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Panelized Home: An Innovative Prefab in North Carolina
As sustainable building methods continue to advance and gain popularity across the country, homeowners are finding that “green” building companies are moving toward greater specialization, which gives them more choices on the level of customization and the sustainability aspects of the home. Homeowners John and Barry live in one of these specialized homes in North Carolina: a prefabricated, panelized home that is net-zero ready, constructed by Deltec Homes. Founded in 1968, Deltec Homes, a family-owned Certified B Corporation based in Asheville, North Carolina, specializes in creating high-performance prefabricated net-zero energy homes—not your standard homebuilder.
John and Barry wound up choosing their new home from Deltec’s Renew Collection, which consists of three different home models—Balsam, Ridgeline, and Solar Farmhouse—that are “pre-designed to use two-thirds less energy than a typical home; the remaining one-third can be powered with renewable energy,” according to the website. They selected the Ridgeline, a model designed with a passive solar layout and for high-performance living.
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Prefab Sustainability and Customization
The 1,765-square-feet home was strategically sited in a meadow to maximize solar exposure and allow for passive solar heating. “Since we moved into the home in February 2019,” John says, “we have realized great energy savings. The certification process has estimated that our annual energy savings will be $2,335. We have an all-electric home, and due to our 18 solar panels, we generated more power than we used in April and May and were not charged for any electricity usage during these months.”
Other sustainability features include 2x6 exterior walls with advanced insulation; Marvin Integrity windows; a Mitsubishi electric combination ductless and ducted hyper-heat mini-split heat pump; a heat pump water heater; a recirculating hot water system which supplies hot water on demand to the bathrooms without needing to “run the water” until it is hot; interior paint with zero volatile organic compounds; all LED lighting; water-saving fixtures; and energy-efficient appliances. The home has been certified as Zero Energy Ready, Indoor airPLUS, and an Energy Star home.
John and Barry were able to customize their model, to create more interior and outdoor space. “Our Ridgeline model is designed with two screened-in areas within the home proper,” they explain. “We modified our plan to wall in those areas to provide more interior living space. At the same time, because outdoor living space is important to us, we added a screened-in breezeway between the house and the garage, which provides an additional 192 square feet of three-season usability.”
“In addition, the sliding doors in the dining room made it easy to add an 800-square-foot outdoor patio from those doors to the garage,” the homeowners add. The amount of outdoor living area allows the couple to effectively increase the square footage of their home while enjoying greater access to the natural world through biophilic architectural design. Because the house is all one level, it’s perfect for aging-in-place—one of their primary concerns and sustainability.
“We like the open floor plan, the amount of natural light inside, the many green features, and the no-step accessibility throughout,” John says.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
