Habitat’s Net Zero Home Build

Before Josh Brewer became the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of the Northern Flint Hills (HHNFH), he was no stranger to the cause. Josh volunteered with builds during high school and through college. He has been front and center for many projects and is proud of HHNFH’s impact on his communities.

Now, as Executive Director of HHNFH, Josh is even more familiar with the vast scope of HHNFH’s work and pointed out they aren’t just about building houses but also focuses on keeping people in their homes and helping to ensure that those homes are physically and financially accessible. They help make accessibility updates for people who have had health changes, help new homeowners access mortgage funding, and repair established homes to ensure their safety and efficiency.

Upon starting his position at HHNFH, Josh left with a dilemma that was very specific to the area. There simply isn’t enough housing in the Riley County area for Kansas State University, Fort Riley, and the many rural communities to support their populations. The good thing about this problem is that all these communities were in agreement and looking for an answer to get behind. Josh and the community partners  joined with K-State 105, K-State College of Architectural Planning, K-State Construction Science, Fort Riley Home Builder Program and Jobs Corps, and K-State Net Positive Studio to design what may be the perfectly designed home to build and bring to rural communities.

This home is meant to be an easy build, taking a few skilled laborers, as opposed to a large crew, weeks to assemble before moving it to its home destination. A small group will finish the assembly there. This process alleviates the need for a large volunteer workforce at a home site, creating accessibility for small rural communities that otherwise may not have the workforce to sustain a HHNFH project to completion.

Another aspect of this new home model is making it as energy efficient as possible and healthy for the families and volunteers to work with. To do this, Josh and his team at K-State looked to alternative home insulation and flooring methods. The solution they found was local. There are two hemp processing facilities in Kansas, one at Prairie Band Pottawatomie Nation and the other in Great Bend. The team decided to use this source to implement hempcrete into the build. The hempcrete provides inexpensive insulation that is safer to work with and easier to apply than spray foam, making it volunteer-friendly.

Beyond the hemp, the K-State partners are implementing a design that resembles a passive solar home. This means that the homeowner will use their heating and air conditioning less because of how the heat is dispersed throughout the home. Electrical use and bills still cannot be avoided, so keeping efficiency and affordability in mind, Flint Hills Renewable Energy and Efficiency Coop has joined the project to fit the home with solar panels, dramatically decreasing the monthly cost of living. Once this house is ready to assemble, it will be moved from its building site near the Manhattan airport to its final destination in Ogden, KS, where its homeowner will enjoy the modern aesthetic of their home while benefitting from the energy efficiency.

This is just the beginning of the story: one home in one community. If this project is successful, it will create a model for building hubs in Kansas, where with a few employees, affordable housing can be generated and dispersed throughout rural areas with minimal effort and cost. We look forward to sharing the lessons and successes of the Ogden house with you as the project wraps up.

To gain more information and insight into this project, please tune into the partnering podcast episode at kansasruralcenter.org/podcasts or on your favorite podcast app!

You can also visit:

Habitat for Humanity of the Northern Flint Hills: habitatflinthills.org