Home Builder Shawn Jessup, owner of S. D. Jessup Construction, Inc., is now a five-time winner of a DOE Housing Innovation Award, recognizing forward-thinking builders constructing energy-efficient homes on the path to Net Zero. Having accomplished this feat first in 2017 and for the past four consecutive years, that puts him in rare company.
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Joe “Radio Joe” Hughes of the IAQ Training Institute and IAQ Radio has been training builders and contractors for nearly two decades on indoor air quality issues. Through his popular podcast, trainings, and conferences, he shares insights on building science and the complexities of modern construction, and why indoor air quality is becoming more precarious. Insulation Institute recently spoke with Hughes about why the approach to indoor air quality in new construction must change.
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Matt Whitbeck, Co-Owner and President of Whitbeck Construction, LLC specializes in custom framing, exterior sustainability, and residential remodeling. He’s serious about quality craftsmanship and energy efficiency. So much so that he is a popular speaker at building industry conferences on those topics. Whitbeck and Kevin Ireton spoke to a standing room only crowd in the High-Performance Building Zone at NAHB’ International Builders Show (IBS). Whitbeck also took time following IBS to speak with Insulation Institute on three tips for framing carpenters as they work to help builders achieve more energy-efficient homes.
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What was a lofty philanthropic effort by actor Brad Pitt has morphed into a disastrous example of how poor construction of affordable, energy-efficient housing can negatively impact homeowners and put the builder and building designer in a precarious position.
NOLA.COM reported this week that in 2007, two years after Hurricane Katrina, Make it Right Foundation, organized by Pitt, set a goal of constructing 150 energy efficient, sustainable and affordable homes for residents of Louisiana’s devastated Lower Ninth Ward. The foundation constructed 109 homes, but just 11 years after the start of construction, reports say that some homes have issues including rotting wood, mold growth, dangerous air quality, and rusty sockets. The majority of the homes are currently unoccupied and some have been demolished.
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Home Builders take pride in the quality construction and workmanship of new homes. But even the best builder will occasionally be challenged with flaws in new construction that must be corrected. The complexity of new home construction, buyers’ lack of understanding about new home warranties, and internet savvy consumers raise the stakes for new home purchases and argue for independent home inspections.
Insulation Institute spoke with Frank Lesh, past president of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) and Mike Chamberlain, owner of MC2 Home Inspections, a certified national home inspector. We discussed the prevalence of inspections for new homes, the three most common issues Chamberlain has encountered during those inspections, and what builders can do to ensure consistent quality construction.
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The Insulation Institute is committed to addressing and educating the market on quality installation, conducting training sessions and developing an extensive guide on how to get Grade I installation. Since we represent the insulation industry, we like to get out in the field from time-to-time and see how the products our members manufacture are installed.
So, when we had an opportunity to visit two Maryland homes currently under construction just after the insulation had been installed we jumped at the chance.
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Builders today face a number of challenges in the face of a national shortage of available and affordable housing. At the top of the list is a deficit of skilled labor, a lack of construction knowledge by consumers and real estate agents, and a declining number of experienced and qualified general contractors for both onsite and modular home construction.
Factory-built home construction advocates argue that their construction process can tackle many of these issues. To get a clearer picture, Insulation Institute spoke with Ed Hudson, Director of Marketing Research Services at Home Innovation Research Labs, and Jay Young, Marketing and Licensing Agent for William Poole Designs about the current housing situation and the future of home construction in America.
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Behavioral Economics is focused on understanding how people, with all of our foibles and inadequacies, disrupt the pleasant simplicity of a marketplace full of rational actors. It began as behavioral psychologists started applying their findings to economics and marketplace decisions. The field has gone mainstream, with many best-selling books and Nobel Prizes in economics going to pioneers in the field. However, most businesses have yet to truly understand how significant this is. The building industry, largely B2B focused, has been slower than many B2C markets to incorporate this thinking. Why? Because all that behavioral economics stuff is about the average consumer, not the savvy business person making decisions, right? Wrong. We are all human, and subject to the same flaws in thinking. This issue is directly relevant in building industry purchase decisions, and we will show you why.
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Farm to table. Sustainable sourcing. Menus with calories disclosure. Today’s consumers want to know what is in the products they buy, where they come from and how they are made. New research from Label Insight, which specializes in product data, shows that the issue of transparency has a huge impact on how consumers perceive brands. The bottom line is that the more transparent a brand is the more trusted it is and the more loyal its customers are. This means the trend towards disclosure presents both challenges and opportunities. While this trend has mostly been seen in consumable and personal care products, it is beginning to impact the residential building industry too, and builders can use this to their advantage.
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If you’re a home builder, you may already know that nine out of 10 home buyers today rely on the Internet as one of their primary research sources and 52 percent turn to the web as their first step in the home search, according “The Digital House Hunt” published by National Association of Realtors® Moreover, in the digital age, consumers use online review sites to rate their customer experience with a business, which is great, if that experience was favorable, but can be devastating to your corporate image if it wasn’t. A bad online reputation means fewer leads, less work and less revenue. More often than not, builders, contractors and other service providers have no control over the reviews that are posted online and are read by prospective home-buyers or renovators. As such, improving your online reputation has important implications for your company.
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