Method Homes Prefab Green Modular Homes

As you may know, Method teamed up with Skylab Architecture out of Portland OR to develop the long awaited Urban Series. After months of R & D, we have come to the conclusion that what Skylab has created is far more than just an “urban series” and the project has taken on a life of its own. As of today, we are finalizing a few items prior to launch. This project has been almost a year in the making and we can’t wait to share it. Please stay tuned.

Please visit Skylab at www.skylabarchitecture.com

Well, we made it through the push for our open house weekend. The cabin is almost 100% complete, less than three months from the start of construction. I spent the weekend up there and it was great to stay in the Method Cabin and see our vision realized.

Thank you to everyone who attended and made the weekend a success. I am available to give private tours if anyone else would like to see the home. Also it is going to be a vacation rental soon so if anyone would like to demo the Method Cabin contact me at brian at methodhomes dot net to reserve your dates.

It was truly a team effort to get it ready in time and a big thanks goes out to everyone involved in making that happen. Based on what it looked like Thursday morning it is amazing we were ready in time as can be seen by the first photos.

Now that we’re complete I’m going to try to update the blog more regularly.  Hopefully the next photos will be the final finished photos.

A special thanks go out to Digs furniture store of Bellingham which can be found  at http://digsshowroom.com for helping us with the furniture by Gus* and all the home decor. Too bad for us we want to keep half the stuff.

The foundation is sitting in the woods, awaiting a home. I can’t wait to see it. The warehouse has sheet rock hung and by the end of the week a level 5 smooth wall. The home is scheduled to leave May 21st. See you soon!

Brian chiming in here. This is probably a good time to go over the concrete slag that made up 50% of our concrete. We will be earning LEED points from slag and based on all the benefits of using it with no drawbacks I think it should be used in all projects. From the slag cement association slagcement.org

“Slag cement is a byproduct of an iron blast furnace, part of an integrated steel mill. When molten slag is separated from iron in a blast furnace, it can be rapidly quenched with water (“granulated”), dried and ground to a fine powder. At this point it becomes slag cement (or ground granulated blast furnace slag)

Slag cement is one of the most sustainable construction materials available because it:

• Recovers anindustrial byproduct through beneficial use when incorporated into concrete or other construction applications.
• Avoids disposal of blast furnace slag, when beneficially utilized.
• Reduces portland cement in concrete, resulting in:
  • Decreased embodied energy
  • Decreased embodied greenhouse gas
  • Decreased use of virgin materials
• Reduces the urban heat island effect by increasing the reflectivity of concrete.
• Increases structure life by improving the durability of concrete to various types of degradation such as corrosion of reinforcing steel, external and internal chemical attack, and cracking due to thermal stress.”

Yesterday the foam crew from Burnham Insulation was up to the facility applying 2 inches of spray polyurethane foam. This is going to give the home a tight building envelope allowing no air penetrations and thus increasing energy efficiency.

Coupled with the blown in cellulose that was applied today the home is going to achieve a R value of 25.

I am amazed that we are only 3 weeks into the building process and will be hanging sheet rock tomorrow. We have completed rough electrical, rough plumbing, insulation and all framing and the foundation was just poured this past Monday. On top of that everything is bone dry inside the home and we’re on schedule. Actually witnessing construction take place has made me even more a believer in factory built homes than I was already and that is saying a lot. We are on schedule to build the home in 7 weeks which is incredible to me since I am now finishing a site built home that was started in August.

In business news I’ve been working hard forming strategic partnerships with product suppliers and am happy that we are working with Yolo Colorhouse for paint, KlipTech EcoTop for counters, TimberPro Coatings for low VOC exterior stains and several other companies that I’ll list later.

We also sent out our first press release and hopefully there will be some new people reading this after we receive some coverage. Launching a startup is equally exhilarating and exhausting but I love and believe in what we’re doing so it is gratifying as well.

The Method Cabin is coming to life. All ext. walls are up and ready for shear inspection. Tomorrow, our mechanical sub will be on site to install the Pex tubing in our Warmboard. When he is finished we can move on to the interior walls. Looks like a few more days of framing on the interior walls and warm roof…all in all I think we are ahead of schedule.

Today we finalized a partnership with Seattle company Bamboo Hardwood to be Method Home’s preferred supplier of cabinets and flooring. They are going to build us very cool solid core bamboo cabinets, vanities and armoirs that I’m quite excited about having in the Method Cabin.

We received the lumber package for the Method Cabin at our factory on Friday. Delivery was scheduled for the afternoon so when I received a call in the morning informing me the

truck was waiting I rushed up to the Method factory in the midst of a late March snowstorm. Mark was out of range at the homesite in Glacier so it was up to me to get everything put in efficiently.

Thanks to Conner at builders alliance for helping with the delivery and for brushing the 2″ of snow off the materials. Everything is nice and dry and waiting for nails.

Construction starts Monday and I am very excited. We had a couple final pre-construction meetings last week including ones with Alistair Jackson our LEED rater, the Washington Dept of Labor and Industries inspectors who will be performing our factory inspections, and with our mechanical contractor.

In the LEED pre-construction meeting we touched on several things. One was regarding a plan for ensuring we have a tight building envelope and we came up with the idea of offsetting the sheeting with the studs where the modules meet to prevent any air infiltration. There will be two blower tests in the factory and one in the field. I will post the results here. It is nice to have a third party verify that we are
achieving our goals in energy efficiency and creating a healthy home.

Another thing I’ll be doing for the LEED process is documenting all the waste that is created in the construction process including recycling. I am going to send vendors away with unnecessary packaging with the idea that if they have to deal with it they will reduce the amount of packaging. Anything sent away with the people making the delivery does not count toward our waste generated and will hopefully foster change in the long run.

The L&I meeting was helpful in that we got to know our building inspectors, their process and what they are looking for from us. We will be held to a higher standard than site builders which will ultimately benefit the buyers of our homes. We will have inspections as often as needed and due to the speed of construction probably several every week.

This coming week we’ll be posting on the progress of construction with many pictures so check back.

A final calm moment before the construction begins

After all of this time and hard work I received a call from the Factory Assembled Structures division of Washington Labor and Industries that we will be receiving our building permits next week for the Method Cabin prototype.

I think we started working on the concept in May of 2007 and would like to thank Tom Lenchek and Scott Labenz of Balance Associates, Mark Spiedel of IL Gross Structural Engineers,  Goren of CeGG engineering, Bryan and Jon of BrN Engineering, Metajive, Jennifer Eliuk, our friends and families for their support and help.

Our team has been instrumental in getting us to this point and on to building we go.

We’ve already ordered windows and warmboard radiant subfloor and will be ordering our lumber package and roof next week. We will begin construction on March 24 and will be posting daily photos and updates.