Production homes of the future
“The changes that we need to make in this industry are not huge, they’re not impossible, and they can be embraced by all developers, all builders and all cities,” says Douglas Gilliland. He is the President of Taurus of Texas, and I interviewed him recently in a new subdivision in Austin in which the homes are all cooled (and heated) by a fossil-fuel-free geothermal system.
He explained that the first few hundred homes had very successfully proven that clean energy can be provided at scale, and for people of ordinary means. At about 1700 square feet, the houses in question cost $300k or $400k and are being purchased by people as their first or second home, or by empty nesters.
The big news from Gilliland’s point of view is that the developer has created a replicable technical and economic model with which at least five different builders are finding it extremely easy to work. In total the development will be a jaw-dropping 7500 homes on 2,000 acres of land.
I’ll be providing all the technical and high tech details in my column in Plumbing Engineer magazine in April.
This is such great news. Housing is such a problem for so many these days, just getting into even badly built housing! But I don’t understand why building housing that is efficicent isn’t at the forefront of every government agenda. I am reposting this on my blog. It’s not really related to my subject matter but perhaps it will find an audience there.
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