These sleek, sustainable homes are breaking the stereotype for pre-fab construction

CNN

3 days ago

Oil & gas
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Colin Goodson knows more about energy than most people.
The tall, bearded Mainer is an engineer on an offshore oil drilling ship in the Gulf of Mexico. But when it came time for him to build a home in Southern Maine, Goodson largely bypassed fossil fuels.
The house he built is entirely off the grid, powered from rooftop solar and batteries that convert the sun's energy to electricity. Electrons power much of his two-story home; it is heated and cooled with heat pumps, and Goodson and his wife cook meals on an induction range. Incredibly well-insulated, the entire home is heated by a small wood stove.
Goodson loves his new house, even though it has raised the eyebrows of his drilling ship colleagues.
'All the guys at work think I'm crazy,' Goodson said during a recent tour of his home. 'They think I'm living in a shack out in the woods somewhere and I go outside to use the toilet, but that's clearly not the case.'
The house, built by New Hampshire company Unity Homes, is a far cry from a shack. Modern and spacious, it has running water and three bathrooms.
Despite also having initial concerns about her husband's off-the-grid aspirations, Katie Goodson is a convert as well – especially after the lights stayed on during an intense storm that knocked their neighbors' electricity out.
'I would never go back,' she told CNN. 'When I tell co-workers or neighbors that we live off-grid and they see the house, they're always like, 'Whoa, this isn't what I was expecting!' It's really fun surprising people; I live a totally normal life.'
The Goodsons are part of a small but growing number of homeowners who are choosing to build energy-efficient 'panelized' homes that are pre-made in a factory. The homes are better for the climate, and although they have a high upfront cost, several homeowners say their energy savings, quality of life and overall cost of living has greatly improved since moving in.
Unity, a brand of custom home company Bensonwood, is one of several companies in New England building homes in a factory. It's a modern spin on the 1900s Sears Roebuck catalogue of mail-order houses, now with energy efficiency front of mind.
Companies like Unity and Maine-based BrightBuilt Home offer several basic designs that owners can customize. At Unity, much of the design is done ahead of time, before the house's walls, windows and doors are assembled inside the company's Keene, New Hampshire, factory, then wrapped tightly in reusable plastic and put on a truck bed. Once it's on site, a panelized house can be built in a matter of days.
It is a very different model from traditional 'stick-built' home construction, where the structure is built 'stick by stick' on site and can take months to finish, all the while leaving wood and materials exposed to rain, snow and wind.
'There's a logic to building a structure in a climate-controlled environment. That really resonates with a lot of folks,' said Parlin Meyer, managing principal for BrightBuilt Home.
The number of factory-made homes still pales in comparison to traditional stick-built homes in the United States — just 3% of all single-family homes as of 2024, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The trend is much more popular in Europe; in Sweden, most new homes are built in factories.
'That's been relatively flat for a number of years,' said Devin Perry, an assistant vice president at the National Association of Home Builders. 'But anecdotally, there seems to be momentum behind that method of construction, and people looking for energy efficient options.'
Three New England companies specializing in factory-built and energy efficient homes told CNN they are seeing a rise in interest. Pre-fabricated homes used to be associated with cheap, poorly made housing, but that has changed.
'I think for a long time, modular homes had a bad reputation, both earned and not,' Meyer said, adding that more manufacturers are leaning into energy-efficient homes and being willing to customize them has spurred consumer interest.
As the US grapples with a shortage of housing, Unity's sales lead, Alison Keay, said the company believes this model is 'the future of construction.'
The Goodsons didn't start out intending to build a home. The couple scoured the southern Maine housing market for nearly two years, striking out time after time.
'We put in offers on probably half a dozen houses well over asking and were perpetually beat out by people who were paying cash, coming up from Boston or New York,' Goodson said. 'The housing stock was nonexistent, to say the least.'
House-hunting in cities comes with the same problem. When Tim Buntel and Cynthia Graber started looking for homes in Somerville, Massachusetts, they kept finding condos listed for far more than they were worth.
'They were often very expensive, and they were flips,' Graber said. 'Developers come in, they take old properties and do a lot of things that are pretty in their eyes. And it's really crappy quality.'
Massachusetts is one of the costliest states in which to buy a house. The greater Boston market has remained stubbornly expensive, with low inventory clashing with high demand.
Graber and Buntel eventually found a property with an old cottage they considered renovating. But after several sky-high quotes from architects, they decided to demolish it and build a new home with Unity.
'It was more flexible for our (urban) setting,' Buntel said. 'Bringing the panels in on a flat pack and assembling them here was just more feasible, given the constraints of the streets and the neighborhood.'
Unity Homes started with the intent to offer quality, sustainable homes at a lower price point than the bigger custom homes built by its parent company, Bensonwood. The final price can range widely depending on how big the customer wants to go, or whether it comes with features like a porch or a garage – anywhere from $300,000 for its smallest home up to $900,000 or just over $1 million for its biggest builds. BrightBuilt's houses range from $275,000 to over $2 million, Meyer said.
High costs are still a big barrier to prospective customers, said Alan Gibson, principal at Maine-based builder GO Logic, where a shell for an ultra-efficient, two-story, 1,400 square foot home with three bedrooms can cost around $600,000.
Homeowners also need to factor in additional costs, like buying and developing a suitable plot of land, and in some cases, getting access to water, electricity and septic, Gibson added.
The way to bring down costs, Gibson believes, is more panelized, multi-family housing.
'It can be done so much more efficiently,' Gibson said, 'and there's a lot more repetition' for the developer, making the process faster and less expensive than custom multi-family builds.
Goodson, the homeowner in Maine, was able to save big money with his engineering background and penchant for DIY. He installed a rooftop solar system and electrical improvements himself, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. He wound up spending around $500,000 in all, which he estimates was $200,000 less than he otherwise would have.
'It's a big number to swallow, I'm not making light of that at all, but it's not that far out of what's reasonable,' Goodson told CNN. It's also not considering the long-term savings he will experience with no utility bills.
He was also able to take advantage of federal tax credits that reduced the cost of his rooftop solar, which saved him more than $10,000 on his panels. Those tax credits are now endangered with House Republicans' tax bill.
'That was huge,' he said. 'It's fairly unfortunate they're looking at doing away with it.'
Unity and BrightBuilt factory-built homes share an important feature: They are airtight, part of what makes them 60% more efficient than a standard home. GO Logic says its homes are even more efficient, requiring very little energy to keep cool or warm.
'Everybody wants to be able to build a house that's going to take less to heat and cool,' said Unity director Mark Hertzler.
Home efficiency has other indirect benefits. The insulation and airtightness – aided by heat pumps and air exchangers – helps manage the movement of heat, air and moisture, which keeps fresh air circulating and mold growth at bay, according to Hertzler.
Buntel, a spring allergy sufferer, said his Somerville home's air exchange has made a noticeable difference in the amount of pollen in the house. And customers have remarked on how quiet their homes are, due to their insulation.
'I'm from New England, so I've always lived in drafty, uncomfortable, older houses,' Buntel said. 'This is really amazing to me, how consistent it is throughout the year.'
Some panelized home customers are choosing to build not just to reduce their carbon footprint, but because of the looming threat of a warming planet, and the stronger storms it brings.
Burton DeWilde, a Unity homeowner based in Vermont, wanted to build a home that could withstand increasing climate impacts like severe flooding.
'I think of myself as a preemptive climate refugee, which is maybe a loaded term, but I wasn't willing to wait around for disaster to strike,' he told CNN.
Sustainability is one of Unity's founding principles, and the company builds houses with the goal of being all-electric.
'We're trying to eliminate fossil fuels and the need for fossil fuels,' Hertzler said.
Goodson may drill oil by day, but the only fossil fuel he uses at home is diesel to power the house battery if the sun doesn't shine for days. Goodson estimated he burned just 30 gallons of diesel last winter – hundreds of gallons less than Maine homeowners who burn oil to stay warm.
'We have no power bill, no fuel bill, all the things that you would have in an on-grid house,' he said. 'We pay for internet, and we pay property taxes, and that's it.'