Last Quarter: Winter 2024 Vermont Housing News 

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• Luke Awtry
• Ace McArleton, cofounder of New Frameworks in Essex Junction

Back to Nature

New Frameworks, an Essex Junction company that makes homes insulated with tightly packed straw, has started creating modular kits that can be assembled at building sites.

The small, all-electric homes use many locally sourced and natural materials. New Frameworks has sold seven of the homes, four in Vermont and three at a cooperative community in Alabama.

Like other new construction, the structures are expensive, despite the small cost savings associated with modular building. A 600-square-foot model costs almost $220,000 to complete. The smallest, at 360 square feet, goes for as little as $128,000.

"We're trying everything to lower the price," cofounder Ace McArleton said.

Grace Oedel, executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, recently had one of the homes installed in the side yard of her Burlington residence as a place for family to stay. She said she wanted to support New Frameworks and the concept of using straw: Compared to conventional insulation, straw has a lower impact on the environment and the workers who install it.

"Our built environment needs to model our values," Oedel said.

McArleton got his start in construction in San Francisco, where he yearned to find alternatives to the foams, caulks, plastics and adhesives that go into most new buildings.

When he moved to Vermont in 2002 to study and teach at the Institute for Social Ecology, a radical and experiential educational organization in Plainfield, McArleton met builders who were using natural materials, such as straw-bale insulation and natural plasters, in place of petroleum-based products. He was an instant convert.

"Once I was exposed to working with earthen and plant materials, I didn't ever want to go back," he said. He particularly liked substituting straw for the fiberglass insulation that was the standard at that time. "It is a sensory joy to work with materials that are not going to burn you or give you tiny cuts all over your forearms," he said.

Four years later, McArleton started New Frameworks with builder Chloe Jhangiani, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company does use some conventional materials in wiring and plumbing, but McArleton strives for all-natural materials, such as floors made from local wood or an organic mixture. The modular kits are designed to be built on piers to minimize the use of concrete.

At New Frameworks' factory, workers pack straw into large structural panels that will be trucked to wherever the company's timber-frame homes are under construction. The thick straw-bale walls, McArleton said, are roughly comparable in insulation value to the more common dense-packed cellulose.

With the prices of conventional home materials at record highs, McArleton sees an opportunity to raise the profile of his company's new modular home kits. There are cost savings in creating the straw-filled walls in the factory instead of on-site, and McArleton said the indoor work helps attract employees.

New Frameworks' 360-square-foot base model is called the Cabañita, and it's an all-electric, high-performance building with nontoxic local finishes.

"It has all the things a person would want to live comfortably in Vermont," McArleton said.

Dressed to Impress

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• Anne Wallace Allen
• Jack Sumberg in Craftsbury

WindowDressers, a Maine nonprofit that organizes community groups to build energy-saving window inserts, is expanding rapidly in Vermont.

The simple wood-and-plastic inserts are tucked snugly inside window frames, adding insulation at little cost. WindowDressers estimates that each individual window insert saves about eight gallons of heating oil per year. The inserts sell for around $50, depending on size, or are free for low-income households that qualify for public assistance programs.

"When it's cold outside, there's a lot of cold glass, and the heat is just going out the window," Jack Sumberg said. A retired contractor, he started coordinating an annual WindowDressers Community Build event in Glover in 2018. As at a barn raising, neighbors gather to assemble the inserts, which are custom-made to fit each window and use a double layer of shrink-wrapped plastic to counteract heat loss.

"I have them all over my house," Sumberg said.

Allison Pouliot, the nonprofit's program manager for Vermont and western New Hampshire, said 22 Green Mountain State towns held similar events last year. She's in touch with several local energy committees and Rotary Clubs about adding more.

"It's growing by word of mouth," Pouliot said. "People participate, and then the next year they say they'd like this for their community."

Home at Last

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• Courtesy
• The nearly completed Mountain Towns Housing Project home in Londonderry

A Londonderry family will move into a new house this winter thanks to the Mountain Towns Housing Project, a community group working to provide affordable housing options one home at a time.

Having joined forces with a local housing trust, state housing organizations and several building companies, Mountain Towns will spend an estimated $425,000 gleaned from donations to build the house, which is nearly completed. Buyer Kara Corlew, who has two young children, will pay $200,000 for the home. Under the popular shared-equity model, Corlew will be required to pay the housing project a share of the money she makes when she sells it.

According to Cynthia Gubb, one of the project's organizers, a local couple started the process three years ago when they donated 1.8 acres worth $70,000. The Rotary Club gave the appliances, and local companies drilled the well and put in a septic field at no charge. A lawyer donated his services, and many community members volunteered money and time.

"Countless hours of work have gone into this," Gubb said.

When Corlew buys the house, Gubb said, the project will have money to start on another. Organizers will be looking for ways to cut costs, perhaps by building a duplex or using a modular home.

Eye for Design

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• Courtesy
• A Richmond home called Woodlands

A Richmond home called Woodlands received an Honor Award at AIA Vermont's annual design awards ceremony in December. The home, by Jeff McBride of Sidehill Design, hosts a multigenerational household in a forest setting. It uses no fossil fuels.

Mark Your Calendar

This year's Vermont Spring Home Show, scheduled for April 20 to 21 at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, will feature more than 100 local and national vendors offering services in homebuilding, remodeling and design.