Swedes Build Efficient Houses in Plants

You’re sick and tired of being told how other countries are producing energy-efficient, high-quality manufactured housing, aren’t you? Housing that is better than ours?

If so, don’t read “Coming in From the Cold: Energy-Wise Housing in Sweden” by Lee Schipper, Stephen Meyers and Henry Kelly (Seven Locks Press, 7425 MacArthur Blvd., P.O. Box 72, Cabin John, Md. 20818, $9.95).

The authors spent several years in Sweden early in this decade studying the Swedish way with housing. They flatly state in the introduction that “Swedish houses today are built to the world’s highest standard.”

This country of less than 9 million people is famous for its high-quality automobiles, aircraft, furniture, motion pictures and cameras (Hasselblads), so it’s hardly surprising that housing in a country of rigorous winters should be energy efficient and well built.

Selling in Japan

The Swedes are even able to sell houses in Japan--a country that is notoriously chauvinistic about imported products from virtually anywhere.

According to the June, 1986, issue of Automation in Housing, a trade magazine, Finnbohus AB of Stockholm has been selling Swedish panelized systems to the Japanese since November, 1983. This August, the firm is opening a 50-unit project called Sweden Hills near Sapporo, in cooperation with Japan’s Tomoku Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd.

The East Coast of the United States, with winters somewhat warmer than Sweden’s, has so far been the primary U.S. market for Swedish housing. This isn’t surprising, since Swedish cars were popular on the East Coast before they penetrated the rest of the country.

Sweden benefits from a uniform building code, something American housing manufacturers would kill for.

Consumes Less Energy

The current code, enacted in 1977, is due for updating next year. Unlike our prescriptive codes--the kind that say that you can use any kind of framing material as long as it is Douglas fir--the pragmatic Swedes demand a tight house that has proper ventilation.

The average Swedish house has fewer defects in workmanship and consumes a fraction of the energy of similar houses in the rest of Europe or in this country, the authors state.

The appendix compares a two-story house built by the Swedish firm ABV with a comparable model built to typical 1982 U.S. building practices.

In Minneapolis--with a climate roughly comparable to much of Sweden--the typical U.S.-built home would consume from 35.1 million to 45.3 million BTU (British Thermal Units) per year for heating and from 5.6 million to 5.9 million BTU/year for cooling.

Stringent Standards

The Swedish house built in Minneapolis consumes from 9.6 million to 23.2 million BTU/year for heating and from 4.5 million to 4.9 million BTU/year for cooling, depending on the standard used. The best results were obtained from the stringent ELAK standard, the latest performance code in Sweden.

That’s convincing evidence that the Swedes are onto something, especially when one considers the high quality of homes built in the upper Midwest.

A typical home built in Boston from components manufactured in Sweden has triple-glazed windows factory-installed into the wall unit. All exterior and interior doors are of laminated construction with an integral weatherstripping system.

Exterior wall cavities are filled with high-density insulation and a continuous vapor barrier prevents air infiltration and reduces drafts to a minimum.

Prefabricated I-Beams

The wall framing is seven inches thick and the ceiling insulation is nearly 12 inches thick. Swedish builders use prefabricated wooden I-beams rather than solid studs to produce such a thick wall.

A typical American building department plan checker, confronted with mini-I-beams made of wood and hardboard, would demand engineering calculations before approving the plans. Even with the calculations, he might reject the use of these clever I-beams!

Conforming to American tastes, the interiors feature contemporary open plans with cathedral ceilings, roof windows and balconies.

Can this performance be brought to the United States by domestic builders?

Mostly Factory Built

The authors believe that this can happen only when our builders are governed by a uniform building code that is performance oriented rather than prescriptive.

Only one in 10 new Swedish homes is stick-built on the site, almost the reverse of American practice. Swedes obviously don’t have the hang-ups about factory-built housing that many Americans do.

The authors conclude that the Swedes may be able to capture a slice of the high-end housing market in this country, houses that could be erected by custom builders in places like New England and New York.

“Whatever its structure, any joint venture to introduce factory-crafted houses to the American market should rely heavily, at least at the outset, on Swedish technical factory management,” they state. “Specially trained house erection crews will also be a necessity, whether supplied by the factory or by each builder member.”