Pre-fab home firm goes green

Auburn Honda salesman Murphy Adle knows exactly what he's going to do when he retires – live out his golden years with his wife in a modest home on plenty of acreage.

But building a custom house isn't cheap, so when he saw a sign for American Home Sales' new Energy Star manufactured homes, he pulled in to investigate.

"We wanted to see how energy efficient the homes were and look at the type of materials they were using," the 62-year-old Auburn resident said. "When you retire, you have to be concerned about every dollar."

While conventional home builders have been constructing ecologically friendly houses that use less energy and, in some cases, even produce power, such super-efficient features are still relatively new in manufactured homes.

American Home Sales' owner Nichoel Farris, however, recently pledged to sell only manufactured homes that have the Energy Star label.

"We wanted to be more green," Farris said. "We felt a collective urgency as a company. We had a meeting and decided as individuals to be more ecologically responsible."

So Farris began looking into what it would take to switch to sales of factory-built houses that earn the Energy Star label – and found it wasn't easy.

Energy Star is a federal program that certifies homes built using energy-efficient products and practices.

But Farris deals solely in manufactured homes – houses designed and sold by licensed sellers and then built in factories.

It took three months working with Energy Star and her home builder Golden West to get certification for its factory in Riverside County. Now, in addition to meeting U.S. Housing and Urban Development's building codes, every house built by the factory must be inspected by the Environmental Protection Agency before it can be certified as an Energy Star house.

National Manufactured Housing Alliance Executive Director Emanuel Levy said more factories are becoming Energy Star- certified, including three in Woodland – Silvercrest, Fleetwood and Skyline.

Although just about every such plant in California has gone through the Energy Star certification process, that doesn't mean they've built any energy-efficient homes, Levy said.

"They've just proven that their production methods and building practices are in compliance with Energy Star program provisions," he said. "To a great extent, they're just getting started on building Energy Star homes. It's not an easy sell. Home buyers, particularly on the modestly priced homes, closely scrutinize every penny that's an extra cost."

And Energy Star homes do cost more.

In addition to appliances that use less energy and water, the insulation must be free of formaldehyde and meet Department of Energy standards. The duct system must be air-sealed, and the windows must be energy efficient and protect the home's interior from harmful UV rays.

"It should be that any buyer who looks seriously at Energy Star and really does the math would buy one without hesitation," Levy said. "The little bit your mortgage goes up to cover the Energy Star features is much less each month than the energy savings.

"But you have to change people's buying habits, and it's never easy. It's particularly difficult in the market we're experiencing now, where sales are down so significantly."

Farris said most of her clients are young couples living in Placer, Nevada and Yuba counties.

"They want to live on acreage, but they can't afford to buy or build on private property because of the cost of housing," Farris said. "Even though the market is in a slump, it's still really expensive to custom-build a home up here."

American Home Sales sells manufactured homes from 600 square feet to 2,800. Prices range from $45 a square foot to $65, depending on which features the buyer wants, such as French doors or Corian counters.

"There's very little we can't do, so our buyers have the freedom of custom-building and still being able to afford it," Farris said.

Adle has been looking at the cost of buying land, building and installing a manufactured home, vs. a standard site-constructed house.

"I know you can get quite a bit of square footage for the money," Adle said. "We want some acreage, and I know building a manufactured home can be an economical way to do that."

The Energy Star features, in particular, piqued his curiosity.

"That's why we stopped in to look," he said. "Energy is a big deal now. Being in the automobile business, a lot of people I talk to are very concerned about fuel economy because they know the price of gas isn't coming down."

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• Call The Bee's Jennifer K. Morita, (916) 773-7388.