Astronauts have to live in a tiny space, so that space has to be as functional as possible. They also have to be protected from a crazy exterior environment that many times we have never experienced before, so the space has to be well protected and insulated.
That type of cross industry, innovative thinking shaped haus.me, a prefabrication company that assembles homes in a factory to be delivered to a site with no work requirements after it arrives. The company’s off-the-grid homes do not need to be connected or plugged in.
Haus.me started researching, developing and creating materials, technologies, software, polymer composites, and energy efficiency solutions, and then started creating houses as a demonstration of those ideas.
Part of that demonstration was bringing the simplicity and clarity of a nationally approved product to the United States – a concept that few have approached. The product uses the same design for every place in the world, making it able to be installed anywhere regardless of the building code.
“It’s over engineered,” says Max Gerbut, founder and CEO of the Ukrainian company who has been studying the global market place. “The German building code is more complex than the U.S., and the Passive House Institute is the most advanced building code, so it is what we use.”
His group was inspired to create a new structure resembling airplane and yacht engineering after working with NASA and Berkeley University at the MARS 3D printing project as volunteer engineers.
The work resulted in a proprietary carbon fiber polymer composite beamed structure that is light and super strong, so the homes can withstand the worst climate events. The company claims to be the only manufactured home in the U.S. that can stand up to hurricane category five conditions, plus, the structures are fire retardant, and protected with a lifetime water warranty. In colder environments, the homes can handle a snow load of more than 300 pounds per square feet.
“We applied our physics ideas and inventions into home manufacturing as a perfect structural material and perfect insulation at the same time,” he wrote.
That proprietary engineering led to a carbon fiber insulation that helps the home perform to net zero, or to generate enough energy to cover the needs of the structure. The walls have a thermal resistance or R-value of 80, so the homeowner benefits from energy savings on top of cost savings.
“There are some days that the system will not be able to perform,” Gernut said. “Solar energy in January is only 20% of what it is in July. We reduced energy consumption in the home by 20 times. Not by 20%, but by 20 times, with the engineering and design.”
His calculations show that the 800-square-foot haus.me mTwo Pro consumes just 27 kWh per day on a -20 degree winter day versus 165 kWh for a same sized house built conventionally. On a 100 degree summer day, the haus.me home operates on about 17 kWh per day, versus 67 kWh for a traditional built home. Both result in significant energy and cost savings.
Again, similar to the approach to the rockets we launch into space, his team aims to find and deliver the latest and greatest in technology. The difference between two of the company’s options on one 120-square-foot home is $55,000, and it’s all due to technology.
“We are very familiar with the market and the technology in the market and we can show we are the most advanced—we triple the technology in the structure.,” Gernut said referring to the additional cost.
Manufacturing The Future Of Housing
Haus.me has more than 215 manufacturing partners around the world, manufacturing the several hundred components in each structure. With the company’s expansion to the U.S., it has delivered homes to five different states to date.
“Our experience is in industrial engineering,” Gerbut said. “Every screw is designed to be in compliance with building codes. It is like a car manufacturing facility. We receive all components in one place and then it can all be put together with a screwdriver.”
Part of the innovativeness of the haus.me model is the way the product comes together, with little need for skilled labor, or labor at all.
“The biggest problem in the U.S. is the labor cost,” he said. “Labor cost is about 65%, so when you buy a house for one million dollars, you pay $650,000 for labor. All our components are designed and manufactured in different places, and delivered to our plant. We put it together and all it takes is a screwdriver. Our average labor cost is 9%.”
If you buy this house all the rest is materials, technology. haus.me comes in three self-sufficient structure sizes–400, 800 or 1,600 square feet—that can be placed on any foundation.
While that alone seems like a very salient sales point – it is even more attractive to think that money isn’t wasted on extra labor, instead that money goes to the home’s technology and energy efficiency.
Installed In An Hour
Gernut took a page from the pizza delivery book and promotes his 120-square-foot microhaus.me product with the line, “A home can be installed in 60 minutes or it’s free.”
Not only is he putting it on the line for the quick installation, he says it can be dropped on any surface, from gravel to sand, or even on a rooftop, with no site preparation.
“It also doesn’t need permitting,” he said. “We take care of all hook ups. We can drop it in any backyard in any country in less than an hour. Everything in it is included, the dishes, the furniture, for between $35,000 to $90,000.”
The price range represents three distinct models that can serve various needs and give a buyer the opportunity to transition out of renting, own an asset, and have a fairly quick return on investment. The microhaus.me website has a nifty return on investment calculator for the user to do their personalized math.
Gerbut says that the units are popular for glamping and for island resorts where development is difficult for conventional construction.
What’s the power of a home that doesn’t need permitting?
“A solution like microhaus helps with housing affordability and supply, can accelerate bringing supply online, more efficient compliance, and regulatory review by focusing that at the point of production, if municipalities allow for these types of installs,” wrote Ben Allen, a co-founder at the planning review and permitting platform GreenLite. “It should put less regulatory burden on already strained local building departments.”
What may appear to be “regulatory hacking,” isn’t necessarily a removal of oversight, but can just be that a more efficient compliance review is being conducted.
“There is a strong trend in using prefabricated structures or fixtures to accelerate development and use of assets because of deeply felt permitting pain across the country,” Allen said. “These structures are usually inspected and verified to be compliant at the factory or point of production.”
It can create big time savings when local authorities honor compliance declarations from other governing bodies, just like the haus.me intended by having a universally approved structure.
Allen summarizes that the idea of a permit-free home speaks to the desire to build swiftly, safely, and within a known budget. Shifting where and when a compliance review is conducted, such as during fabrication and prior to shipment, to a more efficient point in development, should be celebrated as long as it’s adequate to ensure safety to people and communities.
With many advantages, there are bound to be a few disadvantages. If the volume of homes that don’t need permitting continues to grow, and then are installed without organized community planning or oversight, it could start to strain utilities like power, water, and sewer.
One other challenge of this type of product can be transportation costs. But, while sometimes transporting modular units makes them not financially feasible, it doesn’t seem to be a problem with the microhaus. The company has built inventory in Florida and has seen shipping costs typically arrive at less than $5,000 per unit.
Embracing The Future Of Housing
Gernut says that consumers still are not convinced.
“People need to know it is possible to live anywhere in the world,” he said. “We can drop the house anywhere in the world on undeveloped land and it will have zero bills forever. It is already available on the market.”
Want to try out the future of housing? No problem. The microhaus is available as an Airbnb stay in California, Florida, and Oregon where it is a guest favorite with close to a 5-star rating from more than 50 reviews.
