LSU industrial engineering professor Isabelina Nahmens received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop modular construction techniques to make housing more energy-efficient and affordable.
Nahmens partnered with VEIC, a non-profit organization in Vermont with expertise in energy efficiency, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado for the project.
The team’s research aims to develop modular homes that are at least 50% more energy-efficient, an improvement that would benefit factories building the homes and consumers living in them.
Modular homes are buildings made up of repeated sections, called modules, that are built away from the building site and then delivered to the construction site.
Nahmens said modular homes have multiple advantages over site-built construction, such as faster construction, safety quality and waste management. They’re also a game-changer for housing affordability.
“Construction costs are the biggest determinant of the selling price or rent of new homes,” Nahmens said. “For example, the opportunity to mass produce energy-efficient homes could serve as a catalyst to the housing market by bringing down rents, reducing energy usage and helping preserve affordability.”
“What’s remarkable about this project is how it’s combining energy-efficiency and affordable housing at scale,” Alison Donovan, a senior consultant at VEIC, said in a press release. “We’re not talking about super-insulated and high-performance homes built for a million dollars. It’s about bringing the benefits of that technology to affordable housing, which is at the heart of our work. In many ways, this is a social justice issue.”
It’s also an issue many LSU students living in off-campus housing in Baton Rouge are familiar with.
Music junior Olivia Lauer works three jobs to support herself financially while balancing a full course schedule.
“I work three jobs to pay for my rent, my electric bill, my WiFi and groceries and barely getting by at the minimum,” Lauer said. “The only time I ever have off is Sunday nights. Other than that I’m working 24/7 just to make enough to live. I don’t know how many hours that totals up to, but it’s enough to where I don’t have too much time on my hands.”
In East Baton Rouge Parish, the average minimum wage earner working eight hours a day, five days a week works 15 of their 22 work days just to pay for rent, according to Louisiana Housing Corporation’s 2019 Housing Needs Assessment. The report also shows that the rate of rent stress in Louisiana is the fifth highest in the country: 45% of renters devote more than one-third of their household income to gross rent.
A high proportion of those who are considered ‘rent-stressed’ are ‘extremely rent-stressed,’ which means that the household expends more than half of its income on gross rent.
“I don’t buy anything else besides groceries and gas pretty much,” Lauer said. “I might at the end of the month end up with $100 extra, if I’m really good with it. What is so hard is finding the hours to work. I’m in school for 90% of my day. It makes it hard to make enough money to live off of.”
The median-gross rent in East Baton Rouge is $855, above the state’s $800, but below the country’s $949. Since 2010, median gross rent in Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes increased from $61 to $175.
English junior Sarah Cambre’s rent increased multiple times at her off-campus apartment in Baton Rouge, prompting her and her roommate to find cheaper rent elsewhere.
“When I moved in, the rent was really reasonable,” Cambre said. “I was happy there and I still like living there. I figured I don’t want to argue with them anymore.”
Like Lauer, Cambre works throughout the semester to support herself and pay her bills.
“Pretty much all my hours go toward my rent,” she said. “Sometimes I squeeze 30 hours into three days just so I can get enough money for that month and not have to work during the week. It just gets hard sometimes because I get really exhausted from working so much during the weekend. I don’t get to hang out with my friends as much because all week I’m focusing on school and all weekend all I do is work.”
Nahmen’s research could impact the problem of rent stress in Baton Rouge, but she said it will take radical changes.
“Current research efforts are beginning to show that inefficient construction processes are a major factor in the increase of initial cost,” Nahmens said. “In order to address those inefficiencies, the entire construction supply chain needs radical changes, not only from a materials and technology perspective but also from a production methods perspective.”
The project seeks to streamline construction processes by developing a methodology to improve process efficiency, especially those related to design and installation. And increases in energy efficiency usually means lower costs for consumers.
“By improving these elements, construction costs will decrease, thus making energy-efficient and resilient homes more desirable and widespread and in turn, saving low-income households money on energy bills,” Nahmens said.