There’s some great homes across the country being finished with the first i-House design. This one, for instance, was built on a lot in Green Bridge Farm, an eco-friendly development of 25 lots in Effingham County, Georgia. Owner Charles Davis won’t have an electric bill with this net-zero energy home. His butterfly roof has solar PV that generates electricity and powers a brand new Chevrolet Volt (pictured below).
Clayton Homes turned the prefab world upside down last year when it announced the i-house, a modern, green prefab with an approachable price tag. I-house has been insanely popular and installed in various locations. And it turns out that the company is nearing the release of a new version of green prefab, i-house 2.0, which will have an enhanced front entry, warm and natural exterior materials, and more interior space to accommodate families.
There's been a lot of talk of the i-House ever since Clayton Homes announced its launch in about January of this year. The home is contemporary, affordable, and energy efficient. Landowners Bob and Melinda bought a 37-acre swath of land in 2006, hoping to someday build a home on it and live the good country life. They're 95 miles from Louisville in western Kentucky and had an i-House delivered just about a month ago.
On Saturday, the world descended upon Omaha, Nebraska for the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA and BRKB). Clayton Homes is one of the company's subsidiaries and officially launched the much talked about i-house at the annual meeting. We mentioned the i-house in January, and since that time, a number of readers have asked about specifics. Well, the i-house website is now up, and Clayton Homes is giving us details:
5/3/09 update: Clayton Homes launched the i-house!
When a friend first shot me a link to an article about this i-house, I knew we had to feature it. This is a new, modern, green home designed and soon-to-be offered by Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer of manufactured housing in the U.S. Clayton Homes started in 1934, smack dab in the tough years of the Great Depression, and since that time, they've sold ~1.5 million homes. If everything goes as planned with the i-house, Clayton Homes would like to be selling 2000 i-houses per year within 18 months of launching sales in May or so of this year.
