PANEL HOME CONSTRUCTION

Looking for an efficient way to build homes cheaply and quickly. My buddy Jeremy's dad introduced me to panel home construction. He has a 3000 sq ft house with a vaulted roof, his heating bill this winter is about $125 a month and he keeps it at about 75. To put that in perspective, I have a 1200 sq ft house, keep it at about 65 and my heating bill is also $125. My house is old too, really thick wood, not the compressed stuff, lots of really thick insulation... by comparison to most houses, mine is pretty efficient. So, to more than double the efficiency of my place is pretty insane.

In addition to being more efficient, the houses are more durable. If you've ever looked at hurricane or tornado and seen the framed houses blown to bits, there's always a few houses left standing. Typically, those are either concrete, brick or panel homes. Panel homes are suppose to be able to withstand 135 mph winds, I'm hesitant to believe that, but that's the rumor. I also heard one about a home from Louisiana that survived Hurricane Katrina and wasn't even wet inside. I'm not going to take that at face value, but if it's true, that's a pretty good sales point.

They also are a step in the tree-hugger direction in that they use 5 to 10% less wood to build, so all you hippies put on your best patchouli... as if everyone doesn't know what it smells like and what you're covering up, pause your Grateful Dead CD for a second and look it up.

The basics are 2 pieces of plywood 8 inches apart and filled with styrofoam that form the 'panel'. I know, I thought the same thing. Part of the effectiveness of the structure is that the roof is also covered with these panels, so the roof has the same efficiency rating as the walls. Consequently, they also use a fire proof styrofoam, so you have a safer house which leads to lower insurance costs.

Lastly, and this is the part that kills me, it took a crew of 4 guys 3 days to put up the house and roof. Now, you would still frame the interior walls the same way, have the concrete basement (if you have a basement) built the same way, so the time it takes to put those together is the same. They use to be cheaper, but once the government got wind of these starting to catch on, Unions intervened and had Congress find ways to raise the costs to build them to discourage people from deviating from the old way of building houses... ie - a 15 to 20 person Union owned crew that frames in a house with lots of smoke breaks, cheaper materials, longer labor times... gotta love politics. But even with that nonsense, you save 30-40% on labor costs.

So, in summary, they are built more quickly, they are more durable, they are safer and they are more efficient.

Eagle Panel Systems (there's a good PDF)
IB Panels (good video example of ease of use and ordering information)