Modular Green homes offer better value for customer
It is now a matter of time that factory built modular homes would adopt Green standards and give more choices to customer looking for such homes when local home builders are still reluctant to get into this market.
Trained professional staff using computer models to minimize waste can produce these modules at lower cost and higher quality of construction. The home construction is not affected by the outside weather, storms etc. and not limited to smaller construction season when labor shortages could increase the cost. Labor cost for year around employed people may also also be lower than seasonal employees who work 8-9 months in a year.
This is an opportunity for this industry to offer a real alternative to conventional homes and complete the home within a week on the site by transporting 4- 5 modules to make a single home and putting it together in a pre-designed way.
An annual event of such factory built homes is taking place this year where green homes will be discussed and we hope that many of the manufacturers would take the challenge and do it in coming years.
posted by ram shrivastava @ 9:05 PM
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21st Century City-Communities by Tony Livoti
The U.S. is in the best position to set the global standards and create the models for 21st Century cities compared to the current zero emission, eco-city efforts now being conducted in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and Dongtan, China that require ‘big-ticket’ investments and are geared for a population of approximately 50,000 people. These efforts are noble and ground breaking but their completion has been inhibited by the global economic slowdown and their lofty costs.
The U.S. needs to take the lead and create a new 21st Century City-Community model that is inexpensive to develop, is much smaller in size, can be replicated easily to meet the population demands and can exist within the environment rather than changing the environment so they can exist.
These new 21st Century City-Communities first must have available land and water and then must employ the following eight items to meet the demands for affordable living and working space.
• Efficient, portable, alterable, cost-effective and innovative building methodologies that can be mass produced utilizing space age materials
• Capable waste management and recycling systems that process waste at the source, including human waste, and then convert the waste into useful bi-products and energy sources
• Proficient water purification and recycling systems
• Clean mass transportation systems established within a competent and useful community infrastructure designed for walking, self propelled and electric bicycle paths and small ‘people movers’ powered by electricity or bio fuels
• Self-sustained renewable energy sources from wind, sun, bio-fuel crops, geothermal and waste mass
• Energy plants built within the local city-community with smart mini-grid systems employing simple and cost-efficient methods for energy distribution
• Satellite connected communication centers for education, business and entertainment
• Sustainable agricultural centers employing hydroponics, greenhouses and other new technologies for crop production
The two most important ‘key’ components that need to be met for 21st Century cities to meet all of the above criteria are the following:
• A new approach to building ‘space’ is mandatory. Even though the emergence of Green Construction is a good start these approaches to sustainable construction still require costly and heavy lumber, steel, glass, and cement. Traditional building materials and methods need to be replaced with new architectural designs that employ mass produced modular parts made from space age materials. These ‘space-craft’ structures will live above the ground and not dug deep into the ground with cumbersome, costly and permanent foundations that alter the natural environment for years to come.
• The 21st Century City-Community needs to have its energy derived from within its own boundaries and not depend on its power requirements from far away sources that are probably controlled by powerful energy monopolies. The now popular concept of upgrading America’s energy grids and funneling power from new central renewable sources to meet the demands of millions of users across the country is too costly and challenging. Some say $30 Trillion if we are to become energy independent by 2030.
Each 21st Century City-Community needs to provide its own energy and when power demands can’t be met locally then systems can be created for energy sharing with other 21st Century-Community-Cities that have excess energy.
Energy needs to stay local.
21st Century City-Communities are job creators. Each one of the eight items stated above are cottage industries in themselves naturally creating new businesses and jobs to meet the demands of their own sustainable community. Additionally, more jobs can be created when other domestic and global regions with water and land need the products, technology, intellectual property, training, and leadership from the original models to build their own 21st Century City-Communities.
Our American forefathers had it right. Not Washington or Jefferson, the American Indians. They did it for hundreds of years living in harmony with their environment. Now, we have a population that needs 21st century technology to take the American Indian model and make it work in today’s crowded and polluting world.
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