Buildings
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Modular Housing that Surpasses Site-Built Standards Expanding its initiative to improve affordable housing across the state, Advanced Energy is working with modular home manufacturers to extend the Homes Built With SystemVision™ Guarantee to more homeowners. Through a partnership with the NC Community Development Initiative, Advanced Energy became active with two efforts now underway to replace housing destroyed in eastern North Carolina by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. In both projects, the developers were interested in knowing whether modular housing might possibly comply with Advanced Energy's rigorous standards for home construction — a set of standards that surpass the standards for conventional site-built housing in North Carolina. One rebuilding effort by the City of Greenville is being performed by builder, S.E. Sasser. The other rebuilding effort is in Princeville, NC, by the Initiative, with Carroll Stewart Construction as the general contractor. These builders' modular housing needs are currently being served by two modular home manufacturers — Mid-Atlantic Building Systems of Candor, NC, and Carolina Building Solutions of Salisbury, NC. These two manufacturers are proving that, with training and guidance from Advanced Energy, they can indeed "raise the bar" and offer some of the most comfortable, energy-efficient, and affordable housing available on the market today. Arnie Katz, Director of the Affordable Housing at Advanced Energy, says that the biggest in-factory challenge for the modular houses was bringing them up to the SystemVision standards on insulation — a common problem with site-built housing, too. (It is important to remember that modular housing, unlike manufactured housing, is required by law to conform to the same state and local building codes as site-built housing.) First, Advanced Energy tested existing homes built by the two companies to identify specific deficiencies, and identified corrective measures for the insulation and other deficiencies in meeting SystemVision standards. Then, both manufacturers invited Advanced Energy into their plants to help them make necessary changes. Advanced Energy's staff trained the manufacturers' insulation installers to comply with the SystemVision's standard (zero tolerance for voids, gaps, compression, or wind intrusion in wall, floor, and ceiling insulation). Because modular manufacturers use their own regular employees, rather than independent subcontractors, to insulate the homes, Katz says he has high confidence that the manufacturers can make the process changes permanent ones. Katz notes that, in actuality, a modular home can offer several advantages over a site-built home. Built indoors without weather exposure, with special equipment to provide ease of access, and with materials that are unmanageable onsite (e.g., 20-foot sections of wallboard!), modular housing can simply bypass some of the air leakage problems that are often introduced in site-built housing. "In another respect, we found no difference at all between modular and site-built housing," says Katz. "The other major headache was getting the HVAC system right!" The HVAC systems are installed in modular housing by HVAC contractors, just as they are with site-built housing. But those challenges are being resolved, and more homeowners in Floyd-ravaged parts of North Carolina move into their new (modular) homes with the assurance of comfort and low energy costs that comes with Advanced Energy's Homes Built With SystemVision™ Guarantee. More Information
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