Home Trends: Designing Affordable Housing

Since 2004, there has been a 23.6% increase in the price of con­struc­tion, pri­mar­i­ly due to a strained labor force and cost­ly mate­ri­als. Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the U.S. con­struc­tion sec­tor is also in decline and is cur­rent­ly low­er than it was in 1968.

Ulti­mate­ly, the effects of these issues are felt by the end user, as hous­ing prices increase for home buy­ers. High costs put a big strain on the abil­i­ty to find afford­able hous­ing that meets spe­cif­ic qual­i­ty stan­dards for things like dura­bil­i­ty and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. This can also have far-reach­ing soci­etal impacts on the greater hous­ing infra­struc­ture with­in the U.S.

Over time, the ris­ing costs of home build­ing and the decline in afford­able hous­ing options has caused a great slow­down in the growth of the con­struc­tion sec­tor. As a result, the indus­try has fall­en behind in adopt­ing new and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies over the past 50 years, espe­cial­ly when com­pared to the inno­va­tion seen with­in oth­er indus­tries.

Here are a few ways you can use the lat­est build­ing solu­tions to cre­ate afford­able hous­ing options and still dri­ve down the cost of labor and mate­ri­als.

Find­ing the right skilled build­ing labor for your project can often be a dif­fi­cult task. And once you do find the right peo­ple for the job, the required labor costs can esca­late quick­ly. One solu­tion for these com­mon labor con­cerns is to reduce the num­ber of trades need­ed to com­plete the job.

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Cut­ting the amount of labor need­ed often means using the newest, most inno­v­a­tive build­ing mate­ri­als. Not only will these mate­ri­als help you reduce labor costs, but you’ll also be incor­po­rat­ing mate­ri­als into your build­ing that make it more afford­able for home­own­ers, sav­ing mon­ey on ener­gy con­sump­tion and main­te­nance costs.

The Bau­tex Wall Sys­tem is a com­plete struc­ture and enve­lope sys­tem that allows you to com­plete the struc­ture, enclo­sure, insu­la­tion, and air and mois­ture pro­tec­tion using just one trade (instead of the typ­i­cal three or four). This wall sys­tem gives you faster con­struc­tion times and a more sim­pli­fied sched­ule, which also helps low­er the over­all con­struc­tion cost.

While low­er con­struc­tion costs lead to low­er home prices, the Bau­tex Wall Sys­tem also pass­es on oth­er long-term cost-sav­ings to home­own­ers. They will con­tin­u­al­ly save mon­ey over time as they expe­ri­ence the ben­e­fits of reduced ener­gy use and low­ered (and some­times non-exis­tent) replace­ment, repair and main­te­nance expens­es.

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Wood and light-gauge steel still remain pop­u­lar choic­es for struc­tur­al walls, but in the face of ris­ing tar­iffs and decreased sup­ply, they are becom­ing more expen­sive and dif­fi­cult to use in a cost-effec­tive way. Choos­ing afford­able build­ing mate­ri­als that pro­vide high lev­els of effi­cien­cy and also sim­pli­fy con­struc­tion process­es is one way to lessen costs and pass the sav­ings onto the home­own­er.

Bau­tex Blocks are more than just an afford­able build­ing mate­r­i­al. The Bau­tex Block is a com­pos­ite insu­lat­ing con­crete form that makes design eas­i­er, con­struc­tion faster and build­ings more effi­cient.

Bau­tex Blocks come in one high­ly durable and ver­sa­tile form that makes up one of the strongest con­crete wall sys­tems on the mar­ket. These light­weight blocks make con­struc­tion faster and more sim­ple while pro­vid­ing tremen­dous per­for­mance ben­e­fits to homes — a cost sav­ings that will great­ly ben­e­fit home­own­ers.

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While recent­ly devel­oped build­ing mate­ri­als pro­vide easy design solu­tions, they are any­thing but sim­ple. Choos­ing prod­ucts that are both well-engi­neered and cost-effec­tive cre­ates more afford­able hous­ing options that offer more ben­e­fits to home­own­ers than just finan­cial sav­ings.

Today’s ide­al home design begins with the con­struc­tion of a tight and well-insu­lat­ed build­ing enve­lope like the Bau­tex Wall Sys­tem, the build­ing solu­tion of choice.

The Bau­tex Wall Sys­tem is mois­ture-resis­tant, fire-resis­tant, dis­as­ter-resis­tant and pest-resis­tant. It also offers a high­er lev­el of ener­gy effi­cien­cy, noise reduc­tion and is an over­all health­i­er option when com­pared to oth­er build­ing sys­tems.

This wall system’s dis­as­ter resilience is a very impor­tant fea­ture, as nat­ur­al dis­as­ters are occur­ring more fre­quent­ly in the Unit­ed States. Bau­tex Blocks meet the ICC-500and FEMA stan­dards for debris impact. The Bau­tex Block Wall assem­bly also meets the FEMA 320 and FEMA 361 guide­lines for safe rooms in storm zones with wind speeds up to 250 miles per hour.

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As con­struc­tion costs con­tin­ue to rise and skilled labor becomes more dif­fi­cult to find, builders need to con­tin­ue look­ing for ways to make design and con­struc­tion more afford­able with­out com­pro­mis­ing the over­all qual­i­ty of the homes they’re build­ing.

By tak­ing advan­tage of the lat­est build­ing solu­tions and under­stand­ing how these prod­ucts and prac­tices can save time and mon­ey, builders can reduce their costs and cre­ate more qual­i­ty hous­ing options, giv­ing home­own­ers more afford­able, durable, effi­cient choic­es in the mar­ket.

Con­tact Bau­tex today to find out how we can keep your next home afford­able.