Modular builder rolls out energy-efficient “i-house” models at North Charleston locale

Home designs that impressed billionaire investor Warren Buffet last spring are now available for $75,000 and up at the local Clayton Homes outlet.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey cut the ribbon Feb. 2 as the Rivers Avenue manufactured housing and modular center showed off its new “i-house” design and companion “flex” models.

Maryville, Tenn.-based Clayton Homes recently built a showroom of the two-bedroom, 1,023-square-foot manufactured house, surrounding porches and a 268-square-foot orangey-red flex building complete with roof-top sundeck and rust-proof aluminum stairs. The company has started selling homes at dozens of centers nationwide, but North Charleston is one of just 15 places to have sales models.

The company also offers a one-bedroom, 723-square-foot floor plan and provides flex styles up to 620 square feet priced from $25,000.

Summey, who toured the models, calls the i-house a new concept. “I think it gets people aware of the combination of manufactured and modular.”

Prices should drop eventually as technology is perfected, he believes. As an analogy, Summey says he and his wife paid $1,200 for a 25-inch TV in 1972. “Today, you can buy a 25-inch for $200 and the picture is a heck of a lot better.”

Clayton Homes touts the units as a new wave of modular housing, crafted indoors under weather-controlled conditions and retailed at an affordable $91 a square foot. The builder is able to introduce higher-end features such as General Electric washer and dryer, deluxe kitchen appliances and fiber-cement siding. It also sports green attractions such as dual-flush toilets, tankless water heaters, bamboo floors, Andersen low-energy windows and recycled materials. Extras can include power-generating solar panels on the roof.

Brandon J. O’Connor, i-house product manager, says the plans – drawn up by two Clayton Homes designers – are an amalgam of green features and styling cues incorporated in existing homes. By pulling all the ideas together, energy costs have been slashed to an average of $1 a day.

“This is kind of a first for the industry,” he says.

Clayton Homes, which is owned by Buffet’s investment arm Berkshire Hathaway, unveiled the i-house concept at Berkshire’s shareholders meeting in May. The industrialist’s reaction? “He loved it,” O’Connor says.

Allison Blankenship, general manager of Clayton Homes’ outlet in North Charleston, says the new models are bringing interest to the center along much-traveled Rivers Avenue.

Blankenship says she has sold one home already. The flex designs – which can be turned into a mother-in-law suite, extra bedroom or guest cottage - are popular with businesses as well. She says one customer called about buying a flex unit for a “pizza joint.”

For more information, visit Clayton Homes at 6581 Rivers Ave., call (843) 572-6742 or go to the i-house Web site at www.claytonihouse.com.

Reach Jim Parker at 937-5542 or jparker@postandcourier.com