Panelized Home May Be New Model for Habitat

Local
By Bill Walsh
Source: Fauquier Times-Democrat
TUESDAY, JUNE 2 2009

Panelized Home May Be New Model for Habitat

By Bill Walsh

Times-Democrat Staff Writer

Good things come to those who wait, or at least that is Renita Poole's hope.

Several years after reaching the top of Fauquier Habitat for Humanity's list of deserving homeowning partners, Poole is finally getting a new Habitat home near Goldvein.

After all this time, she will be getting the house sooner rather than later.

Poole's is the first panelized home the local home-building group is erecting in Fauquier County. Late last week, the home, with much of the preliminary construction already completed at a non-profit factory in Henderson, Tenn., arrived on a tractor-trailer. In a matter of hours, Habitat volunteers unloaded the completed wall sections, completed roof trusses, and all the other pieces of the puzzle which they will begin to reassemble soon.

While Habitat officials have penciled in a span of three months in which to finish the house, Poole will likely be able to move in much sooner, volunteer coordinator Aubree Silver suggested last week.

Though this is the local chapter's first try with panelized homes, it is not the first such effort for some of the more experienced local volunteers.

Within that group, Ralph Thwaite and Bob Taylor spoke supportively of the concept of off-site pre-construction.

"The outcome is the same," Thwaite said. "With a stick build, we can involve more people, and more people involves more money [donations], so it's a balancing act. Do we want to put up a whole lot of kit houses and not have the money to pay for them, or do we want fewer stick builts and be able to pay as we go?"

In-kind and material donors can still contribute, Executive Director Andree Munson pointed out. In picking out a house, local Habitat chapters chose from a "menu," she explained. "If someone wants to donate...windows or interior doors, we simply take them off the order," Munson said.

"The construction of a stick-built house is...panelizing," Taylor added. "Panelizing saves us a step, and with volunteers, that's important."

That said, there is no shortage of work for those who want to help, Taylor said, and no shortage of ways the homeowner can work his or her hundreds of hours of "sweat equity."

This is the first Fauquier experiment with panelized homes. It won't be the last.

"When this is finished, and, hopefully, everything will have gone well, we will be full steam ahead on Sterling Court," said Silver. The seven attached single-family homes (duplexes) planned for that Warrenton site will all be panelized.

For more information about Habitat and volunteer opportunities, call (540) 341-4952.

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