House warming – Custom builders construct environmentally friendly home on Upland Road

Let the sun shine in.

That’s a lyric from a very popular Fifth Dimension song but it certainly applies to a new environmentally friendly home on Upland Road.

Attila Javor, co-owner of ZN Custom Building, and his crew have been busy installing a brand new modular home on its foundation at Upland Road, a hilly street at the entrance to the town.

Property owners Jeff and Peggy Ackerman approached Javor’s company three years ago inquiring about building a modular home, also known as a pre-fab home.

“They really wanted to take advantage of the solar passive gains,” said Javor. “Thus, we used the oversized windows [for the home] and strategically placed them in a way to take advantage of the view [of the ocean] as well as getting as much winter solar [sunshine] gains as possible to lower their heating and cooling costs.”

Javor said the actual two-floor, four-room home, was built in Pennsylvania, where the company has its headquarters, and trucked to its current location.

The home was hauled up a non-paved paper road (Sewall Avenue) behind the site and workers then used a 120-ton crane to pick up the home and place it on the foundation. Javor said the Ackermans traveled to Pennsylvania to watch their new home being built on an assembly line. The house was built in less than a week.

“It’s really what Henry Ford did to the auto industry,” said Javor. “He took advantage of the assembly line theory. The house literally moves from one section to the next where you have dedicated electrical people, plumbers, sheet rockers, and finished carpenters in a progression.

Once the home is completed, a non-partisan inspector goes through the home to make sure it meets all code regulations.

Javor said there are advantages in modular homes for homeowners seeking to lower monthly expenses for heating and cooling the home.

“In the winter time when the sun is lower, you want as much light coming in and hitting certain materials that absorb that heat and will transfer in to the actual home so the home itself will feel a lot warmer,” said Jabor. “The other advantage with oversized windows is that you have to use less electricity; you don’t have to turn on your lights quite as often and things of that sort. I’m also a huge proponent of using recycled materials and I wish more people in my industry would take heed of that.”

The cost of modular home construction?

“Most homes cost $150-180 per square foor and this home is 1,200 square feet,” said Javor.

Javor, a former college soccer star at Franklin Pierce College where he holds the Division 2 NCAA record for scoring two goals in 20 seconds, is proud of his company’s efforts to create more environmentally sound homes.

“This home is going to consume far less energy than a comparable home built in a different manner,” said Javor. “We have a lot of clients who come in to our office and rather than do costly renovations, they’ll ask us to replace their home with a modular home. We’ve seen prospective clients embrace the idea of the high-efficiency and green aspect of our modular homes.”