wide mold, in a post on this blog, although part of my reasoning was to create more roof area for solar panels. This doesn’t do anything for the solar panel situation, unless the roof can be reversed, which it can’t. Still, good passive solar design.

For people who may not have experience with laminate floors, they are rugged, and wear very well. If this floor hadn’t been so dark, the laminate itself might have been pretty nice. Like many of the recent laminates, it has a 3D grain pattern. That makes it less slippery for pets, children and old people.

A disadvantage of wood, is that people usually want to protect it in high traffic areas, with area rugs. You don’t have to do that with laminates.

Recently I watched some episodes of FLIP THAT HOUSE, and one contractor was putting laminate floors in renovations of $600,000 California homes. Usually buyers at that price level prefer “hard woods” and the green buyers want bamboo.

Clayton might be able to put bamboo or something else on the floor if you want it. An upgrade to stainless steel appliances is not mentioned on the website, but if you want them, just mention it.

I like the carpeting they used in the bedrooms. Nice neutral light color.

Unlike the ihouse, the ehome has no delivery charge and they are making them in many Clayton factories. The one I saw was made in Texas, by Southern Energy.

The ehome at this dealer had the “B kitchen” with the island with sink, with extended counters for eating, but no solid surface counter tops. The placement of the B kitchen with the eat-in counters looked nice, except this is the one kitchen configuration that cuts down on the dining area, making it long and narrow. Fine if you get a long, narrow table. Otherwise you might consider another configuration or, getting a regular counter instead of an extended one.

One of my friends who raised a family of 3 kids had eat-in counters (breakfast bar), they ate most of their meals that way. She loved it for serving, cleaning up, couldn’t live without it.

All the rooms had plenty of recessed can lighting with a CF bulb inside a diffuser that hid its CF-ness. Many lower end stick-built homes often ignore good overhead lighting, in the bedrooms especially.

The hallway to the bedrooms is wider than in the ihouse. Nice width, but looks narrow on my video for some reason.

The walk-in closet in the master bedroom was small and all the closets have seamed paneling instead of drywall. I have no problem with that in a closet.

It has a laundry area, near the back door.

There were nice faucets, tub/shower fixtures, door levers, cabinet hardware etc., but not quite as nice as the ones in the ihouse. Low E windows. Website says ehomes have vinyl siding yet this one had a combination of hard board, at the top half, and Hardie-board at the bottom.

The Karsten SF-50 makes a good comparison single-wide home, and in a few ways the Karsten, with a 9 foot flat ceiling throughout, had some nicer elements, like a big walk in closet, and a nicer looking master bedroom. At $52,500, the Karsten is about the same size as the largest ehome, and the interior finish may have been a little bit higher quality. I don’t mean the finishes, but the quality of the craftsmanship. The Karsten comes standard with 2 x 6 walls and R20, 19, 50. Of course the downside of the Karsten I’ve mentioned before, plain/ugly outside, not as good a passive design. I will be posting video of that within a few days. It makes a good comparison to the ehome, as the Karsten is one of the best of the more traditional single wide homes.

I liked the master bath in this particular ehome. I liked it because it wasn’t cramped, but it didn’t have a dance floor in the middle either. It had two sinks, but some people might think it didn’t have enough counter space.

The Karsten might be a better choice for people who live in a park or on a small lot, where they can’t take advantage of the solar orientation or the view possibilities of the ehome, or want a more private feel. The Karsten also might be better for someone who wants solar panels. Karsten homes aren’t available nationally though.

The sales manager of the Zia Homes lot where I looked at the ehome claimed that although it is offered as an option, the ehome hasn’t been ordered [anywhere] with a metal roof. He didn’t give me a reason why.

In the ehome, furniture is not included, but this home had some nice leather furniture and if you like furniture in a house, that is always negotiable, even if it is just one chair or the sofa you want.

The dealer had rocks in their lot and I got on my back and looked under the house. Looked well made. Bring a flashlight and don’t be afraid to look under a house if it is accessible.

The ehome is flexible downward on price. Did y’all know that? A dealer or salesman is given a price they can’t go below, but it is up to the purchaser to bargain for a lower price, and get closest to the dealer’s lowest price that they can get.

It helps to not get too emotionally attached to any salesperson or home though, and also to always have another home as a serious consideration, or at least be able to act like you have another home as a serious consideration, and not another Clayton home either or one that dealer carries.

It’s not like you have to lie-like-crazy to get a good deal. However, it helps to act with a little reserve, and not show that you are too crazy about a house.

Of course, I told this dealer up front that I was not a buyer, but just a blogger, and exactly what I was doing. My one experience in buying a manufactured home (which I pulled out of because my stocks crashed), was okay and all the salespeople at that place were easy going and laid back, which is the kind I like.

If you encounter a salesperson who seems irritating or promises one thing -- “we can get you the bamboo floor on this” -- but then finds out they can’t, and keeps stringing you along with things like that in order to get you to commit, just go to another Clayton dealer. It is not necessary that you find a person who knows EVERYTHING about a home, just that they are able to get answers within a day or two.

Don’t be shy about going to the sales manager if your salesperson doesn’t seem to know much about a home. The sales person learns from that too.

Since the ehome website is complicated, play with the configuration tool, make sure you are seeing all the options, and try to learn as much as you can about the home from that website. In that way, the salesperson can pick up on the fact, you know about this home, and they don’t have to “sell” it to you, but instead, just help give you what you want in the home.

It is okay for a salesperson to tell you that their model on the lot is a SPECIAL DEAL, but if you make it clear you want a 2 x 6” home, and the salesman persists in trying to interest you in a deal on the 2 x 4” lot model, just try to make it clearer you aren’t interested in it.

On the other hand, finding out how low they can go on the lot model, gives you some bargaining power for the home you want to order.

Take notes, and write all your questions down before you go into the dealer, on the 2nd time you go into the dealer. Look at a home two or three different times if you want, like different times of day. Many dealers are listing their lot inventory and some even show photos of each home.

If you have seen one ehome you like, but are near to other dealers with ehomes, call them up and go look at them if they have a different color scheme, size, master bath, or kitchen configuration. If you are near a factory, and have never seen how manufactured homes are made, call to schedule a visit for a tour of how they are made.

Unlike the ihouse which has modular zoning, and could be put in areas which do not allow single-wide homes, the ehome requires an area which allows single-wide homes.

Overall, given its low price, and discounts being offered because of the slow market, the ehome is a badly-needed modernization of the single-wide, something more manufacturers should be striving for in their low to mid range models, and to bring passive solar design into very affordable homes. It’s a nice improvement over the more standard single wide.

HERE are some more photos, of an ehome at a dealer's in Evans, CO, taken by one of my blog readers. I think it shows why just in terms of aesthetics, it is necessary to upgrade to drywall. The seams in the ceiling and walls are ugly and very trailer-like, along with the strange dropped molding, although the texture of the paneling itself looks nice.

Here is her 7-minute video tour of the model in Evans.

Clayton ehome with seamed paneling in Evans, CO from Green Otter on Vimeo.

Lastly, here is Clayton's promotion video that has a few nice shots of the home with the lighter cabinetry and floor:

Clayton ehome construction varies according to location.

2010-05-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

A reader challenged me on my assumption that Clayton "ehome" -- their new inexpensive single wide with some green features not to be confused with the ihouse -- comes with 2 x 4" sidewall construction. I assumed this because the ehome website lists the standard insulation as R11, 11, 21. That is, R11 in the floor and sidewalls and R21 in the roof. That is invariably the insulation offered with a 2 x 4" sidewall home, and the cheapest single wide homes made. By no stretch is that level of insulation "green" or energy saving. In my initial post about the ehome I recommended that anyone considering the ehome ask about the possibility of upgrading both the side wall construction to 2 x 6" and better insulation.

I called Clayton this morning to straighten it out. I was told that in areas where the code required it, like Northern California and Oregon, the ehome is made with 2 x 6" sidewalls. Beth also said that in areas where the house is built to 2 x 4" sidewalls, like New Mexico, you can ask a dealer to upgrade to 2 x 6" sidewalls AND upgrade to insulation above the minimal R11, 11, 21.

If anyone reads something on my blog that conflicts with information they got from a dealer, please write in, I will try to straighten it out.

A one bedroom ihouse with $100,000 of upgrades!

2010-03-22T11:02:00.001-07:00

Here's an article at Knoxvillebiz.com about a couple ordering the $75,000 one bedroom core ihouse, and adding $100,000 of upgrades to it, including things like "automatic sliding doors."

From the architectural form of the exterior, I prefer the one bedroom to the two bedroom, and it is nice to see someone with an unlimited budget buying one.

If anything, this shows Clayton's willingness to customize, for a price. You can see more photos of it on Clayton's FACEBOOK page HERE, as well as some nice snowy winter photos of an i-house with LARGE flex room in Virginia.

The article has some other interesting tidbits too.

Apparently, Clayton's hotcakes are still soldered to the griddle, holding at only 20 ihouses sold.

Champion homes ‘Go House’ makes a go at green affordable

2010-02-09T11:38:00.000-08:00

An article in the New York Times today, The Rise of ‘Green’ Modular Homes, mentions the Clayton ihouse as leading the charge with affordable modular green, with some other contenders making their first showing at the Las Vegas International Builders’ Show last month.

The Go House, a new green modular (configurable from 1375 sq. ft to 2000+ sq. ft.) by Genesis (a modular division of Champion Homes), is mentioned in the article, so I might as well introduce that too.

The Go House is a green modular which can be configured in the traditional ranch, or cape cod style. The house is cute enough, but it would be fun if they allowed more flexibility in style and size downward.

Even so, with modular design, the ultimate control of the consumer to configure a house the way they want it isn’t far off. Of course, it is here now in more expensive custom homes.

They invite playing around with their online configuration tool, and it is nice to be able to put on a garage(s), but it doesn’t calculate the garage price automatically. By clicking on the “?” in a field when you get to the cost estimation step, it explains how to calculate the extra fees, everything from foundation to contractor’s fees.

"Freight" on this is going to hurt, unless you live within 200 miles from the factory. Finding out where their factories are is another chore not made easy by the website! Okay, I found it. Go HERE to determine how close you are to a Genesis factory.

After a little ado (instead of much ado) I located the PDF of the house specs and basic features HERE.

The more I think about it, I realize why I looked at this before and didn't include it in my posts. It just isn't offering much of anything that is new and seems like too much green washing going on.

Could be a possibility if you live close to a factory though.

Five new affordable green modular homes from Excel

2010-01-27T13:46:00.000-08:00

September 2011 update...These homes are no longer offered by Excel.

Last week, the new year brought us the Osprey (from Nationwide Custom Homes/Palm Harbor Homes) and other modular eco-cottages, and now another challenger to the Clayton i-house; an energy star rated (30% more efficient than average), green modular line of five new small home designs. They come from a big player in modular housing, Excel Homes of Pennsylvania.

These homes are available in the following states only: ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, NJ, DE, MD, VA, WV, NC, SC, and OH.

Read their blog, with the most recent post about their new affordable series, STARTING LINE UP aka Ultra-Value Series.

The five homes in the series start at around $60,000 for the 556 sq.ft. "Trailblazer," to under $100,000 for three models that are all 945 sq. ft. One model, the “Craftsman Bungalow,” is 771 sq. ft and will presumably fall somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000.

Excel is adapting to the market and it's a timely addition to their larger home series.

In the introduction to their new ULTRA-VALUE series, they explain how they've kept the prices on these homes rock bottom by offering no customization options.

Unlike the i-house, where Clayton might be able to move a wall, add a bathroom, or put a window where wall is currently, or vice-verse, all five homes in this ULTRA-VALUE series come as is. As far as I can tell, no flooring options, color selection, or upgrades of any kind.

Again, go here to see the floor plans.

I’ll comment on each one individually, from what there is to go on. Also, over the next few days, I will edit this post and be making changes(photo-shopped) I would make, if I were designing these homes. Sometimes I look at a home and see immediately something isn't quite right...well, I'll try to make it right doing very simple things. So, here are all five homes starting with the smallest:

The 1 bedroom, 1 bath 556 sq. ft. "Trailblazer"

"Trailblazer" comes 95% completed from the factory, and can be shifted from the flat bed truck to the foundation, without need of a crane. This keeps the price low. All these homes can be set up in one day and set up is included with the price.

My improvement to the home, (second photo) is the addition of an overhang above the front door. I just clipped a bit of the roof to do this quickly. Always good to have this in the rain and it balances the appearance of the facade. All but two of the changes/additions I recommend are something a homeowner could do easily after buying one of these homes.

The center dormer with all the windows, makes for a dramatic interior on this little "Trailblazer" home. What's up with Excel showing one measly “virtual” interior rendering per house. Too costly to press a button on the architectural software and pop out several views of the interior AND exterior of each house? Perhaps they haven’t finalized the kitchen and bathrooms.

They’ve got a blog here on the new designs, and are looking for reader feedback, so I love them for that. Anyone with an opinion can go at them.

This is what more companies should do before they introduce a home. It is one of the things the web allows, of which too many companies are not taking advantage.

I’ll eviscerate their designs here instead of on their blog though, since, to be fair, these are just my initial reactions, and their homes aren’t even available in New Mexico.

Starting off with several things I don’t like about their website. First of all, where are the specs? They want a person to write in to get a more detailed floor plan in PDF, giving address and phone etc.

Again, this is part of my harangue about how housing manufacturers are not using their websites to full potential for presenting information. They put things out like they are paying per page, as in a brochure, to advertise. I don’t know, many of the companies probably contract their website design out and have to pay per page.

Or when specs or vendors change, they don't want to be responsible for having to change it on their website too. More each year, companies, when they contract to outside web designers, will need at least one person in their firm, who can make changes as needed to the website, including adding photos. Or, they can hire people who work at home, to make these changes for much less than it would cost to always have a web design or ad agency controlling the content of their website.

When considering a home, or trying to compare, I like to see specs up front before talking to anyone. Salesperson contact, and human contact is as important as ever. It is just that full information properly presented on a company's website, can help that contact to happen.

House models are not like cars, where everyone can see them driving around. The web is a housing company's opportunity to show the world their houses, and everything about them. See my former post on Marketing homes in the age of the web, HERE.
Look what Nationwide/Palm Harbor did with the Osprey…they showed over a hundred photos of it in various stages of construction. I like that! I like seeing the size and spacing etc. on the floor joists they are using.

It is frustrating to have to contact the company to find out what the R-values are in the insulation of a home, or how the wall sandwich is made, or who supplies their siding.

On the good side, I don't mind their idea of doing everything they can to keep the price low, even down to the lack of customization.

The “Trailblazer” with all those windows on the south side, would be great for passive solar gain in the winter. And it has half the roof at a good angle for solar panels, to be added at a later time.

No windows on the north, which is good for passive solar.

The 771 sq. ft. 2 bedroom, 1 bath “Craftsman Bungalow.”

This home is a real cutie. It's simple, and they got the proportions and visual rhythm of the porch and windows down right. It doesn't look dorky. It is the steeper roof pitch that makes it look more genuine than manufactured homes which sometimes imitate this style.

In my version, I've added a window I borrowed from a photo of Sears Craftsman bungalow, making it look a little more Craftsman-like, and painted maroon just for some contrast.

The interior plan looks nice too. For a couple starting out, they could add a bath and bedroom as their family or needs expand.

The only drawback, which for me is a personal preference, is that it wouldn’t be optimal for passive solar gain in the winter. So, the “Trailblazer” or "Prairie View" would be my pick, for passive and active solar design.

The designs of all these houses are pretty simple on the outside, but their strength is in the interior design, nice proportions and quality for the price.

The 945 sq.ft. two story, 2 bedroom, 1 bath “Craftsman Cottage.”

This might be good for a narrow lot, but the exterior design is too plain and somewhat unbalanced looking. But, I've seen worse. In this photo, you can't see a nice Craftsman-style window that is on other side of the house. It looks good on the inside.

In my version, I moved the white band up about one foot so the house doesn't look top-heavy. It looks equally good with no white band.

What I can see of the interior looks nice though, except there's the inconvenience of going upstairs to use the bathroom. For me, the priority is the interior, energy efficiency, price, and quality of construction, over exterior appearance. It would be nice to have it all though.

The 945 sq. ft. 1 bedroom, 1 den, 1 bath “Prairie View”

This split shed roof design with clerestory windows makes my pulse quicken. It is great for passive and active solar. The double shed roof, or split gable (I think it is called) is one of my favorite designs. There's a house of this style down the street from me, but it is not as proportioned as nicely as this one from Excel.

Looking at this, something is off though. The three windows in the front make the front portion of the house look like a garden shed which was enclosed, instead of part of the house. The proportions are nice and good roof slope etc. I'd like to see real photos of all these homes instead of the virtual ones.

In my version I replaced the trio of square windows in the front with a quartet, and voila, music. I'm very pleased with this change. It is subtle, but makes the home look better. The front half no longer looks like a shed. I also figured out what the real problem was. It was the square shape of the windows in the front, more than the number used. The square front windows echoed the square windows of the small clerestory windows, and it was just too many square windows! Now, the clerestory windows look better too.

About the sunken living room in the interior... First of all, there’s the going up and down steps just to go between the living room and other rooms. Secondly, in colder climates, cold air tends to sit in the lowest spot. On the other hand, in a warmer climate, like South Carolina, this temperature difference can be welcome in warmer months. And, a level change can be dramatic in a home. Their website says this was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie designs.

I want to see more views of the interior of this home, like how the clerestory windows look from the kitchen. One great thing about clerestory windows is that on the south, they flood the home with light, but inside the home it is indirect light. They are high enough that you never look right at the sun coming in, and no need to shade them. In the summer, with sun overhead, they don't heat the house nearly as much as skylights. And in the winter, they let in more solar warmth when the sun is lower in the sky.

Finally, the 945 sq. ft. 2 bedroom, 1 bath L-shape “Villager.”

This is a nice variation on the traditional ranch, in that it creates some enclosure with the L and nice separation of one of the bedrooms, without the wasted space of long hallway found in many ranchers.

When I first saw this photo of the exterior, I thought it didn't look very good because of the window placement. See how the windows on the right, are right up against the edge of the house. I don't like that. However, that window placement, along with the windows on the adjacent side, can look very cool INSIDE, a wrap-around effect. So, sometimes it is worth a sacrifice of something that doesn't look all that great outside, for what it brings to the interior of a home.

The window in the bedroom (front, on the left) bothered me. It looks like a 1960 ranch house picture window, and didn't go with the style of the other windows in the front of the house. So, first I tried either putting a single or double window there, same kind as in the front. That looks fine. However, in a bedroom, a lot of people don't want a window that when open in the summer, is big enough for someone to crawl in.

So, I left the window as it was, but added a mullion (dividing stick) and I think it looks better. It could be a do-it-yourself project.

Since 1984, Excel has had a reputation of building reasonably-priced modular homes -- over 27,000 of them -- with the overriding principal that their homes -- the more expensive ones anyway -- are pretty much indistinguishable from site built. They don't stray from traditional styles, but being modular, they can be built faster and with better control and quality.

Along with looking like site-built, owners can have peace-of-mind their home itself will be a good investment.

In the past, the starting size of their homes (over 1000 sq. ft.), the level of customization, and the number of larger more expensive homes they build precluded me from paying much attention to them, even though their homes frequently win modular awards for design in their price range.

Even though I want to review mostly green modular homes that are nationally competitive with the i-house, I thought I'd stick these in, because I like all of them, and the Clayton i-house can't be delivered in parts of NY State and some other places because of bridge height. Also, some of these designs might be better for areas with big snow load.

How different these homes are from the attention-getting California green modular builders, who kept [only] wishing for mass production on a scale that would bring their homes down from an outrageous $250+/sq. ft. Excel sells many homes, instead of a handful, and is still in business for a reason. While many other builders closed shop, they followed the market without attempting to create cutting-edge modern designs that people can't afford, and they have a good reputation.

I'm not against architects exploring any ideas they want, no matter how far fetched, but I'd like to see more small, affordable green homes go into production, and its great to see Excel, Clayton and Palm Harbor catching on. Smaller is greener. It saves energy.

I'd like to throw in a link to MODULAR HOME BUILDER, a blog by Gary (modcoach) of everything and anything having to do with what is going on in the modular home industry. Sometimes it can be difficult to navigate through manufacturer's websites to find what is new, and keep track of the inside business news, and Gary does all this and more. Unlike some of the green blogs, his experience in this industry allows him to see through a lot of the green hype.

Clayton i house has a FACEBOOK page

2010-01-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

The Clayton i-house FACEBOOK page has many links to blogger's mention of the i-house, including satisfied owners or visitors.

Frankly, a few of the posts are kind of thin, e.g, "I love the i-house and want to get one." A few are quite good though, better than some of the articles.

For any blog posts by disgruntled owners, you'll have to tune into my page, because only I will link to them, ha ha.

Also, note to Nigerian mail scammers posing as beautiful Siberian women who just want plane fare to get the the U.S., the Clayton i-house is not dating anyone.

While I'm here, might as well throw in two opinions of the i-house by friends of mine, who have gone to visit it. One guy who hates manufactured homes, really liked the i-house but said he would be concerned with "investment value." Then again, he's very wealthy and looks at everything in terms of investment value.

Another friend of mine, who saw the model in Mesa, AZ, and she has a beautiful house, said she really liked everything about it, except the trim molding between the ceiling and wall. She thought it should be rounded, at least at the lower edge, rather than perfectly square. Like over half of the people interested in the i-house, according to my poll, this was the first time she ever went to a dealer of manufactured homes.

A challenger to the i-house, Palm Harbor Homes eco-cottages

2010-01-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Model at top is "The Osprey" which will be at the Int. Builder's show in Las Vegas, Jan 19-22.

Click on any photo to enlarge.

It was only a matter of time, before another major manufacturer introduced green manufactured homes, and now Nationwide Custom Homes, a subsidiary of Palm Harbor Homes -- a major builder of manufactured homes -- is introducing their new line of “eco-cottages.”

I'm going to be editing this post, adding interior photos as they become available and including more accurate information as more is known about these eco-cottages. Rather than a challenger to the i-house, now that the specs are in, they are shaping up to be more of a tinier alternative.

Go HERE to see their website. It shows three or four models with variations of roof style and configuration. For example, two can be put together. The Osprey is modern but others are more traditional cottage style. All of them are as cute as they get.

Update: I just read a blog from a person who attended the show, and the 523 sq. ft. Osprey will have a price of $60,000. The show model was tricked out with Gaggenau (Click HERE to see PDF of what that entails) kitchen appliances, and other options that do not come with that price.

Download floorplans, photos, and specs from this page.

Although my blog is dedicated to the i-house, I want to introduce the major reasonably-priced green homes as they come along, since the i-house is not available everywhere and also some people may be looking for something smaller or different.

One of the several models, the one bedroom 523 sq. ft. “Osprey” will be shown to the public for the first time at the International Builder’s show in Las Vegas, NV on January 19-22, 2010.

HERE's a short slide show of some bad photos of the Osprey and other modular homes at the show.

Here's a link to some much nicer photos of the Osprey from the Charles & Hudson Green Building blog. The bathroom! What a jewel.

HERE is a large photo set of the Osprey and other homes Nationwide had at the builders' show in Vegas. (Click on full screen icon to see larger photos.)

Dig those ceiling fans in the living room. They remind me of atomic bombs or the propellers used on the Hindenburg. Oh the humanity!

How to you feel about the bottom of the V running the length of the house as reflected in the ceiling line? I'm not sure, although it is cool, the way the kitchen changes to just a shed slant. That's a nice design element.

All these photos but no good shots of the bedroom or the bathroom. I like the bamboo covered wall behind the TV. This little house has some nice things going for it! It might make the one bedroom i-house seem spacious in comparison though. The wall space in the Osprey is better suited to the philatelist than the collector of fine art.

HERE is an extensive photo set from Nationwide Custom Homes, showing the Osprey being made. Note the SIS (Structural Insulated Sheathing) foam paneling they are using to tighten the building envelope.

The show model features a standing-seam metal roof with integrated thin film solar ($7500 upgrade from roof without solar), and other green features similar to the i-house…bamboo floors…point-of-use hot water, Andersen windows, but also with some cork, no-duct heating, and LED lighting.

One aspect of the Osprey -- and the other models as well -- that goes beyond a regular park model RV cottage and is comparable to the i-house is the insulation. It has R20 walls, R19 floors, and R38 roof. (Some sites list the show model as having higher insulation.) Another nice feature; the decks are included and integrated into the structure. (The extra decking for the show is not part of it, just the front and back decks.)

Nearly all park models -- but not all -- come with only R11 insulation in the walls. There are a few small builders, that use SIPS. With SIPS, you can get more insulation per inch. For example, this prefab from Solargon of Colorado.

The styling on these eco-cottages is very cottage-like, with wide eaves, porches, wrap-around decks and other things that don’t usually come on most manufactured homes.

They are meant for vacation homes, retirement residences, or backyard "granny" or guest cottages. It is disappointing they haven't used either SIPS (Structurally Insulated Panels) for walls or 2 x 6" studs in the exterior walls instead of 2 x 4". However, at least they developed a hybrid (foam/batt) to get more insulation than most homes built this way.

Eco-cottages are built on piers or a foundation [probably] and not be moved around, although if you have a lot that is in an RV park, they can build one to conform to the codes for that.

The company is based in Virginia, with facilities in Georgia and Alabama, but distribution will probably be nationwide. Pricing is not yet available but their website says all the homes will be between $25,000 and $90,000.

The International Builders' Show, where the Osprey is now making its debut, is featuring four smaller, greener modular homes than usual but the theme that is stealing the press of the show, is the downturn of the economy. This year, for the first time in the decades the show has been going, they do not have a multi-million dollar dream home to showcase all the latest innovations and products. The builder for this year's 3.5 million dollar home lost financing, so it wasn't finished in time and they sold what there was of it for $500,000.

Instead, they are replacing it with Marianne Cusato's VIRTUAL $95/sq. ft. home, but they didn't build it. Even though she isn't interested in building modern designs (which is unfortunate, because I would like to see what she would design), Cusato is one of my favorite architects. Here's a question and answer I found interesting. And HERE is a list of articles where Cusato is mentioned.

i-house off to slow start in sales

2009-12-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

In a USA Today article HERE, about Clayton’s latest green home, the “ehome,” a Clayton rep reveals that only 20 i-houses have sold since May. There’s lots of interest in it, but not that many buyers. I was surprised. I thought it would be more like forty or fifty.

Does this mean the i-house is a flop?

Not necessarily. It is going to take a few years, maybe more, to tell how successful the i-house will be.

The i-house is something very new, and especially in this market, people are more cautious about the investment value in a home. In past months, manufactured home companies and home builders have gone under right and left. That won’t happen to Clayton, but it would be unrealistic to expect that in this market, when so many conventional homes are in foreclosure or at very low prices, that the i-house would start selling like hotcakes.

Plus, it needs time to catch on. The sales of the Toyota Prius did not take off until the third year, and a car is something people can see all over on the road. Fortunately, Clayton is a large company and has the time to wait to see if sales pick up, when the market picks up.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like many things about Clayton’s super affordable new ehome, but the R-11, 2 x 4” sidewall construction spoil it for me. The i-house, as you know, has R-21, 2 x 6” sidewall construction.

Frankly, in this market, I don’t think even an affordable wonder, like a zero-energy home for the price of the i-house, would sell well.

This makes me wish Clayton introduced the i-house in 2002, instead of this year.

An i-house gets delivered in Kentucky

2009-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of the flex unit being delivered to a new owner's property in Kentucky. Good shot of a perimeter block foundation. They have a blog about it HERE with some more photos. They are just moving in. Give them a few weeks and they'll probably have some more photos.

Here's another mention of the same house, and Preston of the website Jetson Green, is going to interview the owners and I'll post a link when the interview article is posted.

The Clayton i-house model, a second visit

2009-09-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

The first time I toured the i-house model in Albuquerque in July, they were still working on it. I wanted to see it again, finished and get some more photographs. All the finish work is done, everything gleaming, and I wasn’t disappointed. It is really beautiful!

Sometimes modern interiors can feel sterile, but the i-house doesn’t. It feels warm, clean, spacious yet comfortable. There’s something about the wedge shape of the roof line that makes the rooms in the core feel less boxy than most houses. At each end, the wedge shape opens the house out, to the outdoor deck spaces.

I took some more photos, HERE. (These are mixed in with my older photos, but the first 40 or so are the new ones, click on "slideshow" for full page.) Looks so much better with the furniture in, without dust on everything, and with the railings and roof deck.

Here's another Flickr photoset of the ihouse, of 16 photos taken by Kelly. If something looks a little different from my set, not only is the outside light not as intense, but the floor plan is flipped on this model.

Sitting inside the flex unit, it had a comfortable feel too. On my first visit, if you read my more extensive review, film hadn’t been removed from the doors, there was a thick layer of dust and drywall coating spatter on the edge of the floor, and other things hadn’t been installed. Worse, it was a hot day, over 100 degrees inside because the air conditioning hadn’t been installed and windows had been shut. Today it was cool, the A/C wasn't even on.

This time it felt a lot different. I could think. The rooms all have pleasing proportions, nice light and are visually pleasing. The roof deck makes all the difference in the appearance of the flex unit.

The salesman said they are selling well. I could see three more i-houses in the lot ready to go out,getting the finishing touches before delivery. No one has ordered the one-bedroom core unit yet from the Albuquerque factory. I was hoping to take a peek inside one of those, but they were all 2-bedroom core units like the model.

Another green model from Clayton, the ehome

2009-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.claytonehome.com/

Here's some more photos from a dealer's site.

An article in BusinessTN, announces that Clayton is introducing another green home, the "ehome," which will be priced at between $50 to $60 a square foot. (The i-house is priced at $92 to $120/sq. ft.)

While I like the window placement, and transom windows, the insulation seems poor, even compared with a single-section model I toured, the Karsten SF-50

The Karsten single-wide had R-19 insulation in the 2 x 6 walls and R-50 in the ceiling. The 9 foot flat ceilings in the Karsten give it a stately, spacious look inside, and it has to be the best regular (non-i-house) single-wide interior I've ever seen, although I haven't seen them all.

One thing better the new ehome does better compared to the Karsten single-wide, is the exterior appearance.

It doesn't say on the site, the ehome appears to have 2 x 4 walls which is disappointing to say the least. The Karsten SF-50 has 2 x 6 walls, something which I think is well worth the money. Thicker wall structure means the wall will be less likely to warp, and also it allows for more insulation and more substantial feel to the interior. For example, window sills are thicker.

With this ehome, if you are considering it, get the drywall option. The panel with the seams...well, I hate it.

I think it is good they are offering a house for people on a very low budget, but this design is nothing to write home about. I was hoping for a small double shed-roof, double-wide, with clerestory windows, or at least a shed roof. That is, something different and a little bit exciting.

Now that I've seen more photos, it has a unique roof line. The gable side in the front is very short compared to the slope in the back. That's pretty cool, but will have to see it in person to tell you what I think of that. The other thing that is nice about it, is the deliberate placement of most windows one side of the house for solar gain in the winter.

Although conventional builders are doing it only in a few places, I would like to see a manufacturer do double 2 x 4 walls, with almost a foot of insulation, like about R-40 in the walls. Either that, or SIPS, which are structurally strong and can be insulated to about R-30 or more.

Clayton is still working with their existing factory setup, as are all manufacturers of homes, so it would cost a lot to change something like wall structure.
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June 24, 2010 blogger's note:

This month, I saw the ehome, took video and photos, and review it in my blog post HERE. After seeing one with drywall, and touring the interior space, I love it.

Also, the sidewalls are upgradeable to 2 x 6" and better insulation. The website doesn't mention this upgrade but if you ask they can do the 2 x 6" upgrade for under $1000.

One comment below is from a person who says they work at an architectural firm and this ehome isn't green. I thought the same when I first looked at it to see the standard insulation. However, with good insulation, this is a green house, for this price range. Most people can't wait around in the rain or live in a cheap apartment until they have $600,000 for an architect to design them a zero energy home.

It is also green to select a home like this, that is HALF the size of the average new home. Green has to take place in small steps.

Clayton moves into multi-family housing

2009-07-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

After the i-house, now Clayton is starting a venture doing resource efficient multi-family attached housing. Good move, but this particular one looks kinda plain, although I like the off-set placement of windows and door and the simplicity of it. Practical interior plan too with two and a half baths. No pricing yet.

In the world of energy efficient housing, such attached multi-family housing is considered a smarter use of land, particularly in urban areas, and the shared walls help some with energy efficiency too.

Here's the first article that has some drawings.

My i-house video is up

2009-07-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

See my previous post, the review. It is embedded there.

For a full screen view, after starting the video, click on the symbol with four arrows to the left of the word Vimeo.

My i-house review: i-saw, i-conquered, i-photographed

2009-07-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Clayton i-house from Tim Clark on Vimeo.

After pressing on the start arrow, it takes about 6 seconds to load. For a full screen, click on the little four arrows symbol, to the left of the word "Vimeo."

This is a nearly 30 minute version for die-hard fans, or just people who want to see lots of the core 2 model, as fuzzy/shaky as the video is. My little camera takes very clear video, but this is condensed to one sixth of the full size. I may experiment on making it better. And I still haven't found my tripod.

Link to my photos on Flickr. (Click on "SlideShow" near the upper right for easy full page viewing of the whole set.) The photos are taken at the Karsten model home lot near their factory, in Albuquerque, NM on July 10, 2009.

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For a long time, it seems like I’ve been thinking about this house, or something vaguely like it. That is, an affordable green manufactured home.

Driving to Albuquerque yesterday, on a hot Friday mid-morning, it appeared before me, in all its corrugated metal and hardieboardiness, looking like a monolith on a large dirt patch to the left of the regular Karsten model lot.

The front isn't visible at first. It faces I-25, so is visible to cars that pass by. It is the 2-bedroom core model, w/1 bedroom flex unit placed at an angle, my favorite placement.

All the railings, including those for the roof deck, lay at the back of the flex unit, but at least the decks were in. No solar panels yet, and only some furniture, and there was still some finish work to do, like heating vents.

However, AJ, the same friendly saleswoman I worked with when I almost bought a Karsten home years ago, assured me they’d have it all fixed up in the following weeks, including grass, solar, and working water catchment. Grass?

Grass is kind of rare in Albuquerque, because of the lack of water. It should be outlawed here, along with golf, but I can see how something is needed to attract people’s attention from the highway; something that says, “come in and see this special new house.” Xeriscaping would be more appropriate, but grass will help to keep the dust down in this dirt patch lot.

Karsten Homes (owned by Clayton), but with their own line of homes too, is next to I-25 in an industrial area, right near their factory, where they produce the i-house. Farther down the road, if you miss the turn from South Broadway onto San Jose as I did -- they used to have a huge sign, now it says Business Park -- there are oil tanks, junk yards and other industry. Industrial ugliness is relative. It is no where near as ugly as Northern NJ, and Albuquerque has beautiful mountains and forests to the East, and many nice neighborhoods in the foothills, down by the Rio Grande, in the middle of the city.

The house was dusty inside, probably from workmen in and out or the windows were left open when the wind and dust kicked up, but that didn’t matter. No workmen were in the house when I was there. My photos aren’t that great, and I ran out of space, but I may take more in a few weeks, when they get the house fully set up.

On Clayton’s site, their video and 360 degree tour are so pretty, it can be a little letdown to find the house right near a noisy highway, and have the temperature soaring above 100 degrees inside. They’ll probably get the air conditioning going after it is cleaned up in a week or two. It is hard to relax and be comfortable, or even think straight when you are inside an oven. If you are going in the next two weeks to see this model in Albuquerque, try to go before 11 in the morning, or call (505) 242 7555, to see if the A/C is working.

I liked the feel of the kitchen/dining/living area the most. The window placement is good. It gives a nice open feel and you can imagine what it would be like with a view.

The living room would look better without the wall-length black storage unit, but I don’t think that comes with the house anyway. So, I’m probably being like some of the people on HOUSE HUNTERS, who when they are looking at houses to buy, complain about the paint colors.

Here’s a link to free online episodes from HGTV. My favorites are: HOUSE HUNTERS, HOUSE HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL, and MY FIRST HOUSE. There's different HOUSE HUNTERS episodes on Hulu, if you get hooked on it.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the i-house. I liked the bamboo floor, the kitchen and bathroom sink fixtures (a lot!), the cabinetry, ceiling fans and lots of space in the walk-in closet laundry area. Of course the one bedroom core, which is probably the one I would buy, doesn't have a walk in closet or separate laundry.

The second bedroom is small and the bottom of the “V” roof hits its low point in the middle of that room's ceiling, which looks peculiar, but no problem. Just a bit of getting used to.

One thing that sticks out immediately, is the cheapness of the outside lights that flank the doors, complete with plastic covers. They aren’t the ones that are used in the model in Tennessee. I forgot to ask if they could be upgraded. I may be going back in a month or so when the grass is in, to take more photos and video. I’ll make a list of questions to ask, which I should have done this time. Again, even this light issue, is relatively minor.

There’s several handy exterior electrical outlets, and they have nice thick plastic covers. The drip edge, over windows, between the two materials, seems to be constructed well.

The rivets or rather bolts with washer in the corrugated metal -- the galvalume -- look substantial. However, the nail heads in the Hardieboard, I don’t know what is going on there...you can see them in my close up photos. I read something about that, and I forgot what it was. I believe it was something about them being necessary for the glue on the other side of the Hardie board to set properly, and that there wouldn't be nail pops over time.

I think I’d prefer all Galvalume on the sides of the house, but I'm not sure that everyone would, so they probably made the right choice. Hardie board is a proven rugged, durable material.

In the main i-house, the rooms have nice proportions, although I think the hallway could be two inches wider. What I like about the house in general, there’s not a lot of wasted space. The room sizes are efficient, honest, comfortable and functional.

By honest, I mean modern without trying to be something they are not. Inside and out, the house isn’t trying to be Monticello, Versailles or the Parthenon. I once saw an older manufactured home that had thick fluted columns flanking the entrance to the kitchen. Reminded me of the Parthenon.

I'd prefer smooth walls and ceilings instead of the orange peel finish on the i-house. Most new homes have orange peel finish though, even some homes done by architects working in the modern style. Orange peel tends to hide minor imperfections better, be easier to repair minor scratches or dents.

The black tile work behind the counters, yet another option, is nice. I like the solid surface counters as well.

The ceiling is too low in the flex room. It is a small room, but still, I think it would look better with a ceiling that is six inches higher. This is probably a concession they made for the sake of the roof deck. Then again, I’m thinking in terms of it being the perfect tiny house for someone. (There are some people, stripping away everything in their lives, and even living in houses half the size of the flex unit.) I'd want a higher ceiling, if I were considering buying the flex room alone, for a tiny house or cottage.

For a guest, or an older child, I’ve come to think the detached flex room would be a dream, and as readers have voted in my poll, perhaps the single best feature of the i-house.

The flex unit needs to have an operable window in the back, for cross ventilation. At present, only fixed windows are at the back. I’m sure they can do that.

The interior doors throughout are low-grade, but adequate, hollow-core, wood painted gray, same as many door frames. There’s an advantage to light weight interior doors. If you bump into them, they move easily, and you don’t get hurt. They are also easier to open and close.

From the videos, I thought they might be metal. I think a lighter color door, instead of dark gray, would look better in the hall especially, where they are all lined up. Beige, or a lighter tone of gray perhaps. I forgot to ask if that is an option. That is a minor thing. If I were buying, I’d just repaint them myself if they couldn't.

Ultimately, I think there is only one way for the i-house to catch on huge. That is, if the people who live in them, or have them as vacation homes, love them, and find they function perfectly for living.

I’ll try to get my video up by the end of next week. I was able to take video of the entire house, inside and out. With the photos, I concentrated on the outside of the house, because the official site doesn't feature the unflattering angles.

I finished the afternoon by looking at the newer Karsten models, ones I hadn't seen before on the model lot the last time I was there a year ago. The model that stood out was an inexpensive single-wide, energy-star rated, that had R-50 insulation in the ceiling, and 2 x 6" construction. It was 1185 sq. ft., 3 bedroom, 2 bath and only $52,550 with a few upgrades. Very plain on the outside, but interior is worth checking out. A home like this might be an option for people who want to go full solar on their roof, have good space, a sturdy home, and keep their budget well below $100,000 total. Or, people who have a limited budget, but need a bigger size, and want a super efficient house.

One model had a grand piano in the living room. Never saw that before. I’ll do a separate post on my impressions of some of them, as it relates to my feelings about the i-house. I'm glad manufactured homes have gone modern, modular and green, with the i-house. The next ten years in this move to modern/green in this industry could be very exciting.

Guess how many i-houses have sold so far?

2009-07-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

Well, this article in The Denver Post says 36 have been applied for since May.

That sounds pretty good, since they just got a handful of models out a few weeks ago, and I don't think there are many people who would order a house without actually touring one.

The i-house will create more interest when people's orders start arriving on their land, especially in places like California. This should generate another wave of articles. I will link to all that mention any information that is new.

I'm planning my visit to the i-house model in Albuquerque, probably next week.

The ihouse model is stopping traffic in Washington

2009-06-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Not Washington DC, but Everett, Washington, 25 miles north of Seattle. In addition to the one in Knoxville, TN, the three new models should now be in:

Sacramento, CA
Everett, WA
Albuquerque, NM (At the Karsten factory location)

In Washington, according to an article in the county’s online news source, HERE, some drivers just passing by the Clayton i-house model are screeching on their brakes.

Another article about the model in Everett:

Is ihouse a model for modern modular?
by Aubrey Cohen of the SeattlePI.com

The model in Everett is the 2-bedroom core, with one bedroom flex w/roofdeck. I suspect it is the model they will be using in the other locations as well.

Readers! Please write in to comment on impressions upon seeing the model, in Everett or elsewhere.

I don’t know what dealers will do with the many people who see it from the road, and stop in to see it. I can't see them making people set up appointments, but who knows. Usually, manufactured home dealers are only too glad to let you tour the homes any time during their regular business hours.

When I tour the home in Albuquerque later this week, or early next week, I’ll try to get their policy straightened out on drop-ins vs. appointment only.

The first article mentions that there will be a model home in eight locations. This HAS to be pending initial interest in the home. I can see them having only the one model in New Mexico, for sure, but they’ll have to get one in Phoenix, and more locations in California, Texas, and the South as well.

Another short Fox News i-house video

2009-06-04T08:21:00.001-07:00

This is an older video, a short tour of the i-house, where a Realtor extols the beauty of moving hard-to-sell pieces of property by putting i-houses on them, or something like that. She loves $green$, and the i-house, and so does Kevin Clayton! (Click on arrow square in lower right for full screen view.)

While I'm posting this video, because I had to delete one of my earlier posts (the one with the poll, which is now in a separate link), I'd like to repeat this reminder about doing the Clayton virtual tour (to be distinguished from the new video) in FULL screen size. The way to do that is, after starting it up, click twice on the screen. Then you have to start it again by RIGHT clicking on the screen, select SHOW TOOLBAR, to get the navigation menu at the bottom. (Move your cursor to the bottom for that to appear.) Then click on the arrow to start the video. Hit the "Esc" key to exit full view. This method does not work on the new video though.

When touring the i-house model...

2009-06-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

According to my SURVEY, many of you have never been to a dealer of manufactured homes. When going to see the i-house, I have a few suggestions.

If you are seriously considering a purchase of this home, especially if you have a long distance to travel to see the model, ask many questions of the salespeople at Clayton headquarters by phone, in advance of making your trip. Write down their answers.

It is not that the local dealer will not know enough about the home, but it is a new model, and if you have some more unusual questions, you may as well ask them of the people in Knoxville.

Look at some of the other homes on the lot for comparison, including the least expensive, homes about the same price, and ones that cost more. If the lot where the i-house is displayed has some lower end homes, you will notice the thinner walls, cheaper looking windows and fixtures, seamed paneling instead of drywall, and lower ceiling on single-wide homes.

The tour of the i-house will probably begin with a salesperson. It will allow you to ask questions. Spend some time in the house alone, to get a feel of the space. The salespeople know everyone needs to do this.

If you are nearby, come back on a different day, at a different time, to take a second or third look at the house if you want. It is a big decision and thinking it over and seeing it again can often help you feel more certain.

When viewing a home on a lot, visualize what it would be like on your property, the solar orientation, the views out the windows. This is one thing that makes the experience different from buying a house already on land. The dealer in Albuquerque has several homes set up about 60 feet from the interstate, so people driving by can see them. (The i-house won’t be there until June 15th.) Most dealers locate a lot in a high traffic area where their homes can be seen by passers by.

Having a front porch just feet from a highway would be the ultimate nightmare for me, and it can be distracting having the noise, so take time, relax, and visualize the way the home would be on your property.

Your first instincts are important, when entering a house, but also, this is a modern house and give yourself a few minutes to take in all that is new.

If I were you, would I go for the solar panel option on the i-house?

2009-05-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

I dunno. I'm not you! It depends on so many factors. But I'll tell you what I think...

I’m writing this for some of you, who may be ruminating over the value or possible mistake, of buying solar panels for the i-house. This is just my opinion, how I’ve worked things out in my own mind.

Search for other opinions. I didn't pull all my figures out of the blue, but I did fabricate a set of figures for future energy costs in the next thirty years. No one knows what these will be. I tried to take a middle road between two extremes.

Try to find blogs, video and articles from people using the technology. There’s a book, SOLAR POWER YOUR HOME, FOR DUMMIES, that you can find in a library. I had physics course in solar energy in college, but it has been so long, I had to figure what a kWh is, all over again. It is simple when you think of it in terms of solar panels. I'll try to explain it later in this post, if it didn't sink in from watching the videos in my last post.

Purchasing solar panels is not a way to save lots of money. The money spent on solar panels is more likely a break-even situation, unless you use them more than 20 years. Then, some real savings could kick in.

There is another kind of savings though, especially if you are in an area where the power is generated from coal. The burning of coal is polluting. Having solar panels will allow you to burn half as much coal (coal burnt at the local plant), and pollute half as much.

Find your last month’s electricity bill. Where it gives your meter reading for the month, pretend it says 1000 kWh (kilowatt hours) which at .10/kWh would give a bill of about $100 (ignoring the taxes and fees they add on.) So, that is a hundred dollars per month, so $1200 for a year.

This could be an average bill for a family that uses an electric clothes dryer, or electric hot water, or an air conditioner, or an electric space heater during cooler months, or has an electric well pump. (If you are on city or town water, you are not using a well pump.) $100/month electric bills would probably be low, if you live in Phoenix or Florida and use air conditioning, or if you have an all-electric house.

For the average of 1000 kWh/month use, ($100 monthly bill),that translates into burning 800 pounds of coal. Isn’t that incredible? So, at the coal plant they are burning 800 pounds of coal just to power a house for a month.

So, opting for the 2K solar panel, you’d avoid putting the pollutants from 200 pounds of coal burning into the atmosphere for a single month, and 400 pounds, if you opt for two 2K panels. (4k total)

Let’s say your electric bills are only $50/month. With 4K of panels, you would still save burning of 400 lb. of coal (at the power plant) and also save the same amount of money.

Let’s get back to basics.

A 2K panel is a 2000 watt panel. Under fairly sunny conditions, a 2K panel generates an average of 8kWh/day. That is, it generates 1000 watts for 8 hours. One kWh would be 1000 watts for one hour. kWh stand for "kilowatt hour."

You are thinking, how come it generates only 1000 watts, if it is a 2000 watt panel? That is simple. The 1000 watts for 8 hours, is just an average. When the sun is coming up, it may be generating only 200 watts for one hour, and the next hour 300 watts, and during the few hours of the day when the sun is shining brightly on the panel, it could generate near the full 2000 watts for each hour. Cloudy days and rainy days are factored into this average.

Using power during the day is when it is most expensive. That is when your biggest savings can come from using solar panels. The power company charges more for power during the day. You can see this on your bill. There are usually three different rates per kWh, depending on when you are using the power.

And what power you don’t use during the day, is credited to you, back in the grid at the higher daytime rate. I’m speaking about a grid-tie system only, which will be the thing most people get. People off the power grid, of course, opt for an off-grid system with batteries. They are not hooked to the power company at all.

Thanks for the comment below which answers my question about the inverter. Panels convert the sun's energy to DC and need an inverter to convert it to AC. Ready Solar, the panels used in the i-house, if you order them as an option, uses a special built-in inverter with each panel. So the inverter is included in the price.

The Clayton i-house official site blog -- just that portion of their site -- is down for a while. It got bombarded with hundreds of questions on May 7, the day of the AP article. If you didn't get your question answered, they'll probably get to it, or you can call them.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to use a .10/kWh rate of electricity across the board. This is probably two cents than most of you pay. In places like California, it could be two cents less.

Picture using a 1000 watt microwave oven for one hour. That would cost 10 cents at the rate of .10/kWh.

Here is the scenario I’ve set up. You buy your i-house in January of 2010. You opt for the full 4K of solar panels for $26,800.

Here is the next 30 years of your energy bills, predicated on you using 1000 kWh/month, AND, electricity going up one cent/kWh each year of the next decade. Some might think this is a modest estimate of increase. Others think that electricity, in twenty years could jump to ten times its present rate, to $1/kWh. I am trying to do a reasonable estimate, somewhere in between.

Savings from Solar Panels on Yearly Electric Bills for Three Decades beginning in 2010.

2010 @.10/kWh $600 Saved $600
(without solar, your bill would have been $1200)
2011 @.11/kWh $660 Saved $660
2012 @.12/kWh $720 Saved $720
2013 @.13/kWh $780 Saved $780
2014 @.14/kWh $840 Saved $840
2015 @.15/kWh $900 Etc.
2016 @.16/kWh $960
2017 @.17/kWh $1020
2018 @.18/kWh $1080
2019 @.19/kWh $1140
___________________________________
First decade savings = $8700 (half your bill)
(Without the panels your bill would have been $17,400)

With coal shortages and inflation, energy prices go up in 2020, with a 02.kWh rise every year, instead of just up .01 every year.

2020 @.21/kWh $1260 Saved $1260
2021 @.23/kWh $1380 Etc.
2022 @.25/kWh $1500
2023 @.27/kWh $1620
2024 @.29/kWh $1740
2025 @.31/kWh $1860
2026 @.33/kWh $1980
2027 @.35/kWh $2100
2028 @.37/kWh $2220
2029 @.39/kWh $2340
_______________________________
$18,000 (this decade)
+ $8700 (decade 2010 to 1019) = $26,700 savings
So after 20 years, the $26,800 you paid for 4K of panels is paid for. (A 2K panel would also be paid for after 20 years.)

For the third decade, you get all the electricity from your panels for free.

2030 @.42/kWh $2520
2031 @.45/kWh $2700
2032 @.48/kWh $2880
2033 @.51/kWh $3060
2034 @.54/kWh $3240
2035 @.57/kWh $3420
2036 @.60/kWh $3600
2037 @.63/kWh $3780
2038 @.66/kWh $3960
2039 @.69/kWh $4140
____________________________
$33,000

In the third decade you have saved $33,000, free and clear, your solar panels. Of course, $33,000 won’t be worth all it was back in 2010.

But, in the last three decades, you will have avoided burning over 140,000 pounds of coal through the use of your solar panels. Because of solar use, you will have not sent the emissions from the burning of 70 tons of coal into the atmosphere, or created the equivalent in nuclear waste, if you get your power from a nuclear facility.

Also, consider that in ten years, you could very well be driving an electric car, and adding more solar panels, saving substantially over gas prices, AND polluting less.

Do panels have a downside, other than just the initial investment, or a risk that a source of cheap clean power may be discovered in the future, such as nuclear fission-fusion reactors?

They do have a downside. In order to function optimally, they have to be cleaned every once in a while (hose off the dust), and if you are in an area with some snow, the snow has to be swept off them. Plus, instead of having a nice clean roof surface, solar panels are mounted there. They may get leaves or other debris stuck around them, or trap snow and ice.

Something might happen to a panel. A tree might fall on it, or it might get vandalized.

Solar panels degrade, but lose only one quarter of one percent of efficiency each year. Also something I learned from the video. When they heat up too much, they lose 10% efficiency. So, they work better in cool sunny areas, than they do in hot sunny areas. But that shouldn’t be as much of a consideration, compared to how many sunny days you have per year. In New Mexico, it is as sunny as most of California.

Opting for a smaller or more energy efficient house, in itself, is choosing to reduce your impact on the environment.

Here are the two basic reason to buy the solar panels:

1. You would like to use some clean power.
2. You have the money to pay for the solar panels.

If you are paying a mortgage on the i-house, well, opting for the solar panels probably won’t work out, as far as saving money goes. However, they could be seen as a possible wise investment, if you had to sell the house five or ten years down the road. I wouldn’t buy them just for investment purposes though. In ten years, they may come out with a generation of cheaper and more efficient (convert more of the sun’s energy to power) solar panels.

People get a deep satisfaction from using solar panels. The satisfaction is in not polluting, in using clean energy.

I don’t have solar panels. I wish I had money to buy them. I wish I had bought them when I did have money, instead of investing it in stocks that failed. There is so much sun here. It would be great to use it to power things in my little house.

Panels contain an amount of embodied pollution, in their manufacture. In other words, it is polluting to dig for the raw materials used, and use energy to make them in a factory. However, that is made up for very quickly in their use.

A wood stove can economical for heating, especially if you live on wooded property or in a wooded area. However, wood is very polluting. At least wood stoves have become more efficient in recent years, and are not as polluting as they used to be. Wood stoves with a catalytic unit don’t pollute, but the catalytic part has to be changed every few years. It is expensive. It is a good option, in terms of the environment, if you can afford it, and have plentiful wood to burn without having to cut trees down.

Are there other alternative energy alternatives? Sure. There’s wind, if you live in a windy area. And many power companies offer an option to purchase solar power through them. Your money goes toward building their giant windmills or solar facilities. It is a few pennies more per kWh.

Here’s my favorite from a company right here in Santa Fe. It is a hybrid solar/windmill. Click on the link, and watch the video.

Bluenergy Solarwind Turbine

http://www.bluenergyusa.com/

It is not commercially available yet. So, when the sun isn’t out, it works as a windmill, and during the day when the sun is shining it can work as both, or it spins just from the solar cells. No wind or no sun, it would need battery backup or grid. They expect it to retail at around $20,000 I guess.

It might be one of those things that makes someone want to wait for a few years, to see if it might not be THE NEXT BIG THING.

PASSIVE SOLAR

Passive solar, can be important in cutting heating bills. You can save a lot in heating bills during the winter by siting the i-house, so the side with all the windows is facing south. With the big window/door units on each end, it would also allow some latitude in that.

Some people might feel the I-house doesn’t have enough windows. As good as Andersen windows are, in terms of quality and energy efficiency, they are nothing like having wall, especially on the north side of the house. So, I think the i-house people did the windows just about right. Plus, they have a few optional windows you can add, if you want.

I don’t like houses with too many windows. The light can be blinding inside. It is impossible to get away from light reflection on a computer screen or TV, if there are lots of windows on three or more sides of a room. Then again, the sun is very intense where I live. During a day of temperature in the 20's, I can turn off the heat in the middle of the winter, and my house warms up from the sun coming in three windows on the south side. I have no windows on the north side. Zero. Not even little ones, like the i-house.

Lastly, back to solar panels. A factor you may consider is that presently there aren't any government rebates to help pay for such things. In Australia, they had a program for a while, offering large rebates.

You can always add solar panels to your i-house later, since Obama might institute some kind of rebate or tax incentive on their purchase, within the next few years.

Active solar, how it works in the Clayton i-house, or any house

2009-05-13T09:04:00.001-07:00

For those of you unfamiliar with solar energy. There are two primary types associated with houses; passive and active. This post is on solar panels, an active system, since they come as an option on the i-house.

Solar energy is in a special category of "renewable energy," since using it, doesn't take away from the source. Think of solar panels as an investment in energy, as well as a way to assume environmental responsibility.

The first two videos are very short, the second two long. The longer ones might be interesting, even if you have no plans to buy the i-house, and just want to learn all about how different home solar systems are set up.

Watch the second two in full screen, or you won’t be able to see what they are posting on an overhead projector. So, after starting the video, click on the box-in-a-box icon, one of the icons in the lower right hand corner. (Press the Esc key on your computer to exit full screen mode when you are done.)

I chose these among several I watched. Too many videos are aimed at hawking a specific product.

I like the first video especially, because you can watch it once or twice, and really understand the simple principle of how a solar panel converts the sun’s photons into electricity.

How Solar Energy Panels Work (Very Short, simple, understandable explanation of very basic way a solar panel works.)

Solar 101 (Short, more basics, includes more about systems)

My own Solar System (One hour, beginning is terrible, but gets better . A Google executive lectures about his own home system.)

Learn about Solar Energy (One hour, similar to above but makes some things clear)

Just a reminder that my old blog posts, including the one before this one which has a nice video, can be accessed at the right, under BLOG ARCHIVE.

Marketing the Clayton i-house

2009-05-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my free blog taught Clayton Homes, the billion dollar industry giant, a lesson.

Promotion-wise, Clayton did the important thing just right though. They introduced their revolutionary i-house, the first affordable green manufactured home by a major manufacturer, at the Berkshire-Hathaway (owned by Warren Buffet) shareholder’s conference last week. A conference that had huge media coverage. There, the i-house caught the attention of Fox News and CNBC, which led to an article by the Associated Press.

The AP article was picked up by dozens -- soon to be hundreds -- of newspapers, including the article topping yesterday’s Yahoo News’ “most emailed” list.

So what did I do, a mere blogger, to teach them a lesson?

Well, when the AP article about the I-house was being viewed by thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, Clayton’s website for the i-house got overwhelmed and many people couldn’t connect to it. They searched in Google or elsewhere for Clayton i-house and my blog site is at the top of the search list. I’m not sure how long it’ll be there, but who knows.

Let me give you their official i-house website site here, as today you shouldn’t have a problem connecting:

http://www.claytonihouse.com/

Back to my story. Clayton didn’t make any real mistake. People who had their interest piqued by the AP article -- especially those who consider buying such a home -- are going to be more interested than ever.

Of course, Clayton, could have taken some of the sting out of people not being able to reach their website, by hosting their Virtual i-house Tour on a few different servers, so people could have at least seen what the house was about, in this culture of RIGHT NOW.

After all, I predicted months ago, that the i-house could be the Prius of homes. Because of the name, “i-house,” the media is fixated on comparing it to the ipod. I’m sure that’ll work too, for publicity purposes especially. "I-house" sticks in people's minds better than calling it a Claytongreen or a Claytonius.

But, let’s face it, the i-house is more comparable to Toyota's introducing the Prius, than things done by Apple. People’s reaction to it is similar to what was said about the Prius.

People say things like:

“It’s a waste of money.”
“Wake up! It’s a trailer!”
“I saw the house and I absolutely love it!”
“It will never sell.”
"This looks good and seems to be too good to be true for the price."
"You'd have to be crazy to pay $ for this...my son could make the same thing for $15,000." (Okay, I just made that one up but there are comments in a similar vein.)
“I’ve been waiting for something exactly like this!”

I'm feeling the same as the last comment. And I felt the same about the Prius too. The Prius had millions of people who didn't think it would ever sell. Even the GM guys smirked, maybe a little uneasily though. Other people were open to the idea, read about it, and found that the people who bought them, loved them. It lead to a whole new shift toward hybrid technology.

Can Clayton do the same, with the i-house, making an affordable, well-built green manufactured home catch on with the public? A home manufacturer doesn’t have the advantage of people seeing homes all over the place, as people see cars on the road, but there’s another way… It's my big idea, and if you can suffer through some other rambling, I'll get to it. Or, just skip to the end.

Clayton, like Toyota, has come a long way just by introducing the i-house. Already, there’s a whole new wave of interest, by many people who have never considered buying a manufactured home. That is, people wanting to make a big change in their life. Live in something that is energy efficient. Get some power from the sun. It appeals to frugal people. It appeals to environmentally conscious people. And it appeals to people wanting quality and style, for the money.

Wealthy people, who are most able to afford an efficient, green home with solar panels, have not taken the lead in green home buying, at all. About five years ago, when Toll Bros., the largest builder of McMansions, offered an upgrade to higher wall and roof insulation, less than two percent of buyers opted for it. What do they care about heating bills, right? Other people can't be impressed by insulation, like they can with granite counter tops (they do add value), or a dome on an eighteen foot foyer.

Things are changing gradually, whether it is people being proud that their Prius looks different, so people can see they are environmentally responsible, or Jay Leno talking about his wind turbine. The green revolution is going to take place among more average people, just as it started with the counter culture. With Obama, green is going mainstream, and fast.

Clayton did a smart marketing thing in separating the i-house website from their main Clayton Homes website. As the largest manufacturer of homes in the country, Clayton offers a lot of models, which can be confusing, and for me anyway, their main website is awful. The website for the i-house works better, looks better, and needed to be on its own.

Clayton isn’t alone in being a manufactured homes company that has a bad main website. Nearly all manufactured home companies do. For years, two of my favorite brands, Karsten (now owned by Clayton) and Solitaire (plain, kinda boxy outside, well made, inexpensive), didn’t even feature a single photograph of most of their homes. What did they have instead? Architectural drawings, and for some models, no drawing at all, just a floor plan.

To begin with, the manufactured home industry, and their dealers, were late in coming to the web. To this day, most smaller dealers of manufactured homes do not have websites that list inventory or salesperson contact numbers.

Alvin Toffler wrote a prescient book called FUTURE SHOCK (1971). He theorized that computer technology would create a third wave in changes in society. The first wave was agriculture, and the second wave, industrialization.

Toffler conjectured that the third wave caused by computers would throw society into the future at a speed never experienced before. The advancement of technology, the way people do things, such as learn, communicate, do business, would be turned on its head.

Consider the change that have taken place in the last two decades. Children and young adults who grow up in the computer age often have more facility with computers than their parents. Many jobs rely on ability and understanding of computers.

Along with Toffler, I had a similar sense of the importance of computers when I was 17 and went to college back in 1971. As a music major, I hated punch cards, and late nights spent in the keypunch room trying to type up a program. I struggled through a few courses, and many more later on, to learn what it was about. It wasn’t until I got one of the first home computers, that it became exciting. The web was was the best of all, since I've always loved information and learning, just not school so much, not enough to finish graduate school anyway.

Before the computer wave, parents with the same educational level as their children, were more skilled by virtue of life and work experience. That isn’t always true now, and this is the first time in history something like this has happened.

Computers have changed marketing too, with each advancement in computer speed, memory, and software. Things like the EBAY, Amazon, Craig’s List, YOUTUBE. They are changing society, the way we learn, work, buy, not to mention entertain ourselves.

Invariably, the blinding speed at which things change leaves old school marketing in the dust. Instead of being on top of the curve, or ahead of the curve, large companies lag behind these changes like just-tranquilized elephants.

How many self-made multi-millionaires were there fifty years ago, kids fresh out of college, or in the case of Bill Gates, dropping out of college, to be titans of industry? In the old days, unless you were handed family money, it was rare to make a big success until age forty or fifty.

Companies like Clayton tend to cling to what they are used to. When given the opportunity to display all kinds of detailed information on the web, at first they tried to make their websites like brochures, but on the web. Glossy and enticing.

I have no background in business, no MBA from the Wharton School or years experience running a business. But, I know what I want as a consumer in the way of information from a company when considering purchase of their products. Whether it is a new laptop, or a manufactured home, I know the kind of information I want before I buy, or in the case of a home, travel fifty miles to go see. And I don’t think what I want is that much different from what other people want.

I like a website that is easy to use, and there can never be enough photos of a home via a link. I also want video tours of homes. If it is a home that is new, an exciting concept like the i-house, I would like to see a complete video tour of the house, and a house that is set up in a real natural setting.

Why is that important?

At a dealer, the homes are jammed together on a lot, or right on a highway. It isn’t the best setting to see a home. But, come on, in a video, wouldn’t it be nice to see an i-house, not inside a building?

To be honest, I was seriously considering buying a manufactured home about five years ago, and then my stocks dropped, and I pulled out. Before that, I’ve had a long interest in them though. I’ve been reading about them for years, long before the internet.

So, what is my cutting edge idea for marketing the i-house?

Have one set up on a nice property, with an articulate greenneck like myself in residence, to blog life in the home every day. Maybe some live cam hours of everyday life in the i-house, or hours where people could be taken on personalized interactive video tours using a remote cam.

Of course, I would like to do this. But, the point is, even if I weren’t selected, I would like to see someone else do this.

How many of you out here would like that? How would you like to be able to ask questions, interactively, to a person who is living in the i-house, or read about their daily or weekly i-house related experiences on a blog?

P.S.
Any people who want to contact me, aside from leaving comments on the blog which are always welcome:

zorastro(at)gmail(dot)com

Another article, and some thoughts about the i-house video by Fox News

2009-05-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

Of the handful of i-house stories last week, this one from The Washington Post via Associated Press, is the most noteworthy:

Clayton i-house is giant leap from trailer park
(Click on colored text for link to article.)

(My own photo)

They mention that the i-house weighs 52,000 pounds, the heaviest house Clayton has ever produced. I assume the weight comes from the thicker walls, heavier insulation (R30 in floor and ceiling, R21 in walls), and heftier windows, doors and even heavier gauge roof.

In the article, Kevin Clayton mentions that he thinks the i-house could quickly grow to be ten percent of their sales.

Also mentioned is that the i-house’s V-shaped roof was inspired by a gas station awning! Many great homes were inspired by gas station architecture, or not.
------------------------------

I like the video tour of the i-house from the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meeting in Omaha (blog post below). The short tour is packed with details, a few I’d like to mention.

For people who may not know, Warren Buffet bought Clayton Homes in 2003 for 1.7 billion dollars.

Read about Buffet here in wiki if you want.

And Clayton Homes wiki here.

Here’s Kevin Clayton in a long (40 minutes) interview, if you would like to hear more from the CEO of Clayton. He comes off as a chipper, down-to-earth person, especially for a CEO, perhaps because he didn’t have to claw his way to the top of the business world.

The 35,000 shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway showed up at the conference to hear Warren Buffet speak and on display were a sampling of products of the companies he owns.

During the tour of the i-house, Liz-the-Fox-Business-News commentator likes the i-house and is aghast at the low price. She says, “By New York standards, this is amazing.”

I’ll explain what she means by that. New York apartments are small and expensive. It is common to find couples earning over $200,000/year living in an 1000 sq. ft. apartment, and unless they had it renovated recently, chances are it wouldn’t look nearly as good as the i-house.

Manhattanites, given their small spaces, put a lot of effort into making the space look stylish, and the i-house interior definitely has the look. That is, simple and beautiful, and unique with the clerestory windows and sloping ceiling. An upscale New Yorker might spend over $100 sq. foot just renovating their co-op apartment.

Considering the i-house is inside a huge building in this video, and had several people standing around in it, along with the shaky Blair Witch camera work, Kevin and Liz look like they are standing in a nice modern apartment, or house.

Near the end, Liz the commentator is enthusiastic about wanting to see the solar panels on the roof, and she seems relieved they are installed. Perhaps the presence of Warren Buffet in the building might activate them. Too bad they couldn’t take people up on the roof deck of the flex room to see them. They were probably afraid of a contingent from the crowd of 35,000 stampeding the roof, causing it to collapse.

I can see the headline:

“Three die and 42 injured… trailer roof collapses at Berkshire Hathaway conference… Fortunately, no BRK-A holders were involved.”

BRK-A stock holders own stock that is $95,000/ share. They are VIPs and get an extra scoop at the Dairy Queen, also owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

In his informative patter with Liz, Kevin mentions something about butterfly roof rainwater catchment being “greywater.” Actually, it isn’t. Greywater is water that is reused, from sink to toilet, or shower to toilet, or sink and shower to tank for watering plants or grass outdoors.

But, I’m being picky. The water catchment roof is great for arid areas like NV, NM, CA, and AZ.
------------------
Traffic to my blog site here has taken a leap. It is the way Google works. Search engines prioritize according to number of links on other pages, not number of "hits" as they did in the old days. So, my blog comes up at the top of the hierarchy of pages when searching for Clayton i-house.

I'll remind readers I'm just a guy, very interested in following the development of the i-house. In a few weeks, I'll be seeing one here in nearby Albuquerque, taking lots of photos, including close-ups, and of course giving you my honest critical opinion. Power to the people, right?

The place to take virtual tours, get i-house pricing and ask questions to the sales people is the official Clayton i-house website:

http://www.claytonihouse.com/

Video tour of Clayton i-house w/Kevin Clayton

2009-05-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

Take a VIDEO TOUR of the i-house below from a Fox News interview with Kevin Clayton, at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting in Omaha.

After clicking on the arrow in the center of the screen to start the video, in the lower right corner of the video click the icon, 2nd from the right, to get a full screen. Then, if you want to see the video in high quality, click on the "HQ" in the lower right.

Also, there's a beautiful 360 degree tour of this larger of the core units on the Clayton i-house website in my post below.

Clayton announces i-house pricing and floor plans

2009-05-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.claytonihouse.com/

Today, May 2, 2009, is a big day for the i-house. They begin their national roll-out. Clayton has the various floor plans and configurations/pricing for the i-house at their website above.

1. Go to Clayton's website (link above), and sign up for a login, if you don't have one. Then click on the "My i-house" tab to get to the configuration page. If you aren't interested in the details of pricing on various options, there are other ways to explore the house without logging in.

2. After clicking on the "My i-house" tab at the top, you are prompted for a zip code. It checks for availability in your area, and is also used to calculate shipping charges to your area. If you are in the U.S., and it isn't available in your area, you will get a message to call, to see when it will be available. They are doing a gradual roll-out, so it is quite possible that it will be a few months before you can get one, if you live in Maine or upstate NY and elsewhere.

However, if you just want to see the floor plans and prices, just enter a zip code where it is available. Shipping here to Santa Fe is only $500. If you are just curious about the plans and pricing, and don't want to call them yet, and it isn't available in your zipcode, hit the back button, and try using Clayton's zip code, 37803.

3. Select the base unit. It comes in a one bedroom model, or a two bedroom model. The base price for the least expensive one bedroom model (723 sq. ft) -- no flex room -- is $74,900.

The separate flex room costs about $27,000 extra, although more if you buy a porch (deck), depending on the size of the porch.

4. Next, you select the layout options in the upper right corner of your screen. (Press arrow key below the three displayed for more.) There are many to choose from depending on what kind of flex room you want -- if any -- and also how it is oriented, and the size of porch between. For example, there is a two bedroom flex room, so with the one bedroom base unit, you could have a three bedroom house. With the two bedroom base unit, a four bedroom house.

5. Finally, you are prompted to select the optional features.

You can start by looking at the standard features, with the list of options on the right. The standard featured floor is laminate. Bamboo is a $2100 upgrade on the one bedroom base unit. 2kw of solar roof panels is priced at $13,400. The roof deck for the flex room, is $6000 extra.

I suspected that the bamboo flooring was going to be an upgrade, but it surprised me that the tankless water heater is an $890 upgrade. I'm just giving you an idea of some of the pricing, most of which I think is reasonable. For example, I looked at an 800 sq. ft house once where an upgrade to laminate flooring was $1700. And that was a few years ago. The i-house has laminate standard, and the bamboo seems well-priced as an upgrade.

Consider that you could buy the smallest base model, one bedroom, loaded with all the extras including solar panels, for under $100,000, whereas a similar size house from some makers of energy efficient manufactured models, such as Michelle Kaufmann, could cost $230,000.

So, with none of the upgrade extras, you can go from a 723 sq. ft. one bath, one bedroom base model, from about $75,000, to a 1643 sq. ft. 2 bath, 4 bedroom configuration, with every available option, including two sets of solar panels, for about $185,000.

Lastly, there is no specific option in the configuration, if you are considering a flex room only, as an addition to your existing home, or a guest house. However, you can call Clayton, as they have said it is possible. Also, they've said it would cost more than the price of the flex room when bought with a base unit.

Don't quote me on any of these prices and options. Just check them out for yourself and discuss it with the Clayton sales people.

Keep in mind, my blog is the place you can make ANY comment you wish. I'm especially interested in what people like and don't like about the i-house, their REAL feelings and honest opinions. I'm interested in all aspects of the i-house: social, aesthetic, function, green, architectural, and commercial.

Although I expect to tour and photograph it soon, when a model of the i-house comes to Albuquerque later this month, I still invite people to leave detailed comments here, of their impressions on touring it. You can leave comments here in total anonymity, without having to sign up or anything.

Thank you,
Greenotter

Clayton's i-house website

2009-03-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Clayton now has a website for the i-house:

www.claytonihouse.com

For a while, considering how Clayton’s stock was doing, I wondered if they were going forward with production of the i-house, and it looks like they are. I hope it is a great success and leads to a transformation in the manufactured home industry. Of course, I'll try to follow it here, as usual, every step of the way.

“The i-house models, floor plans, and pricing will be released at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting on May 9th, 2009." (As left in a message to this site.)

If you sign up Clayton's ihouse website (link above), you can choose to have notification of recent answers to questions being asked on their blog comment section come to your e-mail. This is the upshot of the latest, and informative about the sizes and modules that will be offered:
===================

"We will be building the i-house in Sacramento (one of four locations where the i-house will be built) to the modular code. "

The 1 bedroom i-house core is 16'x 48'
The 2 bedroom i-house core is 16' x 66'
The flex rooms will come in 3 models:
1 bedroom suite, 16' x 17'
2 bedroom pod, 16' x 40'
a great room pod, 16' x 40'

"We will be showing the 2 bedroom i-house core and 1 bedroom suite pod at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting."
===================

Be sure to click on the BLOG link at the Clayton i-house website, or click here to read AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ARCHITECTS. That's where the comment section. You can read Q&As or ask questions yourself.

February 2009 articles about the Clayton i-house

2009-02-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

Recyclers see i-house plan by Clint Confehr for the Marshall Country Tribune

This article is about the i-house being introduced to county officials of Lewisburg and Marshall counties (Tennessee), in what I assume will be a county-by-county battle for Clayton to have bans lifted on single-wide mobile homes, or at least the i-house. Clayton probably has to do this, in order to market the i-house to a wider audience and it will be interesting to see how this goes, before its introduction in May.

I don't know a whole lot about the vicissitudes of zoning regulations, in relation to manufactured homes, but Clayton must have some rationale in taking this risk and designing the i-house as a single section home in the first place. (For one thing, for people who buy the main section of the home only, only one truck would be needed for transport, which saves in energy, labor and transportation costs.)

Although no mention of it is made in the article, with the new green direction of the present administration, perhaps counties will start making certain allowances for manufactured homes, like the i-house, that meet a higher standard of sustainability. As much work as it will take for Clayton, news about the debate in county governments will generate local buzz about the i-house.

January 2009 articles about the iHouse:

2009-01-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

Clayton Homes modern green i-House from Jetson Green by Preston Koerner

Two articles/discussion threads about the iHouse, from Treehugger:

Trade in 250 iPods, get yourself a 1,000 sq. ft. iHouse? by Brian Merchant of Brooklyn.

Thoughts on Clayton's iHouse by Lloyd Alter of Toronto, a former worker in prefab design.

After reading the latter article, might be a good time to remind people that the Brits and Canadians use the term "Park Model" to mean any manufactured home that will be placed in a park. Here in the U.S. "park model" is a specific term used to refer to a home of 400 sq. ft. or less that has a special classification as an RV, and can can be placed in an RV park, a special park for "park models," or on private land if zoning allows a person to live in an RV. While zoning allows doublewide manufactured homes in many areas, most of the areas zoned for manufactured homes will not allow "park model" RVs.

Clayton's I-House: Prefab Green Homes Get Affordable from Popular Mechanics, by Glenn Reynolds

This Popular Mechanics article presents some new information; that the house will be offered as a basic unit, with an option of rooms that can be added on -- like the "flex" room -- and can even be configured to go on a hillside with the extra rooms on different levels. I also like the photo of the kitchen/living room, with this article, as it looks very natural, with sunlight coming in. Also mentioned is the innovative marketing Clayton will do, through Ikea.

Take a virtual tour of the Clayton iHouse

2009-01-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

Click HERE FOR A VIRTUAL TOUR, of the iHouse, from Clayton media.

As far as these 360 degree home tours go, they don't get much better. This is very nice. In its pan, the camera "fisheyes" here and there, making a doorway look twice as wide as it is, but at least it quickly reverts to a view of what is real. Considering there are many manufactured home models, which are in production, for which there are NO photographs, this shows Clayton is taking their new green home seriously and are proud of it.

New article about the iHouse

2008-12-30T08:58:00.000-08:00

KNOXVILLE’S GREEN HOUSE EFFECT. Lengthy article with some new information about the iHouse, and some other green houses in the Knoxville area. Although they look a little computer enhanced, the two new iHouse photos in the slide show (to right of article) are nice. They make the house look good.

Among other things, Clayton has plans for a model just under 1000 sq. ft. that will sell for around $100,000. Very good. I gather that it will not include the extra flex room. Models of the iHouse are planned to be for sale in May. Also mentioned, the position of the flex room has some flexibility, and doesn’t have to be the dot in the “i” of the iHouse.

In the article, Kevin Clayton mentions that interest in the iHouse doubled show attendance at the Knoxville home show in late October. This has great potential to increase attendance at manufactured home shows, especially in places like California and Arizona.

Many people gave a gag reflex about manufactured housing, and the prospect of a radically different green home, and an affordable one, might be enough to draw the more moderate among them to a show of manufactured homes. The iHouse capitalizes on people’s increasing interest in green homes, and those interested in the modern style.

It is time for people’s interest to shift from bigger houses and granite counter tops, to green, especially lower energy usage. Also, why can't "future house" intersect with affordable house, as it does in the iHouse, rather than being an unaffordable architectural vision filled with expensive electronic gadgetry.

There’s no lack of interest and curiosity about green houses. Here is an article about the Passive House that has remained at number one position of the NY Times “most e-mailed” list for a few days now.

When googling for images of the many styles of these fascinating passive houses, built with R-60 insulation and no furnaces, it is helpful to search for “passivhaus,” since most of them are in Germany and Scandinavia. Thousands have been built there.

Remarkably, they use one tenth to one twentieth the energy of an average house. With Germany years ahead of the U.S. in solar and alternative energy usage in general, it is good to see Clayton bringing something green to the masses, who can’t afford the 10% to 50% extra over the average house price, that green usually entails.

Interview with a guy who toured the i-house at the Knoxville show

2008-11-23T08:37:00.001-08:00

GREENOTTER: Since architecture is one of those things you
have to experience, walk through and feel -- and I haven’t seen the i-house -- "Atomic" has been kind enough to consent to answer some questions. He toured the Clayton i-house at Clayton's show in Knoxville earlier this month, November, 2008.

Here’s a copy of the link below, to some photos he took, where we can finally get a better look at the red cube 2nd bedroom/flex structure:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30226797@N05/

GREENOTTER: As someone who likes to build things myself, although they don't always turn out like I anticipated, I like to look at manufactured homes and even RVs, to get ideas of how they do layout, and what works in a space, especially smaller spaces.

Did you go to the show to see the i-house specifically or just to see
the show in general?

ATOMIC: I heard a radio commercial about the show and the iHouse, which is the only reason I knew it was going on. I've been interested in building my own house and, currently paying a $200-$300 electric bill, am planning on building something energy efficient, possibly off grid if I can make it happen.

GREENOTTER: What were your first thoughts on the outside appearance of the i-house?

ATOMIC: I liked it. I like modernistic structures, but I'm also into Roman and Victorian structures, 60's tv and radios, "mad scientist" labs, and Steampunk. Tastes may vary. ;)

The Cement board siding is a good idea however the metal bars between them looks a bit tacky and having to repaint the red section would be a bother in highly sunny areas. I've seen many houses in corrugated steel; if you can get the steel in colors it'd be a nice alternative. As is, the unit looks like a single wide trailer and I was informed by one person it would be labeled as one, then by another who said they would be working to prevent it from being classified as one.

GREENOTTER: Yes, one of the newspaper articles mentioned something about them working on zoning issues, and I thought it was probably the singlewide/doublewide problem. I live in an area now, where everyone has two acres or more, and the zoning allows doublewide manufactured homes, but no single section homes.

What did you think of the separate second bedroom upon first seeing it. Did you know what it was?

ATOMIC: I like it, but more as an office space then as a bedroom. As you mentioned in your blog, people won't want to have their kids in a separate structure at night and anyone going to and from will have to endure the weather, including being rained upon since it's not a covered entrance.

GREENOTTER: When you went in the house, how did the living/kitchen area feel as a space, especially with the ceiling sloping longitudinally (it looks like it might do that from the roof line), and gradually, from the kitchen to the end of the living room. That right there strikes me as something very different and I don't know how it would feel. Was it strange or cool, you know, was it a room you step into and think "this feels really nice," or the kind that is more "this would take some getting used to"?

ATOMIC: I didn't notice the slope of the ceiling from the inside; I believe its level. If it’s not level, then the angle wasn't noticeable.)

On a comment you made about the washer/dryer combo in the kitchen: it has a set of doors in front of it that close, hiding it from view and dampening the sound.

I like the setup they have in it, what I felt was a mix of modern and Japanese culture. That being said, most people will be putting big bad faux wood cabinets in it (the "American standard" they already own) , which won't make the space as appealing.

GREENOTTER: How about the windows? Did it seem like too many windows for that size space?

ATOMIC: Actually, I felt it had a distinct *lack* of windows.

With the way the building is setup all the windows would be facing the owners front yard. Let’s face it, we don't always put a building’s front side facing South for the best solar gain in winter, but instead houses usually face the street. Personally I want to see my back yard more then I do the road: if they reversed the plans and had all the large windows facing the back of the house and small, long "slot" windows above 6' facing the front I think it would make it more enjoyable.

GREENOTTER: I don’t know if manufactured home builders sometimes do reverse plans. Regular home plans sometimes come that way.

You mentioned that there was a serious lack of closet
space and they were using at least one free standing closet. My
thought with that may be that given the smaller size, they wanted to
show the prototype as being spacious, but that a regular closet might
be an option, at least for the master bedroom.

ATOMIC: If you look at your posted picture of the bedroom the tall doors to the left and right of the bed are the "closets." I believe you are correct in that they wanted it to look spacious, but I was hearing several women talking about the lack of closets, which echoed my opinion.

GREENOTTER: What were the bathrooms like? Sleek and modern, or more like the ones in their other homes?

ATOMIC: The bathrooms were nice, but they could do away with the door to the master bedroom in the bathroom in the main unit. With a place this small the extra door isn't necessary AND getting rid of it would add valuable "wall space" in the master.

GREENOTTER: Between the wall thickness in the photo, the bamboo
floors, and the Andersen windows, did the interior have a feeling of
higher quality from other homes in the show?

ATOMIC: The bamboo floors were noticeable to me since I've researched them, but I'd think the average person will just think "hardwood floors", however that’s not a bad thing. The only thing I really noticed with the walls is that the windows have wood beams across their intersections, which makes a nice architectural feature that is enhanced by the thickness of the wall. the things that make the inside interesting is the decor they put in and the table surface above the kitchen sink which is a metallic laminate.

GREENOTTER: Thanks for mentioning that you asked one of the designers, that the price would be about ($130,000). Do you know if that is the base price or would that come with solar panels?

ATOMIC: Sadly I was informed this is the base price, that the solar panels are optional.

GREENOTTER: Before your photo, I'd never seen a photo of the façade of the 2nd bedroom structure. Was it good looking? And how about the interior of that? Nice layout?

ATOMIC: It was kept basic and minimal, though there was a decent rack setup on the inside right. not much could be said about it though, since it's kept as an open space except for the bathroom. I uploaded a few pictures I took of it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30226797@N05/

GREENOTTER: Yes! The money shot I’ve been wanting to see, the front of the cube “flex” room. And I like it. If that cube were made as a slightly bigger house, I’d point that big sliding door to the South and have great solar gain.

Did they let you climb to the roof deck? From your photo, I can tell they let some people up there.

ATOMIC: Yes, and this is one feature I LOVE about it. I have two acres of land on top of a mountain and I've been trying to plan out how to do just that exact thing, which would allow me a much better view of the surrounding mountains and sky. Not only that, but it lets you use what would normally be wasted space, increasing your "yard" size. (and as a not so random thought, you could close it in, seal up the drains under the deck, and have yet another enclosed space to live in!)

GREENOTTER: Do you think the deck structure linking the two parts of the house comes with it, and that there were things under it like an electrical conduit and/or water pipes?

ATOMIC: If not, it should be, if for anything but the fact they're advertising it with it. That is a question I did not ask, but it should be. The electric box is on the back side of the red cube and the water and electric lines do run under the deck.

GREENOTTER: So, the house is set up for solar, "solar-ready," and they probably will offer off-grid and grid-tie options.

ATOMIC: Yes, the off-grid setup of having the panels charge batteries is something you would have to pay extra for. Same with collecting the rain from the roof for reuse in the toilet and garden (Though they weren't sure if that was going to be done or just go to a rain barrel.)

I asked one associate and was told the electric bill wound be around $65 a month. Another said around $35, which I'm guessing this price would be with the solar panels installed.

GREENOTTER: Finally, did you notice other people's reaction? What did they make of the house. Were they curious….anyone laughing, scoffing, or marveling at it, that kind of thing.

ATOMIC: Most people were impressed by it and liked the way it looks on the inside, curious and unsure about the outside appearance, loved the rooftop deck, and loved the idea of the low power consumption, but many agreed it's small, needs a closet, and didn't like being exposed to the elements when going to the second bedroom.

GREENOTTER: Did you see any other homes in the show that you'd think would be a better way to spend $130,000, if you had it to spend that day?

ATOMIC: Yes, I did in fact see one, and it was around $55k. A double wide that was under or around 1k sq ft. It didn't have that "trailer" feel to it that most single or double wides have and could pass as a true home in appearance. Not only that but many places are putting restrictions on land that prevents single wides from being brought in, and despite its small size this would allow it to bypass that restriction. With this price you could cover the roof in solar panels for less then the price difference!

GREENOTTER: Yup, that’s exactly my feeling about the Karsten (now owned by Clayton) RC-2 with dormer option, but it might jack up the price putting in Andersen windows instead of the standard fare.

Thank you for your answers. I appreciate it, and if there is anyone else out there who saw the house, or would like me to post your photos or a link to them, please leave a comment, or contact me at zorastro(at)gmail(dot)com.

Will modernism kill Clayton's i-house

2008-11-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

HERE are some nice modernist green designs, finalists in a competition for designers come up with a $100,000 green house. They are designed for coastal flood areas, and there's no telling what the houses will cost by the time more than a few get built.

One may wonder, why I am blogging the Clayton i-house specifically. Again, while dozens of designs may come from competitions and private architects, few of these individuals or companies have the resources of a company like Clayton to mass produce and market it. Mass production not only helps keep a price low, it can also help a home become popular and available in more areas.

Affordability of Ford's Model T or the Volkswagen are what contributed to making them successful. If a home works well -- is energy efficient -- and is good quality, buyers will also warm to buying an affordable mass produced home.

The question is, will modernism kill a new house's mass popularity, even if it is all those things.

Suggestions to Clayton about the design of a green manufactured home

2008-11-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

1. Keep it simple and affordable.

A house with bamboo flooring, tankless water heaters etc. is obviously going to cost more than baseline homes with no upgrades, but keep the price close to average. Save the buyer money and energy by cutting down on square feet. Remember, the Prius debuted at around $20,000, which is low/mid-priced.

I think the Cavco "Freedom" solar park model is a good example of simple, good green design, and it is reasonably affordable relative to other park models (400 sq. ft.), but from an energy standpoint (as well as solid construction) R-11 insulation and 2 x 4 walls are disappointing. It would have been nice to see SIPS walls with R-20 or more.

A “green” double-wide around a thousand square feet would be fine. It can be done with making the master bedroom small and the 2nd bedroom even smaller. A home of 700 to 1000 feet would gain a market for small families, retirees, single people, and vacation home buyers.

As a country, we have become a nation encouraged to shop and want more than we can afford. In homes, including manufactured homes, the idea that bigger is always better, is part of the problem. Smaller is going to be back, and energy efficient is going to be "in" for several years ahead. The new home market is faltering at this point. People can buy foreclosures at bargain prices. However, I expect that well designed manufactured homes will have a market in the new homes market, especially for the approaching bulge in baby boomer retirees.

An example of a nifty interior floor plan and an attractive exterior in a smaller doublewide, is the 864 sq. Karsten RC-2, with the dormer option. It is their smallest model. Without the dormers, the interior loses its character (light, aesthetic appeal) and feeling of spaciousness. I've toured one, both ways, with and without dormers. On the web, there isn’t a photo or even a drawing of the exterior of the home. Instead the Karsten website shows a drawing of a generic home when you do the “brochure.” I took many photos of this charming house a few years ago, but lost them when my hard disk got fried in a lightning storm.

One reason I like this particular home, the RC-2, from the standpoint of heat conservation, is the lack of registers and heating ducts. The home is designed to have the central heater, with passive circulation throughout the house. No ducts losing energy, or getting dirty. No sound of fans blowing through ducts. It is both the design and the small size of the home that allows this. It probably never sold well for the lack of a 2nd bathroom. Karsten is now owned by Clayton.

2. How about a model of manufactured home with R-30 to R-50 walls, that are a foot or more thick. The higher thickness would be best suited to areas with winter climates with temps below freezing.

Insulation is the most cost effective way of improving efficiency, and thicker walls, usually necessary to fit in more insulation, give a home a feeling of permanence and quality. For the thicker walls and frame structure, engineered woods, SIPS, or a sandwich of blown-in insulation between two sheets of oriented strand board, such as in Dr. Feist's "passivhaus" See article in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Feist's passive houses, have R-60 walls, and are heated in the winter by appliances and human occupants, or supplemental heating by a very small heater. They use less than one tenth the energy of an average home of the same size. In the last decade thousands of these passive homes have been built in Europe, and architects like Karin Klingenberg carry on his work in the U.S.

3. Forget water catchment for a while.

While water catchment might be good for some remote locations, people who want it can get put on rain gutters and do it themselves if they need it. Instead, center the design around passive and active solar. So, a roof (shed, gable, or split gable with clerestory windows), oriented from 40 to 60 degrees. Use the same heavy gauge metal as is on the i-house. And silver is a good color.

Passive solar design should include one or two double-door sized windows on the South side, including one in the bedroom on the south side smaller windows on East and West and just a few small windows on the North side.

There’s a problem using a shed roof, for solar panels, in that if you want passive solar orientation, the high wall ends up on the north side. That can be avoided by using a flat ceiling inside. If using a flat ceiling, make it 9 feet high.

4. On option of slotted rolling shades, for the large windows on the south of the house. Insulated shades with a reflective or white exterior (for summer).

5. Use a conventional door for main entry into the house, instead of a sliding door.

6. Stick with the Andersen windows, bamboo flooring, Ikea cabinets, tankless water. All those features are well worth the extra money.
------------
One thing I see that might be right about a flatter roof depends on how many homes are sold to parks, where people don’t have an option of facing the home and its roof for optimal southern exposure.

One other thing I'd like to see a manufactured home company do: A garage with apartment above unit, with the apartment about four hundred to 550 square feet. Again, it would have multiple uses: garage and guest house, vacation home, mother-in-law home, extra rental income, or home for a single person.

Lastly, as via my suggestion in an earlier post. If the design for the i-home ends up undergoing drastic alterations, or being scrapped, consider expanding the 2nd bedroom into a tiny home. I think on its own, or maybe something a little larger, it would make a nice cottage. I would like to see a photo of it head on, and also the inside.

While I saw a Prius at a local dealer when it first came out, and then some driving around, it is very hard for people in some states to see a new model home. Dealers carry only a few models. In New Mexico, I've never seen a "park model" anywhere, although I know they must be somewhere. A few dealers have one model on display. In Phoenix they are all over. How many people can go to a show?

So, please take some videos, or at least comprehensive photos, of all your homes, no matter how fancy or humble. I watch amateur videos that some RV dealers do on youtube or their sites. Even though they don't bother with extra lighting, and they are usually bad quality, I like seeing the tour. Dealers of manufactured homes don't seem to be doing many videos like that. I'd like to see a video tour of the i-house. It would prime people's interest in the green direction of manufactured housing.

The wutizit factor of Clayton's i-house

2008-11-09T16:19:00.000-08:00

MIT designed House-of-the-Future had "it," at Disneyland.

Fuller’s Dymaxion house had it.

And the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has it, and it tastes good.

Clayton's i-house

Although it doesn’t look like a food item, the i-house has it too, a high wutizit factor. It is the type of structure that might cause a passerby to say:

“What is it?”

“Some kind of single-wide right near a utility shed or phone company switching shack?”

When people are looking for a house, they don’t usually want a high wutizit factor, even if the three top priorities of “location, location, location” are perfect. If you see people pointing at your house, you want it to be because it is handsome or cute, not because they are trying to figure out what it is.

Marianne Cusato’s tiniest “Katrina Cottage,” at 300 sq. ft., is both handsome and cute:

Following the tradition of a vernacular -- in this case the shotgun style of Louisiana and Florida -- and if the proportions and quality of the house are done well, then a general acceptance will follow, right?

EXCEPT, there are issues of size and zoning, which has been a big stumbling block for the Katrina Cottage since its introduction in 2005.

People not living in them, apparently feel good about the toxic FEMA trailers are disposable, and will be gone some day, to a landfill, but the residents of of some neighborhoods in New Orleans, shudder at the prospect of communities of attractive small cottages, less than a thousand sq. ft., that could stick around.

Cusato’s designs use a vernacular in a way that makes it sing. They have proportion and style. Log siding on a double wide manufactured home is successful at evoking the charm of a log cabin, on some manufactured homes, but on others it just looks like lipstick on a hockey mom. Cement plank costs less, and it doesn’t rot and termites won’t eat it.

Modernism doesn’t have as much of a reference point. It is not following an existing style, even a fake-look tradition, like log siding is supposed to look like a log cabin. It isn’t easy to make a house look good when creating something brand new. “Keep it simple” would be a good plan to follow for a manufacturer to keep costs down.

Wealthy people can afford to buy new modern style houses, no matter how unusual the design, because they don’t have much of their net worth tied up in a house. Middle and lower class people have to worry about resale value. After working thirty years to pay off a mortgage, most want their house to be worth as much as possible.

Few people make outside appearance their top priority when buying a house. With all the ugly houses around, that is obvious. However, most people veer toward traditional, even if it is referencing a style that ends up not being all that successful.

I know what it is like living in a house that attracts attention for being odd. Years ago, I bought this funny looking 1930's owner-built cottage in a picturesque mountain town in Colorado:

You can laugh if you want. I did the first time I saw it. It is hard to tell from the photo, but the window on the 2nd story is somewhat to the left of center from the picture window in the story below. It has two entrances in the front, with two stair cases. The one on the right is curved. People used to ask me if it were a duplex. The condensed vertical proportions of the house make it look different too. The hipped roof is different too. I thought I’d get used to the way it looked, but I didn’t. When my brother saw it, he dubbed it the “Hobbit House.” It is set back in the cliff and looks bad on all sides.

Inside, the house was cozy, sunny and practical. The first floor ceiling was too low, another thing I never got used to. A side wall with big windows overlooks a neighbor’s terraced flower gardens. Fortunately, the house is elevated about six feet higher than street level, and the street in front was steep. People didn’t look at my house when driving by. It wasn’t in a high traffic area anyway. People on foot would stare at it though, the few who might take a stroll in the neighborhood.

That town was full of quirky little houses, and some of them were cute and interesting. Mine was just odd. Not one person ever called it cute upon seeing the outside.

My priority in buying the house was location, and the location in that town was expensive. The price I paid was a steal for the property alone. It tripled in value in six years. For the same price, I could have had a nearly new townhouse in a neighboring town that was boring, and noisy when people went to work in the morning. From this house, I could run a few blocks and be up in trails in the mountains, walk downtown along a pretty creek, and even go in caves.

So, I bought into a funny looking house, for the property value and location. For initial buyers of the i-house, they have to take a chance on the way it looks. No property comes with the i-house.

Why didn’t Clayton go for a simpler double-wide design?

Introduced this summer, here’s a photo of the Cavco solar “Freedom” park model, which can be used off grid.

Most “park models” are 400 sq. ft., and look similar. They have regular peaked roofs, sometimes with added gables. They are classified as an RV. Snowbirds live in them in Arizona and Florida. I’m showing this, because it is a fine design.

Although its construction -- with 2 x 4 sidewalls and R11 insulation -- is not nearly as good as the i-home, it is a nice looking style. They went with a simple shed roof (for the solar panels) and clean lines. Inside, they use Ikea cabinets and bamboo floors, just like the i-house. The solar park model is on the market now, starting at about $45,000, and according to one article, a company person says they are “flying out the door.”

I wish they’d fly out the door with better insulation, but the size and the way their manufacturing facility is tooled, probably puts a restriction on that.

The feeling of solidity in a house has a lot to do with wall thickness. Seeing a thick inside perimeter of a window, for example, reminds you that you are in a house, not an RV.

Except if offered as an upgrade, nearly all single-wide trailers use 2 x 4s in the sidewalls instead of 2 x 6’s. It appears the I-house uses 2 x 6’s, at least.

Clayton has alluded to the fact they’ve spent a lot of money making this i-home. I don’t understand why they didn’t put more effort into its appearance.

I like modernism. But will the i-house look good or fit in anywhere?

A tale of two parts: Clayton’s revolutionary green i-house

2008-11-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

When I first read the article in the Knoxville newspaper (find link in my first post of this blog), announcing the debut of Clayton’s first green manufactured home at their home show, perhaps the most striking thing about it, is not the butterfly roof for rain catchment, or its ability to accept solar panels, but that it comes with a 2nd bedroom and bath which is detached from the main home. The orange structure with stairs on the side is the second bedroom/bath. In effect, it is like a guest house, or it could be used that way.

My mind started spinning with the advantages and possible disadvantages of that feature alone. After thinking about it for a while, I concluded that the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages for me, and probably for many other people too. In fact, it would be great.

ADVANTAGES:

When it comes to guests, I know how practical it is to have a home with a split bedroom design, and a 2nd bathroom of course. A few years ago, I lived in a newer home -- a custom stick-built adobe imitation -- before my stocks went south and I downsized. The home was only 1400 sq. feet, but had two bedrooms, each with bath, and each bedroom was on the opposite side of the house, diagonally. That was a better design than having to put guests in the room next door, or even across a hall. It gives everyone more privacy.

Better yet, would be having a home like the Clayton i-house, where you could put guests in their own separate guest house.

It would also make sense for people with older children, or an elderly parent, to give them their own space. A separate guest house is usually a luxury item that only wealthy people can afford.

DISADVANTAGES:

Anyone with smaller children, or an elder they need to keep a close eye on, putting them in a separate structure might make them feel a little isolated, or difficult to monitor. However, in this age of technology, an audio or video monitor might be an option. Also, some people have homes large enough, that even having a split bedroom plan, especially one upstairs and one down, makes bedrooms farther away from each other than this separate house.

During the winter, someone sleeping in the second bedroom, would need to go outside when they wanted to come over for breakfast or enter the main house for any reason. If they were in the main house, and needed something from the 2nd bedroom, they would have to step outside. Doing that would allow heat to escape.

However, would the difficulty of going outside be that much worse than going up and down a flight of stairs in a two story house. It would probably be easier.

One other disadvantage of the two part structure, is that more walls to the outside decrease energy efficiency. Along with that, more wall per enclosed square feet, takes more material to make.

SUGGESTIONS TO CLAYTON:

Design the 2nd bedroom so that it comes in two models. One as it is now, a 2nd bedroom and bath. Offer another floor plan as a small one-room cabin with kitchenette, that could be purchased separately from what is now the main part of the house.

In that way, Clayton could sell the small unit as a vacation cabin, or as a guest house. With the tiny house movement heating up, and people vacationing and even living in homes that are 100 sq. feet and less, this, at about 200 sq. ft., would be fine.

With regard to design, the orange/red 2nd bedroom structure is especially attractive. I like the proportions, the stairs, the roof deck, and the size. Not only does it in no way look like a trailer, it looks better to me than pretty much all the prefab cottages, cubes and homes that were shown at the Museum of Modern Art this summer.

Used as a summer cabin, the roof deck would be handy for enjoying a view, eating outside, or pitching a tent to use as a extra sleeping room in warmer weather.

Some photos of the Clayton i-house

2008-11-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

Since this old blog post of mine is referenced high in Google's search results, I'd like to remind readers I've made dozens of other posts about the i-house since 2008 which can be found in the BLOG ARCHIVE index on the right of this page.

Link to my July 2009 video of i-house model (2-bedrm core+flex)in Albuquerque.

Link to better resolution photos, I took, on Flickr.

Clayton has a separate site just for the i-house. You can find it by Googling:

Clayton i house

(Their official site should be in the top five or so.)

At first look, what is right and wrong about the i-house

2008-11-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

What is right:

1. The Ikea furniture/cabinets look great. They look better in this i-house than in the Boklok prefab homes Ikea builds in Europe.
2. The wall thickness (as you can see in a photo of the window on the inside) and Andersen windows look very good, high quality.
3. Bamboo floors are beautiful, and sustainable.
4. Window placement in the living room looks good. Houses should have a sunny side, for solar gain on the south side, and one with very few windows for the north side. This house has that.
5. The size of the home is fine, 1000 to 1200 sq. ft, although would like to see a model in the 600 to 750 range.
6. The interior of the home looks good. (Haven’t seen the bathrooms or 2nd bedroom interior yet, however.)
7. Like the a washer/dryer (and it is efficient keeping it on the kitchen plumbing), but think that probably should come with a cover of some sort, and perhaps it does but is not being shown in the photo.
8. I like the materials of the roof, and the walls, inside and out. (Shingled roofs blow off in the wind.)
9. Point-of-use hot water, great. My brother's house is a two story with hot water heater tank located on the first floor. It takes ten seconds to get hot water, and here, that is not only a waste of water, it also is a waste of energy, as it is in all tank heaters.
10. I like that the architects went modernist, instead of trying to make it look like a regular manufactured home.
11. Hurray for Clayton going forward on this, because if they can produce something that works well etc., Clayton, being a huge company, owned by Warren Buffet, and as of yet not falling apart due to the loan crisis. Read about how they did that HERE, from FORTUNE magazine. Clayton has the clout -- like no small company has -- to get the public's attention, and advertise and distribute them. I expect we will hear more about this home in major media, when Clayton settles on a final design, and sets a price.

What is wrong:

1. The first time I saw photos of this house, I thought the main unit looked like a single-wide home where a smurf meteor may have impacted the middle. I like most modernism (e.g., Romero's prefab LV house, or Kaufmann's GLIDEHOUSE), but this, again, resembles a single-wide manufactured home. Unfortunately, any structure approaching the dimensions of a single-wide home, even if it has stone walls and a tile roof, is going to have the problem of looking like a single-wide.

However, the more I look at it, the more I like it. Most modernism takes a period of adjustment. Wally Byam designed the Airstream trailer to be aerodynamic for maximum ease of towing. Form follows function, a principal of modernism. There is a beauty in that, even if at first, it takes some getting used to. Everything about the i-home is probably about function, along with manufacturing/engineering/cost considerations.

If I had the money, and it turns out this house works well, is well built, is durable, smacks of quality upon close examination,and is as beautiful inside as I think it probably is, I would buy it. Yes, it may look a little like a single-wide, but IT ISN'T BUILT LIKE ANY SINGLE-WIDE, and that is all that really matters, to me at least.

2. The problem is enhanced by the gently sloped butterfly roof for water catchment, which looks peculiar from an aesthetic perspective. The provision for water catchment is ruling the design. Since there are other designs (shed roof, traditional gable roof, split shed clerestory design) that can be used for water catchment, I don't see the particular advantage in this design. The butterfly design has been used before this, recently, on a smaller house by PowerHouse.

Here's a video tour of a smaller house with an even more extreme butterfly roof for water catchment, the Powerpod, by PowerHouse. Clayton may have gotten the idea from this house. It should be noted this company makes the same house with two other roof designs, both which look a lot better.

According to the article about the i-house, the catchment is not yet configured for drinking water or in-home use. So, only for watering garden, lawn, trees. I've had a drink of filtered roof water, from an earthship in Taos, NM. It was terrible. Granted, a metal roof might be better for water catchment, but still, water used for drinking, has to be filtered from dust, leaves, bird doo, or anything that lands on the roof. Say something blocks the drain area temporarily, any standing water, even for a short time, attracts insects, bacteria or algae, and that gets in the water filter.

In this design by Clayton, the roof slope is so minimal, in a climate where there is any snow, the snow, ice and slush is going to get stuck around the solar panels and sit there.

To minimize the single-wide look, and maximize efficiency of solar panels (assuming they aren't adjustable), why not a "dual pitch" roof, with the solar panels on the long side, inclined at the optimal solar angle of 40 to 60 degrees?

Ideally, for solar passive solar gain in the winter, the side with the most windows should be south-facing, yet during the summer if that side has a good overhang of two feet or more, it offers protection from the sun in the summer. To meet highway transport requirements, I believe a section of a home can't exceed the 16 foot limit which is why so many manufactured homes have the conspicuous feature that makes them look different from a conventional house: hardly any eaves or overhang.

3. On the main unit, even if two materials for the side are used, make them the same color, like the architectural drawing. I think all metal would look better. The squares in the cement board, and the different materials make it look busy, detracting from the nice wedge shape of the two halves. Then again, this could be just indoor lighting. The closeup of the entrance looks fine.

Here is the photo which makes it look two-toned:

4. The overhang is over an entrance, which is good, but it would be better for sun protection in the summer, if there were more of an overhang on the south facing side too, the side with the most windows.
5. The separate 2nd bedroom appears to have a good simple modern design, but it also doesn’t fit with the design of the main unit. Again, maybe not trying to make them "match" is a good idea, since their designs are different.
6. The solar panels appear to lie flat, and that is not at all optimal for winter sun. (Ignore this, if the inclination is adjustable.)

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Instead of being like a Prius, this home’s appearance is probably closer to the unorthodoxy of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Well, not quite that, but still, it is VERY different. However, look at Falling Water by Wright, it doesn't look like other houses either. This i-house probably works better in terms of efficiency and function than much of the modernistic architecture by famous architects before the last few decades. A lot of Wright's roofs leaked. Fuller's geodesic domes come with their own set of problems, such as moisture retention in the ceiling, and the labor involved in doing drywall over odd shapes, to name two of the big ones.In other words, not everything that is so great to behold, functions perfectly.

At the Solar Decathlon before last,(2005), some of the zero-energy homes built by students, had roof leaks when it rained hard during the competition. Most of the 800 sq. ft. houses in the competition cost between $500,000 to one million to build, although Cornell projected a post-manufactured cost of about $130,000 in 2005.

Michael Berk of Mississippi State designed the award-winning GreenMobile. Unfortunately, a prototype is yet to be constructed, however EVERYTHING about this design shows great promise, including a potentially rock-bottom low price, for the smallest size. Possible advantage of i-house is that i-house was designed by in-house Clayton architects who understand the the details of manufactured housing.

Please comment with your opinion. What do you think of the way the i-house looks?

Is Clayton's new "i-house" the Prius of homes?

2008-11-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Photo of Clayton's new 2-part green "i-house." The orange structure to the right, with stairs leading to a roof terrace, is part of the i-house too, but a detached bedroom and bath, believe it or not.

Disclaimer:
I do not work for Clayton. Nor is my blog a guaranteed accurate source of information about Clayton’s i-house. These are just my personal opinions. However, I will try to keep track of all new articles and information about the Clayton i-house and link to the articles. I’m blogging it because I think this is potentially the beginning of a green revolution in manufactured homes, and an important step by Clayton.

Introduction:
Clayton, the largest manufacturer of manufactured homes in the U.S., has taken the bold and exciting step of being the first MAJOR manufacturer to introduce a green, energy efficient manufactured home.

Although I will reference my wider interest in matters green, and domestic architecture, especially that of manufactured homes, this blog is about this house, the Clayton i-house.

Read about the i-house and see photos of it HERE.
(From an article in the Knoxville newspaper in conjunction with the home’s debut at a local home show in late October, 2008)

While various makers of modernist green prefab and manufactured houses have made such homes, some costing in the hundreds of thousands, this is the first green manufactured home of some size that promises to be affordable. My guess is somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty thousand.

If you read the article, you will see that Clayton has not priced the home yet, and they suggest this house may be more of a prototype at this point. Although they have the potential to manufacture such a home by the thousands per year, obviously, they want to test market the home, and perhaps modify things significantly before it is mass produced. They want to produce the Prius of green homes, not the Edsel. Unless Clayton is doing this to fulfill a secret government mandate for a "green" something, I can't see how they'd be doing this for fun.

Origin of my personal interest and perspective:

I live in Santa Fe, NM, and am in my 50’s. When I was a kid, I developed a passion for trailers. Maybe it was that my little girlfriend Marcia and I used to play house in their family’s camping trailer, which I thought was very cool.

Growing up in a conventional ranch house, perhaps my sustained interest in trailers, large and small, continued because I never lived in manufactured housing. As a kid, my mother took me to a few manufactured housing shows, held in the parking lot of a mall. I remember liking the interior of one single-wide in particular, while finding the other models tacky or cheap looking.

As an adult, my interest in trailers continued, although not enough to live in one, although there was one I was considering seriously. It was well made, small (about 800 sq. ft.), had dormers, and a great interior. To me, it was by far the best looking home on the Karsten lot, and probably the only one I liked the way it looked inside and out.

Back to when I was younger, and returned from Europe, and was finishing college, my parents retired to a new double-wide on a lake in Florida and I stayed there several times on visits. Compared to the era in which my parent’s home was made (1978), most manufactured homes today have come a long way in quality and durability. Although my parent's double-wide had a nice layout, it had some pretty cheesy looking things about it, like plastic bathroom sinks. The nicest part, was probably the front porch, which was not part of the original trailer.

When I moved to the mountains of Colorado, I lived in an small home built in the 1930’s, and spent years doing major renovations on it. Putting in: insulation, drywall, new windows and floors, all by myself. It aged me. I read books and articles about the efforts of people such as Buckminster Fuller, with Dymaxion House, or others, the Lustron Home, that it would be nice if there were a way for a manufacturer to make a solid, durable, practical, and AFFORDABLE modern home for the masses, that could just be trucked in.

Yes, I'm aware of the controversy some cite about manufactured housing, with regard to green...that it is more sustainable for houses to be built of local sustainable materials. My favorite local architect, Paula Baker Laporte, and her husband/builder do beautiful custom homes with adobe bricks and earth plasters, and even mud floors. The problem is, building with local materials often takes a lot of labor and expense, compared to manufactured housing. They build beautiful, quality houses, at a premium price.

Lower cost manufactured housing is going to happen anyway, with new materials and robots to build them, why not support when it is trying to go green.

At one time I considered building my own house, as in doing most of the work myself, but reading books on house building, I was discouraged at the complexity and expense of it, and axed that idea. For one friend and her husband, building their own home was a nightmare, even though they had a contractor and didn’t do the building themselves. About that time, I started looking more closely at manufactured homes and appreciating the basic engineering that goes into them.

Green Awareness:

When my grandfather would visit on weekends, he'd sometimes catch me leaving the basement while forgetting to turn the lights off. I didn't think much about energy usage then, or where it came from. My awareness of things green began the 8th grade when our science class took a trip to the local coal burning power plant. Seeing the power plant made me realize our power was coming from coal(!), and that a lot of it was going up in the air as pollution. Of course, this was years before people were talking about CO2 or global warming. For me, I thought mostly about miners having to dig for it, and it being burned to drive the giant turbines to generate electricity, with a lot of smoke coming out of the smoke stack at the power plant.

When I started paying bills, I naturally got interested in paying as little as possible, and tried to use energy in a way to accomplish that.

About four years ago, I read an article, that Toll Bros., the largest builder of McMansions in the U.S., at one time offered an upgrade of extra insulation, and not only did practically no one get it, no one even asked about it. Meanwhile, granite counter tops are flying out of the quarry like hotcakes. And of course, in the typical 6000 sq. ft. barn of a house a buyer might also want marble floors in the foyer, dual staircase leading to the second floor, stained glass dome atop a two story foyer, exotic hard woods most people have never heard of. (The more endangered the better?)

Aside from McMansions, the average new house size has nearly doubled in the last 30 years, and I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind. No matter whether rich, middle class or poor, most of the rich and middle class buy large homes, or use energy without thinking of the pollution it causes or the resources it devours.

If it isn’t bad enough that you have wealthy retired couples heating and lighting multiple homes they don’t occupy, that may be up to 10,000 sq. feet, but even the average family is buying a house that is about twice the size they really need, and that of course, means using twice the energy.

What do people care if they pollute twice as much? And the wealthy, of course, want to live in a gated community with similar McMansions, just for safety, same reason as many people give for driving SUVs. They want to be in a vehicle, that if it gets T-boned by another SUV, won’t get crushed. And people want to live in bigger homes, because the better and safer neighborhoods have the bigger homes… Size restrictions in neighborhoods need to change.

While the poor, in general, use less energy, especially in underdeveloped countries, poor people who live in older single-wide trailers or drafty older homes, are spending a lot on energy too. In New Mexico, most poor people cannot afford to live in an energy efficient adobe home, or well built stick-built (frame construction) home, or a modular, which are often better built and more efficient than conventional construction. When a forest fire wiped out the houses on a residential street in the forest right above Los Alamos, NM, the per capita highest-wages-town in the U.S., I noticed many scientists and engineers rebuilt with modular homes. It is much quicker, and they understand how well engineered they are.

There’s little I can do to change the thinking of the rich, or the average home buyer, but a lot I can do to change my own habits. I moved to a home that is less than half the size of my previous home, and energy bills are about one third of what they used to be, even though my other home was considered small, 1400 sq. feet.

The Green Shift

With an overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agreeing that global warming is real, in combination with high gas prices, and now, a downshift in the economy, a real shift is taking place.

Just a few years ago, many people didn’t even know what green meant, let alone have any interest in if their new home had any green features. Now, home owners are interested.

I’ve been reading about manufactured homes including prefab/modular, kit houses, and green houses and conventional houses of all sorts, log, domes, yurts, for decades. I didn’t think a manufacturer would jump on green as quickly as Clayton has. GM and Ford didn’t care about fuel efficiency, and were fine with waiting to see where Toyota and Honda went with hybrids, because they were doing just fine selling trucks and SUVs. So, maybe Clayton has gotten the smart idea, that while they are doing well now, they want to be like Toyota, on top of the important green trend instead of behind it. No matter what you thought of "trailers" in the past, this step toward green is significant.

I would like to see a revolution in the manufactured housing industry, where they make green manufactured homes that exceed the efficiency, quality and popularity of stick built homes, and use less embodied energy. People would then start thinking of the money/energy they could save, if instead of buying that 2000 square foot house, they instead spend the same for the green features in a 1200 sq. ft. green manufactured house, for the same price and a lot of future savings in both energy and taxes (lower square feet means less tax usually).

Lastly, when I write about "affordable," I don't mean under $400,000 or "less expensive than stick built but better quality." All manufactured homes are less expensive than a comparable-quality stick-built counterpart, although a few of the high-end modular homes may come in about even. By affordable, I mean a smaller home, built to last, under 1200 square feet, that is less than $100,000 for sizes 800 square feet and less, and around $100,000 for up to 1200 square feet.

My next post will be about the what I see, from photos and reading, that is right and wrong about the i-house.