While the overall housing market remains sluggish across much of the country, builders are turning to products and systems that will give them an inch up on the competition until the market corrects itself. Basically, in terms of products and construction practices, anything green goes. But the NextGen Ultimate Value Home, displayed at the 2008 International Builders Show in Orlando this February, demonstrated an additional theme: that today’s green and efficient systems and products can add value to any home.

Each year, the temporarily built NextGen demonstration house showcases the latest products and practices available to make homes stronger, greener, more efficient and digitally well connected. The modular Ultimate Value Home, which extended to 2,700 square feet over two stories, showcased cutting-edge technologies in such areas as fortified building practices, sustainable products and home automation.

Three of the home’s more prominent features, in particular, caught our attention: weather-resistant construction methods, a web-based product that can help seniors sustain their independence, and a safety-oriented weather and hazards warning radio system. These features, along with many others, can make a home more durable, more comfortable and safer.

An Open Joist 2000 floor truss system uses less lumber than conventional systems and provides space to run
conduits. The Fortified Home

The 2008 NextGen Ultimate Value Home incorporated building materials and systems designed to improve its strength and durability, meeting criteria established by the “Fortified…for safer living” program. Developed by the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), based in Tampa, Fla., the program provides guidance for increasing a home’s resistance to natural disasters.

In many ways, the Fortified program resembles the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, says Wendy Rose of IBHS. “We don’t specify how the house is built,” she notes. “We specify what criteria a home needs to meet [to be a Fortified house]. Then, whichever materials and practices the builder chooses, as long as it meets our disaster-resistant criteria, it will be Fortified.”

Under the Fortified program, points are awarded for specific construction practices and materials, which are selected based on where a home is built, Rose notes. “If it’s in California, [the home will] be fortified against earthquakes and wildfires. If the house is up North, it’s fortified against severe winter weather. Along the Gulf Coast, it’s [built to withstand] hurricanes and flooding.”

The Ultimate Value House can withstand winds of up to 130 miles per hour, thanks in part to engineered roof trusses, which tie the roof, walls and foundation together. As a result, all of the home’s elements, rather than a single component, absorb the force of the wind equally, making the structure stronger, according to Rose.

Several other components earned Fortified points. For instance, the builder used stone-coated steel roofing from Corona, Calif.,-based Decra. The steel roofing is resistant to corrosion and fire, and carries a 50-year warranty against high-wind damage.

Thanks to its high R-value, Icynene expandable spray foam insulation can cut energy costs by up to 50 percent. Adding to the house’s durability is a secondary water barrier beneath the roofing materials. Should the roof material be ripped off during a fierce storm, the barrier will prevent excessive water from entering the house.

Pearl Protected’s emergency escape ladder also helped the home comply with Fortified standards. Built to easily recess into a wall beneath a window on a second or third floor, the ladder folds and unfolds conveniently from a niche that is barely visible when closed. During emergency situations, such as a fire, occupants on the upper stories of a house can easily evacuate by simply tossing the ladder out the window and climbing down.

Impact-resistant doors, garage doors and windows were also part of the home’s Fortified package.

The Ultimate Value Home was built using modular construction, which reduces construction time by as much as two-thirds, when compared to a traditional stick-built house. In addition, modular construction proves more sustainable, because the modular sections are built in the controlled environment of a factory. As a result, it’s easy to reduce construction waste by recycling building material scraps, and the building materials aren’t exposed to extreme weather conditions, which can cause warping and mold.

For more information about the “Fortified…for safer living” program, homeowners should ask their builders to contact the Institute for Business & Home Safety at 813-286-3400 or visit www.disastersafety.org. The program is available nationwide and certifies homes built conventionally or using alternative building systems such as panelization, modular sections or insulated concrete forms.

Baths are well-ventilated and incorporate eco-friendly countertops and flooring. The Supportive Home

Another innovative component of the Ultimate Value Home is Telehealth, a remote patient monitoring system that can help extend the independence of elderly homeowners, according to the system’s designers.

“It takes your weight, blood pressure, glucose levels, blood oxygen and ECGs [echocardiograms] and transmits that information to your doctor,” explains Paul Rice, vice president at the Citadel Group, a Charlotte, N.C.-based company that developed the system in conjunction with Bayer and Panasonic. “It really supports people with heart conditions, diabetes and long-term medical conditions that can require more management. That’s really where this device shines. It’s designed to work in conjunction with your doctor, who can monitor you remotely. It [enables] better duration of care.” The system often serves as supplemental care for those with in-home care professionals, Rice adds.

The homeowner can self-administer required tests daily at home with a machine that’s about the size of a laptop, so it can sit on a countertop. The user plugs the system into a phone line and an electrical outlet, and then navigates via touch screen and voice prompts, which direct patients through the process.

Medical information is then uploaded to a website and accessed via password by the user, family members and doctor. The doctor, who can track a patient’s medical charts over a period of time with Telehealth, can use a webcam on the computer to conduct an in-home teleconference with the patient.

The system offers a number of proactive features as well. For instance, if the homeowner misses a scheduled test, a reminder pops up on the device. If the homeowner doesn’t respond within a certain period of time and administer the proper tests, the system sends up a flag for the monitoring center to contact the homeowner. If necessary, someone in the monitoring center can call for an ambulance, Rice explains.

The system has two core benefits. “You’re able to minimize medical expenses because you don’t have to go to the doctor’s office or hospital as frequently,” Rice notes. “It also expands the amount of time an individual can live independently.”

Citadel is working with a number of builders and developers, who will lay fiberoptic lines throughout new and existing communities, thereby equipping each home in those communities with Telehealth. For more information, contact Telehealth at 877-702-3397 or www.citadelgrp.net.

The home’s TV, music, lighting, security, thermostat and appliances are all integrated. The Protective Home

When the National Weather Service coincidentally broadcast tornado warnings in the Orlando area during the week of the International Builders Show in February, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s All Hazards Radio Weather Network had a chance to demonstrate its effectiveness.

NextGen representatives affixing finishing touches to the house said that throughout the building they heard the radio’s shrill, loud noise from its place on a kitchen counter. They knew that should a tornado actually touch ground in the surrounding area, they could take shelter within a DuPont StormRoom, which was built into the Ultimate Value Home.

StormRooms not only function as a normal part of the house — a laundry room or, in this case, a walk-in closet — but they also shelter residents from Category 5 hurricanes or F5 tornadoes. Built with Kevlar, the same material used in bulletproof vests, StormRooms provide structural protection from weather and human intrusions.

The Carrier HVAC system provides energy-efficient heating and cooling while maintaining good indoor air quality. The All Hazards Radio receives information from a nationwide network of radio stations that broadcast continuous weather information directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. The radio resembles a conventional clock radio and is approximately the same size. It warns homeowners of nearby train derailments, tornados, blizzards, terrorist attacks, Amber alerts, 911 outages, oil spills or other natural or technological disasters. All that’s required is for the home to be within range of a network radio signal, which typically covers about 40 to 60 miles.

In addition to providing weather and disaster alerts, the All Hazards Radio has a weather display, which can help homeowners determine how to dress each morning, and provides traffic information, so homeowners can seek alternate driving routes.

Mark S. Paese, director of Operations and Homeland Security Activities with NOAA, believes the radio will likely become as commonplace in homes as a smoke detector, especially because it’s priced at around $20. It’s not only for residential use, however, he says, and offers this anecdote: In January, a high school in Caledonia, Miss., equipped with the All Hazards Radio had enough time, as a result of a radio alert, to move all of its 2,100 students to safety before a tornado tore through the town, destroying the school’s gymnasium and some classrooms, and leaving school buses flipped on their sides. It’s a powerful demonstration of the effectiveness of the weather-alert radio system.

The PowerTower backup power
system from Gaia ensures that surges or interruptions in power won’t damage the home’s high-end electronics systems. From construction methods and products used to make a home more weather resistant to products and building practices designed to keep its inhabitants safe, the 2008 Ultimate Value Home displayed the best procedures for building a strong, green, digital and energy-efficient home. Most items and systems demonstrated are available to homeowners now for residences yet to be built or for existing homes.

Nichole L. Reber writes about architecture, interior design, green building and land planning. She’s based in Sarasota, Fla.