Meet the New, Green Modular House
(01/21/2010) Ethan and Lisa Litwin used to call their house on Hunting Avenue in East Hampton “a tent with a roof.” At 500 square feet, it
 Durell Godfrey Photos |
wasn’t much more than a place to sleep.
Last year, with a baby on the way, they realized they needed more space and that the tiny house needed so much work that they would probably have to tear it down and build something new in its place — “a difficult decision because we’re conscious of the environment,” Mr. Litwin said.
Around that time, Mr. Litwin read an article about modular houses that convinced him they might be better than the old stereotype he was familiar with, and a worthwhile option to explore. An Internet search led him to New World Home, a New York-based company that designs highly energy-efficient factory-built houses.
Mr. Litwin, a lawyer, and his wife, an art historian, are enamored of the Arts and Crafts movement, and they liked the fact that New World Home’s designs were traditional, not modern. “They married green construction with historically inspired architecture. . . . We wouldn’t have done it if it came out looking like one of those boxes from outer space,” Mr. Litwin said on Friday, two days after his modular house was delivered and assembled on Hunting Avenue.
“Building in the same vein as the historical vernacular in a particular region, to us, is part of being green,” said Tyler Schmetterer, who founded the company three years ago with Mark Jupiter. The trademark for
On Saturday the family walked through the house for the first time with their contractor. |
their designs is “New Old Green Modular,” a concept that “represents the convergence of historically inspired design with green products and practices from around the world,” Mr. Schmetterer said.
He said he believes the Litwins’ house is the first factory-built house on the East End to be eligible for the highest certification under the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program without making use of renewable energy sources. The LEED program rates houses based on a variety of factors, including sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, sustainable materials, and indoor environmental quality.
Rather than relying on alternative energy sources like solar power or geothermal heating and cooling systems to make a house energy efficient, the designers focus on better insulation, more efficient traditional heating systems, low-flow plumbing, improved interior air quality, and innovative framing to reduce the transfer of heat from inside to out. Among the innovations: tankless hot-water heating, a wall-mount direct-vent furnace that is 98 percent efficient, spray-in insulation, and a plumbing system that reduces the use of water by some 10,000 gallons a year.
Typical newly constructed houses have a home energy rating score of about 100, Mr. Schmetterer explained. New World Home’s modulars average a score of below 50, which roughly translates to a 50-percent savings over traditional construction on annual utility bills. On Long Island, that makes the houses eligible for a $3,000 incentive through the Long Island Power Authority’s clean-energy initiative and for a federal energy-efficient home tax credit of up to $2,000.
Sustainable products and finishes that contain low or no volatile organic chemicals also help lessen the house’s environmental impact. And because it was constructed in pieces in a factory, there is minimal waste and less on-site debris, Mr. Schmetterer said. (The Litwins were able to give away or recycle much of the original house.)
New World Home outsources the manufacturing to several companies. The Litwins’ house was constructed in four pieces, or boxes, in a factory in Pennsylvania and trucked to East Hampton on Jan. 13. They expect to move in by March.
“Once we hit production, they’re in the house in 100 days,” Mr. Schmetterer said. “The boxes come 90 percent complete to the site.” There, local contractors take over. In the Litwins’ case, Mark and Justine Dubrow of Dubrow Enterprises in Southampton are overseeing all the on-site work.
The company distributes as far west as Colorado and will expand to California by the end of the year. “There are a lot of green modular companies out there, but they’re all uber-contemporary and very expensive,” Mr. Schmetterer said. Exclusive of property cost and site and finish work, the houses designed by New World Home average between $150 and $200 per square foot, very reasonable by new construction standards.
“We think our niche in the market is very underserved,” Mr. Schmetterer said. The company’s goal, he said, is to “reduce any green premiums down to zero, so there is no premium to consumers for living in a green home.”