Zeta Communities
The same economic downturn that wreaked havoc on home manufacturers appears to be creating opportunities for Zeta Communities, a hopeful purveyor of ultra-efficient multifamily housing.
To date, the company has built just one 1,540-square-foot demonstration home in Oakland to support its thesis that high-efficiency can also be affordable.
The installed cost for the unit – which was factory-built and includes photovoltaics, automated energy controls and high-performance insulation – is about $165 a square foot. A comparable unit built on site would cost about $250 a square foot, according to Zeta. The efficiencies of building homes in a factory setting , together with an integrated design process (where the architect, structural engineer and construction manager work in parallel), contribute to reduced costs.
The company is aiming to become the first mass producer of what is known in green building circles as “net zero energy” homes – those that generate enough renewable energy on site to equal or exceed their annual energy use.
Zeta’s start-to-finish development process required 50 percent less time compared with the typical design-and-build process.
