WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Housing and energy efficiency advocates unveiled a weather-resilient and energy efficient mobile home on Wednesday designed to provide affordable housing to low-income Vermonters.
The partners who created the 10-home pilot project said the new design will give low-income Vermonters an energy efficient and weatherized housing option.
The genesis for the project was Tropical Storm Irene, which damaged 15 percent of the state’s mobile home stock, according to Gus Selig, executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. The board provides subsidies to cover part of the mobile home’s cost, he said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin said the home design is an example of how the state is rebuilding to better prepare for Vermont’s increasingly severe weather. He said it did not make sense to simply put mobile homes back in place without making improvements.
“They’re cold in the wintertime, they’re warm in the summertime, they take huge amounts of money to heat and to cool,” he said. “When we know that we are asking the folks who have the least, who struggle the most, to pay the biggest bill, it made no sense.”
Irene damaged 17 of the state’s roughly 250 mobile home parks, flooding 218 homes and destroying 137, according to a University of Vermont study. Two years later, mobile home parks that were impacted by the flood are marked by empty lots.
The mobile home prototype is the result of a collaboration between the Vermont Manufactured Homes Innovation Project, which constructed the home, and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, Efficiency Vermont and the High Meadows Fund, which subsidized the project.
The homes are designed to replace Vermont’s current mobile home stock, which is about 7 percent of the state’s total housing stock, said Peter Schneider, senior energy consultant at Efficiency Vermont, the administrator of the state’s energy efficiency program.
He said the new design will reduce heating costs and protect against severe weather by incorporating the “best building science” into these mobile homes. Current mobile homes, he said, are often shaken from their foundations, poorly sealed and vulnerable to natural disasters.
Those homes, he said, cannot be renovated due to construction design limitations.
The new homes include triple-pane windows, heat recovery ventilation systems, a durable foundation, energy efficient appliances and triple-gasket sealed doors, among other features, Schneider said.
He said the homes, while not flashy, are designed to be long-lasting fixtures of mobile home communities.
“They’re called mobile homes, but these homes are really not mobile at all,” Schneider said. “These are really permanent residences. And they should be built with that in mind.”
The consultation provided by Efficiency Vermont and donated solar panels reduced the combined utility and heating cost for the entire home unit to about $15 per month on an annual average, he said.
Joel Ferris, a mobile home owner in South Royalton who will receive the first home in about 10 months, said he pays $200 to $300 a month on average.
The sticker price of the new homes is about $100,000, which is nearly twice as much as the current market price of a mobile home, said Gaye Symington, executive director of High Meadows Fund, an organization that supports improving infrastructure and housing to use less and cleaner energy.
High Meadows Fund, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and other funders will subsidize the pilot homes to provide a minimum of $30,000 toward the cost, Selig said. Additionally, he said Vermont credit unions and banks plan to offer fixed rate financing to help buyers pay for the homes.
Symington, a former Vermont House Speaker, said the upfront cost is the only challenge to the program. However, she said the home reduces long-term costs.
She said the energy savings will put money back into the pockets of homeowners and curb greenhouse gas emissions. The homes will be built in Vermont, reducing transportation costs and pollution, she said.
Symington said the affordability of a home should include the transportation cost, energy efficiency and long-term savings through the cost of utilities.
“So that definition of affordability has to be broader than just the upfront sticker price, “ she said.
