To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/MpJELehhLbc
In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry sit down with Rob Howard, founder of Howard Building Science, to explore how he’s tackling one of the biggest challenges in housing today: building affordable, high-performance homes. Rob shares his journey from Habitat for Humanity to creating Duke Street Cottages, a pocket neighborhood in North Carolina designed for community, energy efficiency, and resilience.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
You can check Rob’s website here: https://howardbuildingscience.com/
Takeaways
Building code is the baseline, not the finish line.
Pocket neighborhoods foster community and affordability.
SIP panels and modular construction reduce waste and speed up builds.
Zero-energy-ready homes require airtight envelopes and efficient systems.
Maintenance plans in HOA dues simplify homeowner responsibilities.
Financing options like on-bill programs can make upgrades attainable.
Skilled labor shortages are driving innovation in factory-built housing.
Monitoring humidity and ventilation is key to healthy homes.
Modular homes can achieve near-SIPs performance with customization.
Affordability starts with design choices and community planning.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction and Sponsors
01:14 – Shoutout to IEB Coaching
02:07 – Meet Rob Howard: Builder & Innovator
04:43 – From Habitat for Humanity to Howard Building Science
07:34 – Why Energy Audits Are a Hard Sell
14:03 – Duke Street Cottages: Pocket Neighborhood Concept
18:35 – Affordability and Price Points
21:26 – Building Zero-Energy-Ready Homes
24:34 – SIP Panels vs. Modular Construction
31:00 – Ventilation, Humidity, and ERVs
36:56 – Tackling Skilled Labor Shortages
40:35 – Modular Factory Advantages
44:20 – Performance Trade-Offs in Modular Homes
47:22 – Lessons Learned and Developer Interest
49:14 – How to Connect with Rob Howard
50:38 – Wrap-Up and Listener Call-Out
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.356)
Welcome back, Tessa. Always great to see you. Before we get started, before I forget, gonna have a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder, coaching, training, business models for home inspectors. This isn’t teaching home inspectors how to inspect houses. It’s all about how to run your business, whether you are a one person shop, just getting started or you’re…
a larger home inspection company, got multiple locations in different parts of the country. There is a place for you at IEB. There’s many different levels of coaching groups and I have gotten so much value out of it over the past six years. What’s it been Tess? It’s been six years. Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to learn more about IEB, check out their website. We will have a link to them in the show notes or use your Google machine.
Tessa Murry (00:46.134)
I think so. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (00:55.112)
and type in inspector empire builder, you will surely find them. So wanting to get that out of there right away because we’ve got a special guest on today, Tessa. I want you to do the introduction because this is continuing on. And originally we were calling this the builders showcase or something like that. But I think a better term for it might be all the wonderful people that Tessa got acquainted with at Eva would be a better, better series.
Tessa Murry (00:57.38)
Thank
Rob Howard (01:17.603)
Thanks.
Reuben Saltzman (01:24.507)
But Tessa, why don’t you go for it? Please introduce.
Tessa Murry (01:26.804)
Yeah, well, thanks Ruben. Okay, I am so excited you guys and honored that we’ve got special guest on today, Rob Howard. And I actually I sat in a presentation Rob gave at EBA back in September in St. Paul. And he is a builder based out of North Carolina. And he’s been a contractor for 20 plus years, I believe. Rob, please, please correct me if any of this is wrong. But
But you build exceptional homes in North Carolina and you were the first builder to build a net zero energy home. also, weren’t you the first builder to build a DOE zero energy ready home in North Carolina?
Rob Howard (02:07.183)
Guilty as charged.
Tessa Murry (02:09.601)
Motion. Awesome. you worked for Habitat for Humanity for a while before that too. And it sounds like, and so now you are the president of a company called Howard Building Science, right? And you’re building these homes that are better than what’s required by code. And your goal, seems like, is to build them affordably too, which keyword affordably, we need so badly.
in this country at this time. please, I’m going to throw this over to you, Rob. We would love to hear a little bit about you, your background, how you got to where you are today, and more about your business. So thanks for coming on today, Rob.
Rob Howard (02:52.955)
Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it guys. So yeah, I guess my construction career started at Habitat for Humanity as you said a second ago. So I actually started volunteering with Habitat in college in the late 90s. And then, I don’t know, just, got sort of inspired by their mission and decided that’s what I wanted to do for a living. So I started looking for jobs.
on the Habitat website and found an opening in Hickory, North Carolina, close to where I’m from. So I started my first job there in March of 2001. So it’s been a while. But yeah, I really, I will say I learned how to build a house on a Habitat construction site and was really fortunate to be.
Tessa Murry (03:35.799)
Wow.
Rob Howard (03:47.036)
mentored by some retired carpenters who were our regular volunteers. It was just a great way to have an impact in the community and learn a trade all at same time.
Tessa Murry (03:52.482)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (04:05.731)
You know what, Rob? That resonates with me. We have very similar backgrounds. That’s how I got introduced to construction. And luckily, I had some long-term volunteers that took me under their wing and taught me how to build a house too. then, you know, everything led to another thing. And here we are today. We’re still dealing with houses and still trying to figure out all these challenges and how to build them better. But it all started back at Habitat. Same thing for me back in 2006.
in Louisiana. So that’s pretty cool. And when did you start your company? How are building science?
Rob Howard (04:43.589)
So originally, I started it in 2006 as Home Energy Solutions. And back then, I was really more focused, well, I guess I was doing some consulting on like Energy Star new homes. So I got my Hertzrader certification at South Face Energy Institute in Atlanta back in 2006 and started how, sorry, Home Energy Solutions.
And I was doing both new construction consulting and energy audits, I guess, on existing homes and trying to offer home performance contracting services. It doesn’t do much good to tell somebody what’s wrong with their house. What people really want to know is how to fix the stuff that’s wrong with their house. So that’s why I called it Home Energy Solutions. But yeah, it was…
Tessa Murry (05:35.394)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (05:40.099)
Hmm.
Rob Howard (05:42.564)
It was not easy by any means. And that was just kind of a side hustle while I was working for Habitat. So I didn’t actually launch Howard Building Science until 2021. So just about four years ago, basically rebranded the company and decided to go off on my own as an independent general contractor builder developer.
Tessa Murry (05:49.186)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (05:55.715)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (06:01.804)
Thank
Tessa Murry (06:06.915)
Wow, so you did home performance, like diagnostic testing stuff. You were going to people’s houses and trying to figure out what was creating these issues and then working to resolve them.
Rob Howard (06:17.059)
Yeah, exactly. I bought my first blower door and duct blaster in 2006.
Reuben Saltzman (06:17.262)
you
Tessa Murry (06:18.765)
Very cool.
Reuben Saltzman (06:22.74)
Love it. So what exactly were you doing for people and how would they get a hold of you? mean, was this low income housing and it was subsidized where they had this big program where you’re nodding your head yes. Is that what it looked like? Okay.
Rob Howard (06:38.309)
Yeah, most of my leads came either from urgent repair, weatherization, essential single-family rehab, all state-run, know, state energy office programs, or through utility programs. So Duke Energy, back in those days, Piedmont Natural Gas, you know, there were several local utilities that had some kind of energy rebate program and
Blue Ridge Electric, now called Blue Ridge Energy. I was an auditor in their program. So yeah, a lot of these were utility customers.
Reuben Saltzman (07:17.87)
Okay, so I want to just go down this path a little bit. Tess, we’re taking one of those little dives here, if it’s okay. And I jumped on that for low energy or low income, subsidized, whatever. I made that assumption because that’s all I’ve ever heard people having success doing this in for the energy auditing and all that. We tried getting into that, you know, we’re a home inspection company, but we tried
Tessa Murry (07:22.851)
Please do.
Reuben Saltzman (07:47.16)
tacking that onto our home inspection services. And we thought this is so valuable and what better time to get people when they’re buying a house. You can have all this information. I mean, who wouldn’t want this? And as it turns out, everybody, everybody doesn’t want it.
Rob Howard (08:04.165)
Well, they want it, they just don’t want to pay for
Reuben Saltzman (08:07.598)
Okay, no, no, no, that’s a very important distinction. Good call, Rob. Yes. Everybody’s interested. Everybody I talked to was like, yeah, that’s a great idea. People would love this. And nobody wants to pay for it. The only people I hear about doing it, it’s subsidized somehow. Why is that? Why don’t people want to pay for it? Have you ever tried to crack this code?
Tessa Murry (08:07.871)
I don’t
Rob Howard (08:32.474)
I quit trying, you know, I decided it was too hard. mean,
Tessa Murry (08:37.635)
You
Reuben Saltzman (08:39.278)
Okay.
Rob Howard (08:39.484)
I think the reality is kind of what I said before. I don’t think people want to pay for you to tell them all the things that are wrong or broken or need.
Reuben Saltzman (09:01.774)
All right, I think we got a low bandwidth situation here because Rob is frozen and I can’t hear him.
Tessa Murry (09:10.859)
still here. you’re back. You froze.
Reuben Saltzman (09:12.803)
Alright.
Rob Howard (09:15.227)
Sorry. I think I moved too quickly there and I killed the screen.
Reuben Saltzman (09:20.13)
Bye.
Reuben Saltzman (09:24.238)
All right, back to the question. Let’s just reset the question. If you can go back 30 seconds and I’ll do a little fancy editing, hopefully, if I can figure out how. Why is it that people don’t want to pay for this?
Tessa Murry (09:35.043)
Sure.
Rob Howard (09:39.321)
Yeah, I think the reality is they don’t, they don’t want to pay you to tell them what’s wrong with their house. They want to pay for, you know, the fixes. if they’re going to spend money, they want, they want things to be right. So, you know, there was this home performance model out of New York state somewhere, somewhere around where, BPI was formed, upstate New York, you know, and this is 20 plus years ago.
they were essentially giving the audits away for free. It was a loss leader, you know, to get your foot in the door. And, you know, the whole idea was we’re going to show you how to fix your house and we’re going to build your proposal around those repairs or, you know, replacements or what have you. And, you know, that always made a lot of sense to me, but the reality is at the end of the day, they got to have a way to pay for it. And that’s the huge hurdle. You know, if their ticket is going to be 10, 15, $20,000, you know, to
Tessa Murry (10:35.191)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (10:35.615)
replace HVAC and do insulation and air sealing and all these good things, who’s got that money laying around? Most people don’t. So you’re either looking at some kind of home equity loan or the most successful program that I ever participated in was a pilot. Actually, it wasn’t a program, but the utility had an on-bill financing option. And back then it was like,
7 % interest, know, which at the time seemed high. Now it seems normal. So, I mean, but if you show people a way to pay for it in a way that essentially lowers their utility bills, even though it’s, you know, adding to their monthly expenses, hopefully they kind of net out to a, you know, a zero adder to their overall utility bills.
Tessa Murry (11:06.627)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (11:28.3)
Okay, all right, got it.
Tessa Murry (11:28.675)
Mm-hmm.
I think, you know, I going to say I had a similar path kind of down the weatherization road and then into working for a home performance company too, Rob. And, you know, I worked in that kind of that world of subsidies and low income housing and weatherization for a while. And then transitioned over to kind of private sector doing diagnostic testing for clients. And like you said, Ruben, people just don’t want to pay for it. So we found out that our company is very niche.
in the Twin Cities and we were working for clients that had lots of extra money and had pain points that were causing enough issues that they wanted to get that fixed. And so then they would come to us and we would do this testing and figure out what was going on in their house and why they’re having water intrusion or ice dams or comfort issues. So it was a very small percentage of people that can afford that service, I think. But there are so many homes out there that have issues, have home performance problems. have
comfort issues or high energy bills or potential health concerns. And homeowners, number one, may not even be aware of them or number two, they are but they just can’t afford to fix everything. And what I find doing my consulting now with my business, your house coach, is that a lot of times homeowners just don’t even know where to start. They don’t know what they don’t know. And they know there might be something wrong that’s causing these issues, but…
like what do we do about that? And so that’s kind of where I found my services to be best needed is in that kind of middle ground for people that don’t have millions of dollars but own a property and they want to know how to make it better, but they need guidance on where to start.
Rob Howard (13:17.052)
Yeah, I mean, it’s not easy. It’s definitely not easy to build a business around. You certainly don’t build a business around utility incentives, you know, cause they come and go, you know, tax credits, obviously, as we’ve experienced just recently, you know, go, you know, sometimes they come, but most of the time they just go. So yeah, that’s it’s tough. It’s a tough environment.
Tessa Murry (13:32.578)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:41.732)
So let’s dive back into your business a little bit. So tell us about, so your class at EBO was highlighting, I think your most recent house that you were working on, right? And I want you to share a little bit about kind of some of the projects you’ve worked on and some of your most recent projects and what kind of sets you apart from other builders.
Rob Howard (14:03.131)
Yeah. So again, I just launched Howard Building Science four years ago. So, the project that you’re referring to is called Duke Street Cottages. It’s a, Ross Chapin style pocket neighborhood. if you’re familiar with Chapin, he’s an architect in the Pacific Northwest who coined that term, literally wrote the book on pocket neighborhoods. And you know, it’s, these are small lots, small footprints. call them cottage homes. They’re not tiny homes, but they’re small.
and they all face a shared green space in the center. So there’s a one-way alley around the outside, you you park in the back, you come in sort of the back door, and then your front door sort of opens up to this covered outdoor porch that faces that shared courtyard in the center. So it creates this sense of community, you know, that has really been lost in traditional suburban
Tessa Murry (14:57.891)
Good
Rob Howard (15:03.248)
development over the years.
Tessa Murry (15:06.551)
Okay, so you’re working on actually creating a pocket neighborhood in your area in North Carolina.
Rob Howard (15:06.758)
company.
Rob Howard (15:12.442)
Yeah, I mean my preference is to develop communities, not to build one-offs. I mean, you know, it’s not that I don’t do custom homes, I certainly do, but yeah, I’m much more interested in trying to develop small, infill communities like this that offer just an alternative option, you know, for people who aren’t looking for the traditional
Tessa Murry (15:38.826)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (15:41.264)
half acre lot, you know, with a large home and a large yard and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, this is just, it’s different. It’s not for everybody, but I think it’s for more and more people right now.
Tessa Murry (15:48.557)
Right.
Tessa Murry (15:55.78)
I was just going to say, think you are right on the money, Rob, with what you’re doing in your business. I think there’s more and more people that realize that all these challenges we face in our country and cost of living and affordability and lack of connection. And so it looks like you’re addressing that, all of those issues at the same time with what you’re doing.
Talk a little bit about how many houses have you built in this pocket neighborhood and kind of what were the square footages and like the price points for them.
Rob Howard (16:28.602)
Yep. So this is a planned unit development in Granite Falls, North Carolina. It’s 11 lots on 1.25 acres. that’s, you know, they’re postage stamp lots. You know, they’re very small. The setbacks are five feet on each side. So there’s 10 feet between the houses. And we have, you know, that open courtyard in the center. We’ve also reserved some additional green space on the site, but
It’s tight, you know, there’s certainly no room for garages or anything like that. you know, you’re basically just, you’ve got two parallel parking spaces on the alley right behind your house.
Tessa Murry (17:00.195)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (17:09.955)
Okay, yep.
Reuben Saltzman (17:12.014)
Real quick, this is driving me crazy. Tessa, we have a neighborhood like this in Minneapolis. And I cannot for the life of me remember the names of the streets, but it’s exactly what you just described, Rob. It’s where you got the street going down, but you can’t drive a car on it. And then there’s this big park. Come on, Tessa, what you know what I’m talking about, right? And the houses are fairly small. They’re really tight.
Tessa Murry (17:36.717)
Yeah, I do. actually.
Are you thinking of the old historic neighborhood in Minneapolis that’s like a lot of brick homes that were built around the turn of the century?
Reuben Saltzman (17:49.614)
Probably and you can only drive in back. It’s like if you’re going to inspect it, it’s kind of a pain because you can’t park right in front of the house. Okay.
Tessa Murry (17:51.812)
Tessa Murry (17:58.1)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m aware of other communities that are being built too in the metro area by I think like Habitat, there’s other innovative investors and builders out there like you Rob that I think are trying to do this in more locations. And I really do want to do some more research on that Ruben and we should come back to that. yeah, think there are so many people that are looking for what you’re doing, Rob.
Reuben Saltzman (18:19.618)
Yeah, we gotta come back to it.
Tessa Murry (18:27.523)
So have you had a lot of success in kind of this pocket neighborhood and having lot of interest and a lot of people wanting to buy these houses?
Rob Howard (18:35.772)
For sure. Yeah, we’ve sold everything that we’ve built. We’ve got nine complete and sold. They’re occupied. I’m working on the 10th now and I’ve got one lot left after that. planning to have this thing built out by spring probably and then moving on to other similar projects. But you’d asked about sizes. there’s essentially two floor plans. There’s a two bedroom that’s
Tessa Murry (18:59.714)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (19:04.336)
just over 800 square feet and there’s a three bedroom that’s right at 1400 square feet. And I actually kept one of the three bedrooms for myself. So I lived there. I don’t necessarily recommend that to other.
Tessa Murry (19:11.715)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (19:15.403)
Nice. Although your clients are right next door, I’m sure if they have any issues, they’re coming and knocking on your door at 8 p.m.
Rob Howard (19:24.284)
For sure. Yeah. And I mean, I guess to be honest, I want to be their first call, you know, I to be the first thought. And if there’s something that’s not right, then I want to, you know, jump, jump in and try to figure out, troubleshoot it, you know, and figure out what, could we have done better? But I mean, you know, thankfully there haven’t been too many of those. you know, we, you know, are focused on building, building it right the first time. so that, you know, nobody’s
Tessa Murry (19:38.145)
Thank
Tessa Murry (19:49.709)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (19:51.389)
hopefully got to worry about coming in and trying to retrofit these houses anytime soon. So they’re all built to the zero energy ready home standard. We’re now adding fortified home certification to that for resilience. We’re just a little over a year past Hurricane Helene hitting our area in Western North Carolina. certainly a heightened sense of awareness about the need to be building more durable homes as well.
Tessa Murry (20:22.019)
is wild that being in western North Carolina you have to think about hurricanes. But we do. Everywhere. Yes, we’re all being impacted by changes in climate. And what were the price points then for these houses? Anywhere from like the 800 square foot to the 1400 square foot?
Rob Howard (20:27.484)
It’s ridiculous, yeah. Yep.
Rob Howard (20:39.804)
Yeah, so we started out at $199,900 on that two bedroom. Let’s just say I wasn’t making any money, so I had to raise the price. yeah, that house now sells for $249,900. But depending on where you’re from, that might sound really cheap, might sound normal, or it might sound expensive for that size house.
Tessa Murry (20:56.033)
Okay.
Rob Howard (21:07.048)
you know, essentially what I was trying to do is look at what affordability means in my area and kind of back into the sales price. So, you know, if this is what they can afford, then what can I build at that price point and, you know, still make a reasonable profit.
Tessa Murry (21:18.307)
Thanks.
Tessa Murry (21:26.795)
interesting.
Reuben Saltzman (21:26.904)
Sure. And I’m curious, what does the house look like to make it zero energy? What are you doing? mean, what does the HVAC system look like? Insulation, all that. What are you doing to hit those numbers?
Rob Howard (21:40.741)
Yep. So I worked for Mitsubishi for five years on their heat pump team. So, you know, I’m definitely an all electric guy and these are all using mini splits for heating and cooling. So, they’re extremely efficient from that perspective. The first nine homes were built with SIPs, structural insulated panels for the walls and the roof, using, the company’s called EcoPanels. They’re in Moxville, North Carolina. So just about an hour down the road.
And I actually live in one of those houses. So I can tell you they perform great. We’re very happy with certainly the overall efficiency of the envelope. Easy to heat and cool. Quiet. That’s one of the things that folks have really been impressed by is how quiet these homes are. So they’re over-insulated from a building code perspective. But I always like to joke that I’ve never built a house to code.
Tessa Murry (22:12.183)
you
Tessa Murry (22:30.093)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (22:39.459)
Thank
Rob Howard (22:39.736)
I was always trying to do it better than that. So I view the building code as the baseline, not the finish line. So, you know, that’s the one of my mentors, Arnie cats, who was at advanced energy and Riley used to say that, code that home is the worst home you can build by law. Well, that doesn’t sound terribly aspirational to me. So, I’m always looking for the next, you know, what’s, what’s next? What who’s, who’s coming up with the.
Tessa Murry (22:48.279)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (23:01.987)
you
Rob Howard (23:08.88)
the next program, know, who’s moving the goalposts and what else could we be doing, you know, to make these homes better? So, you know, high levels of insulation and air tightness, obviously, you you got to control the envelope first and then high performance mechanical systems, ERVs, you know, for mechanical ventilation.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to get too techie, you know, I don’t mean on this podcast. I mean, with my homes, you know, because I don’t, I want them to be, I call it easy living, you know, so I want them to be low to no maintenance and you know, we can, we can dive deeper on that, but I actually include two years of maintenance in the contract. So
Tessa Murry (23:48.77)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (23:52.853)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (24:01.711)
And in the case of Duke Street Cottages, we have a property insurance association. And we decided we were just going to put the HVAC maintenance plan in the monthly dues for the POA. So you don’t really have a choice. You’re getting maintenance from the HVAC contractor spring and fall to make sure that these systems are running at their maximum efficiency.
Tessa Murry (24:13.891)
Cheers.
Reuben Saltzman (24:24.75)
That’s great. Two more questions. You said, I believe you said your first nine houses were SIPs panels, right? So you’re not doing it anymore.
Tessa Murry (24:25.667)
Bye.
Rob Howard (24:34.438)
Brr.
So I’m working on number 10 now and I transitioned to full volumetric modular construction on this house. So this is factory built. Yeah, I mean, there, I would say 80 % of the construction is done in a factory in a controlled environment and then shipped to the job site as a module and then craned onto the foundation.
Reuben Saltzman (24:45.292)
What is that?
okay.
Reuben Saltzman (24:57.996)
Okay, okay
Okay, got it. All right. And then one other just minor detail. What are you doing for water heating? Do you use a heat pump water heater? Okay, heat pump. Okay.
Rob Howard (25:13.636)
Yeah, I’ve been using heat pump water heaters for 10 years and have had zero issues. I have been very pleased with the performance. I’ve tried various brands. You know, I’m always again looking for the latest and greatest option there. And I’m currently using the LG heat pump water heater that’s inverter compressor. So much quieter than some of the units I’d used previously.
Reuben Saltzman (25:17.335)
Okay.
Rob Howard (25:42.268)
So I’m actually now putting them in the house. I used to always put them in like an attached storage closet, but not in the envelope. And they’re now inside the house and I’ve had no complaints about noise or, you know, the cold exhaust air coming off of those.
Tessa Murry (25:46.915)
Thank
Tessa Murry (25:57.944)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (26:01.176)
Those have been my two biggest concerns with them. My neighbor’s got one and it’s noisy. It’s noisy. I mean, you go in that room, it’s loud. Okay.
Tessa Murry (26:09.911)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (26:10.085)
Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s a compressor running. I mean, depending on the style of compressor, they can be quite loud. And, you know, that’s why most manufacturers are going to tell you not to put them inside condition space, you know, for that reason and because of the heat exchange issue. yeah, basements or attached garages, you know, or storage rooms would probably be more, more, you know, common. But yeah, I mean, we’re in climate zone four.
where I’m building and it doesn’t get that cold here in the wintertime. We get a dip in the 30s and we’ll have a little bit of snow and ice in the wintertime, but mean, it’s not as cold as Minnesota, for example.
Reuben Saltzman (26:58.21)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:59.191)
So I want to get back to the modular home thing, but first, I’m just curious, roughly how airtight are the SIP panel houses when you do the blower door testing? Are you finding that they’re 3 ACH50 or less, or are they even more tight than that, or where do they fall in the airtightness scale?
Rob Howard (27:18.844)
Yeah, I guess, you know, I like to say we’ve gotten better every house we build at air sealing. You know, we’ve slowly started to figure out, you know, where the leaks are and how to seal those up better during construction. As you know, it can be hard to come back and seal those after the fact. So we try to do it as we go. And first homes we built were probably averaging around three, but we quickly got those down around two and then 1.5 and you know,
Tessa Murry (27:36.183)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (27:47.654)
than one and now the last two we’ve built are under one ACH50.
Tessa Murry (27:53.292)
Wow. Okay. So as you know, like when you have a house that’s that airtight, you obviously have to have some type of mechanical ventilation. That’s why you’ve got the ERVs, the energy recovery ventilators to bring in that fresh air and filter it and distribute it. Do you have any problems with humidity where you are as well in these houses?
Rob Howard (28:10.205)
Well, of course not in these houses, but I mean, you know, in general, we have a lot of problems with humidity here. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, I always say you can’t control it if you don’t monitor it. You know, so the first step is let’s figure out, you know, what’s the number, where are we? And then, you know, if it’s outside of our, you know, desired parameters, then how are we going to control it? What are we going to do about it? So.
Tessa Murry (28:39.235)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (28:39.514)
Yeah, I mean, you know, lot of thermostats will tell you what the humidity is, but that doesn’t mean they can do a darn thing to respond to it. you know, I mean, having worked for Mitsubishi for five years, you know, I don’t mind admitting that they were optimized for sensible, you know, heating and cooling efficiency, not for dehumidification. So, you know, that’s just not what they were really designed to do. So it’s not that you don’t get any dehumidification. Of course you do. But the sensible heat ratios on those units are
are just kind of high. So yeah, I mean, I’ve always had in the back of my mind that if we get a house that, you know, is the humidity’s creeping up into the, you know, high 60s, low 70s for any length of time, then we would obviously step in and install active dehumidification or, you know, supplemental dehumidification to control that. But so far that has not been the case.
Tessa Murry (29:35.107)
Okay, that’s interesting. So you’re monitoring that closely in your homes and you haven’t seen any issues that require any type of intervention at this point.
Rob Howard (29:44.632)
I mean, we get we get spikes, you know, occasionally. But yeah, not not for any length of time.
Tessa Murry (29:48.117)
Yeah. During the holidays when families are visiting and there’s lots of people taking showers and cooking and all of that.
Rob Howard (29:56.037)
sure. Or if we’ve had a lot of rain that week or whatever, there’s this sort of urban myth that ERVs are dehumidifiers. Well, as it turns out, they’re just the opposite of that. So they can do moisture transfer, but they’re only about 50 % efficient at that moisture transfer. So you’re still increasing the relative humidity in the space by bringing in Alderair.
You just have to understand that, pay attention to it when you’re doing your load calculation and understand how you’re going to manage that. So right now we’re still using the URBs. I’ve looked at ventilating the humidifiers as another potential ventilation strategy, but so far have not made the switch.
Tessa Murry (30:47.043)
So do you still use like point source ventilation and places of high humidity and moisture and other things like kitchens and bathrooms in your homes? Okay.
Rob Howard (31:00.22)
For sure. so we have, you know, I’m partnering with Brone on my ventilation systems. So it’s a Brone ERV. I use Brone range hoods and Brone bathroom exhaust fans, but yeah, all those are the bathroom exhaust fans have humidity sensors on them. you know, they’re there. I try to make things as automatic as possible, you know, especially when it comes to spot, spot ventilation.
Reuben Saltzman (31:26.286)
You know, I’m curious, you said that you monitor humidity levels and all these different metrics for houses. I’m just wondering how you do that and how are people comfortable with Big Brother seeing all these data points for their homes? What does that look like?
Rob Howard (31:43.259)
Yeah, good question. So, I mean, I’m not doing anything fancy. I mean, I’m buying these little sensor push Bluetooth temperature and humidity sensors. I put one in the house, one in the attic, one in the crawl space. And, you know, I’m just monitoring those through the app. I’m not, again, this is, I haven’t gone the extra step of installing equipment, you know, to respond to that yet, but that
you know, that would be the next level if we determined that, you know, that the humidity is just running too high for any length of time.
Reuben Saltzman (32:20.238)
Okay. And do people know you’re putting this in and they’re just like, yeah, good. He cares for me. It’s all been positive.
Tessa Murry (32:21.613)
you
Tessa Murry (32:26.019)
This is.
Rob Howard (32:26.876)
Yes, they’re aware. So, and this is also in conversation with the HVAC contractor that’s doing our maintenance twice a year. So yeah, we’re getting a look at all the equipment, know, filters, certainly, you know, making sure those have been changed appropriately and then cleaning the ERV core if necessary, you know, twice a year or so. mean,
Yeah, it’s part of an active maintenance plan strategy.
Tessa Murry (32:57.123)
you
Reuben Saltzman (33:02.518)
And so are you teaching the homeowner what you’re doing when you’re going in? So it’s like, look, we’re going to hold your hand for the first two years. And then after that, you’re a big boy now and you can do this on your own. Is that kind of what it looks like?
Rob Howard (33:14.948)
Well, that was the original strategy and that actually started when I was a Habitat for Humanity. But in the case of Duke Street cottages, we decided we were going to incorporate that maintenance plan into the POA dues every month. So it’s just included. you know, unless the board decides to change that at any point, we intend to continue with that long term.
Reuben Saltzman (33:39.918)
Okay, okay, got it.
Tessa Murry (33:40.964)
If the world was made of Rubens, that’s Ruben what you just said would work, but the world is not made of Rubens and lots of people don’t want to be cleaning out their ERV core twice a year and cleaning intakes and checking all these things and filters and all of that. so it just makes sense, that you’ve got this of this system in place for all these houses where a contractor comes in and you’re just making sure that these systems are getting the
the maintenance that they need on the timeline that they need and the homeowner doesn’t have to worry about it. I bet they’re happy to just have a little chunk of money that just covers all of that, removes that, takes it off their plate. It’s probably, like you said, easier living.
Rob Howard (34:29.36)
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think I said this earlier, but most of my target market is really one and two person households at both ends of the spectrum. So, you know, first time home buyers and last time home buyers. know, know, 20s and 30 somethings, you know, and then 60s and 70 somethings. You know, I’m kind of in the middle, but I’m, you know, I’m sort of the odd man out, but.
Reuben Saltzman (34:43.342)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (34:46.658)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (34:58.064)
Yeah, I mean, it’s, I think I’ve found that both ends of the spectrum prefer to have this, you know, included and done for them. And, know, it’s not that they couldn’t figure out how to do it themselves or couldn’t be trained to do it themselves, but. You know, if it’s included in my HOA dues, then why not just, you know, let them do it. They’re the professionals, you know, I mean, I think it’s, it’s probably, you know, preferable that it be done by a trained, you know, technician.
Tessa Murry (35:28.781)
So doesn’t want less maintenance things to worry about. Right? And we were just doing a podcast, Rob, recently where Ruben was sharing about an inspection he went on recently with another inspector at the company, Corey. And this was a giant old house. Was it in St. Paul, Ruben? Minneapolis. Okay. I’ll let you recap that.
Rob Howard (35:32.783)
Exactly.
Reuben Saltzman (35:49.944)
Minneapolis.
Reuben Saltzman (35:54.914)
Well, it was complicated. mean, there’s just so much stuff going on and it’s experienced home buyers who are buying this. You know, they’re both in their fifties or something like that. And they’ve, they’ve used us for a lot of home inspections. You know, they’re definitely not first time home buyers, but I thought there is no first time home buyer who has any business buying a house like this. This is so complicated. There’s so much you need to know. And no first time, first time home buyer knows all this stuff.
They’re going to let all this stuff get broken and it’s going to cost them a ton of money and they’re just not going to be able to maintain it. as much as real estate agents, I don’t think like hearing it. I really don’t believe every house is made for everybody. Your houses sound perfect for your clients. I mean, you’ve got this dialed in. I love them.
Tessa Murry (36:31.533)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:44.663)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Howard (36:46.876)
I’m not gonna pretend like I have it all figured out, but I’m getting better each time.
Reuben Saltzman (36:52.12)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Howard (36:52.793)
incremental improvement.
Tessa Murry (36:53.857)
one of your houses, Rob. Yeah. So I want to circle back. Do you? Okay. Okay. Well, so I, nice. Well, you said that you’re switching to kind of using modular homes. And I guess I, if you wouldn’t mind kind of diving into that a little bit more, I’m curious why you’ve switched from SIPs to modular.
Rob Howard (36:56.58)
I have one under construction that is still on the market. So yes, that can be arranged.
Rob Howard (37:20.336)
Yeah. So, mean, again, it has nothing to do with my level of satisfaction or confidence in SIPs. I mean, I love the product. It is a premium product. the materials are more expensive. The labor is less expensive and it goes together really quickly. But once you get that house in the dry in, let’s say two to three days, then it goes back to a more conventional construction schedule.
and wrangling subcontractors, which has gotten much more difficult and cumbersome over the last 10, 20 years. And I just don’t see that improving. Everybody complains about the lack of skilled labor and the need for more. while it feels like there are a lot of people working on that issue, the day to day, at least in my area, is I can’t find enough
Tessa Murry (38:00.483)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (38:08.045)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rob Howard (38:18.554)
subs, can’t find enough trade partners to get this done in a timely manner. And my goal is to put people in houses faster. you know, most of the SIP houses were taking me six to eight months to complete. And my goal is to cut that in half. So I’m trying to get that down to about a four month, you know, construction cycle.
Tessa Murry (38:24.76)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (38:42.049)
Okay. Well, that’s an interesting solution. Sam Rashkin would be proud that we’re discussing this because yeah, it really is a problem that we just don’t have enough skilled labor and quality laborers out there in the trades. And so if a builder who has high volume can’t find dependable quality people, how is a one-off homeowner who needs some sort of maintenance done supposed to track someone down and get them to come out to their house?
So it’s interesting how you’re looking at these challenges that are out there, like affordability and community and maintenance and comfort and energy efficiency and lack of skilled trades and laborers out there. And you’re addressing each one with kind of what you’re doing, it sounds like, and you’re adapting as you learn and as you grow your company, which is really cool. So are these modular homes, are they going to be kind of at the same price point then?
Rob Howard (39:40.26)
Yeah, I mean, let’s just say I’m not planning to drastically reduce my construction cost using modular. mean, because you have to incorporate the shipping cost to get it from the factory to its final destination. So that’s thousands of dollars to do that.
Tessa Murry (40:00.557)
Hey.
Rob Howard (40:05.317)
Again, I think the main reason for the switch is time and, you know, time is money. I mean, I’m not paying cash for these houses. I’m taking out loans, you know, construction loans to build them. So the shorter the construction time, the less interest I’m paying on those construction loans. you know, that matters for sure. But really the skilled labor issue, I think, is more of a driver for me. In some ways, I’m viewing the modular factory as like a super sub.
Tessa Murry (40:16.981)
huh.
Rob Howard (40:35.258)
So most of these trade contractors are on their payroll. They come into a controlled environment of a factory every day and they have a predictable work schedule and work environment. They put things at more ergonomic work heights so that it’s not as hard on their bodies and it’s just safer for them in the workplace. So, I mean, there’s a lot to like about it. I mean, if you’ve never been to a modular factory,
Tessa Murry (40:36.855)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:57.891)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (41:05.018)
you need to go. It will blow your mind. The level of precision and quality and the lack of waste. You know, they do such a good job of resource management that I have never seen in a stick built, you know, site built construction environment. mean, you know, we often joke that you can’t tell if, you know, the dumpster is
Tessa Murry (41:17.219)
Thank
Tessa Murry (41:27.799)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (41:31.77)
waste or you know somebody just delivered lumber and just put it in the dumpster you know I mean what is going on?
Tessa Murry (41:37.493)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Reuben Saltzman (41:39.276)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, now you got me interested. need to I need to get a tour of a modular home facility now. That’s on my list. I wrote that down. Yeah. And you know, just one other thing, just to finish, I’m talking on this side just one more time about all that you guys do, because I’m thinking this is basically apartment living. As far as your responsibilities.
Tessa Murry (41:47.989)
Me too. Sign me up.
Reuben Saltzman (42:07.896)
but you’re in a single family home. So I’m assuming you guys, the association is taking care of all the outside stuff, like painting and mowing the lawn and well, you don’t have snow removal, but cleaning up leaves and you’re changing the inside the home, you’re changing the filters, you’re doing the maintenance. What is the homeowner left to do? Like what type of homeowner maintenance tasks are left?
Rob Howard (42:36.22)
I mean, you know, basic home maintenance for sure. So you mentioned painting. mean, we, these are individually owned, you know, they own the land and the house that it sits on. So, I mean, there, we’re not doing painting. Uh, we haven’t, we haven’t gone down that road yet. I mean, you know, of course I’m planning on, you know, the original paint job being good for, you know, 10 to 15 years. So when we get to that point, if, if all the houses need to be painted at the same time and
Reuben Saltzman (42:51.072)
Exterior.
Okay.
Rob Howard (43:05.36)
you know, we agree as an association that that’s an expense that we want to take on collectively. There’s no reason we couldn’t do that. We just haven’t crossed that bridge yet. But you mentioned landscaping and landscaping is definitely part of the POA dues. know, so we have a maintenance contract with a landscaping company, you know, that we pay, you know, to do that for the whole neighborhood. Yeah, it wouldn’t make sense for
Tessa Murry (43:14.891)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (43:29.859)
and
Rob Howard (43:30.212)
us to have 11 different contractors, you know, coming in there to mow these tiny little lots. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:38.155)
Yeah, that’s an efficient way to do it. A cost effective, efficient way to do it, sounds like. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (43:38.158)
Okay, all right.
Rob Howard (43:43.802)
It gives you little bit of bargaining power when you’re calling around getting bids for what feels like a little bit larger contract.
Reuben Saltzman (43:50.53)
for sure.
Tessa Murry (43:50.733)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:54.242)
Yeah. So I guess I just have kind of one more question and then we should probably wrap it up. these modular homes, I don’t know too much about them, but compared to the SIPP panel home, are they going to have the level of like insulation and energy efficiency and kind of that quietness you talked about the SIPP panels having? Do modular homes have that as well or is that a trade off?
Rob Howard (44:20.348)
I you know, I guess the way I would answer that is these are more like conventional stick built homes, but they’re built in a factory environment, you know, so they build with two by six exterior walls, you know, so you’re getting either R-19 or R-21 high density bats in the cavity. They don’t normally put exterior insulation on these, but I, I asked for that and the factory that I’m working with, you know, was kind enough to do that for me.
Tessa Murry (44:30.593)
Okay.
Rob Howard (44:49.358)
in the factory. They’re also putting furring strips, 1x4s, on top of that rigid foam to make it easier for me to install the siding in the field once we set the boxes. So the reality is it depends on the factory that you’re working with, what level of customization or upgrades, I guess, you could say they’re willing to offer.
Tessa Murry (44:51.394)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (45:01.955)
Wow, cool.
Rob Howard (45:17.116)
Yeah, the factory I’m working with is called Cardinal Homes. They’re in Wyleysburg, Virginia. It’s about 200 miles from Granite Falls. And, you know, I did a lot of factory tours before I settled on Cardinal to do this construction for me. But, you know, part of the reason was they were more open to changes that I wanted to make to improve the performance of the houses. You know, do I expect them to be at 1 ACH 50?
Tessa Murry (45:41.827)
you
Rob Howard (45:47.096)
or less? No, probably not. We might be creeping back up toward three, but I mean, that’s still really good. And just like I said before, the more we do this, the better we’ll get at it. So we’ll find ways to get the modular homes tighter, just like we did with ZIPs.
Tessa Murry (45:57.047)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (46:08.927)
Yeah, yeah, that’s very interesting. Ra, I think you are way ahead of the game and I think you are a builder kind of of the future that’s taking all these challenges that we’re facing and you’re figuring out ways to address them head on and you’re adapting and you’re being innovative and you’re building in ways where the houses are still high quality, high performance, but affordable using methods that…
you know, just make sense. Modular homes, how they’re put together, having a system, having these trades in place, doing things consistently, efficiently. It just, why don’t we do that already? There’s so many European countries like Sam Rashman is talking about. That’s all they do. And nobody would want a custom built home because they wouldn’t be good performance. So it’s cool to see that you’re already doing this and you’re figuring it out. So I…
I wish you the best and thanks for coming on the show today, Rob. Is there anything else you want to add before we put a wrap on this episode? Anything else we did not talk about or we didn’t ask you that you want to share?
Rob Howard (47:22.768)
I guess the only thing I’ll say as we close is that, know, Duke Street Cottages has been this sort of a field of dreams experience for me. You know, if you build it, they will come. And, you know, when I first thought about it, I thought, you know, we’re talking about the buyers, right? The people who are going to live in these houses and certainly they’ve come. But I think what’s been even more interesting to me is all the other would be developers, you know, of
Tessa Murry (47:32.707)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (47:34.798)
Yeah.
Rob Howard (47:51.631)
A similar mindset, you know, who are mission driven and community focused who’ve reached out to me and said, man, I read about what you’re doing and I want to come see it, you know, and, know, just as recently as this week, you know, a developer, a new developer in Durham, North Carolina, you know, reached out. so, I mean, that’s been really rewarding, you know, to be able to share the.
Tessa Murry (48:03.395)
for
Tessa Murry (48:12.803)
Hmm.
Rob Howard (48:17.02)
the what to do’s and the what not to do’s. Hopefully, if you, I don’t ever wanna make it seem like I’ve got it all figured out. I mean, I try to make all the mistakes quickly, learn from those, and then pivot and improve and don’t do that again. So I’m happy to share that, that the real, the truth of this, I’m not trying to pretend like it’s easy, it is not. But yeah, it’s certainly worthwhile.
Reuben Saltzman (48:20.366)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (48:34.285)
That’s it.
Tessa Murry (48:38.475)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (48:46.819)
That’s very cool. That’s very cool. Well, and obviously, mean, the more that we can work together and kind of, you know, put our heads together and figure out how to tackle these issues of affordability and lack of skilled labor and performance, the better we all are. So thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (48:47.127)
Love it.
Rob Howard (49:06.874)
Yeah, no, kudos to you guys for spreading the word. Yeah, thanks so much for doing that.
Reuben Saltzman (49:14.882)
Yeah. And if, people want to reach out to you, learn more about these houses, how can they find you?
Tessa Murry (49:15.191)
Thanks, Robyn.
Rob Howard (49:20.39)
So my company website is howardbuildingscience.com. I’ve also got one for Duke Street, which is dukestreetcottages.com. You know, I mentioned Pocket Neighborhoods, know, Ross Chapin’s website is excellent resource. We didn’t get into the whole missing middle housing thing, you know, but you know, that that group is doing an amazing job more so on the zoning and planning, you know, side of the industry.
Do you guys know the Incremental Development Alliance? I think they might even be based in the Twin Cities. Don’t quote me on that, but definitely check out, they call themselves InkDev for short, but yeah, I’ve learned a lot from these other groups. I took one of their small developer workshops probably six, seven years ago now.
Tessa Murry (49:54.359)
don’t.
Okay.
Tessa Murry (50:12.163)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (50:16.201)
very interesting. Well, Rob, you have opened up a whole new world. Thank you so much. And we could definitely dive into this even deeper. And we’ll have to have you back on the show, maybe a follow up in a year just to see what you’re up to and what you’ve learned.
Rob Howard (50:20.7)
Hahaha
Rob Howard (50:35.814)
For sure, yeah, I’d be glad to do that.
Tessa Murry (50:38.733)
That’d be awesome. All right. Well, thanks, Rob, for coming on. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (50:38.83)
Cool. Well, for our listeners, if you got questions for me or Tess, we read all the emails. We would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us by emailing us. It’s podcast at structuretech.com and we will catch you next time. Take care.