Seed Home v2 Requirements + Value Proposition

Unique Value Proposition

• The only open source house design in the world that is fully productized and highly replicable, in commercial and DIY situations.
• The lowest code, IRC-compliant house in the world.
• Design that allows for the shortest possible build time in the world from off-the-shelf materials.
• The only house design in the world that allows for 100+ person paralleling of builds, with non-skilled workers.

Features

Seed Eco-Home Features 2022

Hackathon Product

• Clarity on audience: individuals who would like to build their own house for $40k materials cost (*not including land, permits and connection fees), or individuals who would like their house built for $100k (not including land, permits, connection fees). Back to: 1000 sf house that you can build with a friend in one week - for $50k. How to say the turnkey package? Or, we can build it for you for a fee of $50k.
• Learn to design like a pro, to create group genius, and to solve pressing world issues.
  • You will learn how to do this - amazing quality design, animations, and renderings, so you can build your dream home with state-of-art features.

Book Product Value Proposition

• World's leading learning resource an applied construction - design and build - and entrepreneurship - for you to get involved in solving housing.
• TOC - Extreme Enterprise Book#Table of Contents

Enterprise Product

• The value we provide is acceleration of build schedule for custom homes so the entrepreneur can do extremely efficient builds. This is achieved by high modularity + swarming. Meaning the same revenue is obtained 10x faster in our model - 5 days (+ permit/inspection schedule) instead of 180 days. That means you make in 2 weeks what you would normally make in 180 days as a builder. Time to Build a House.

Transformative Value Proposition

• Solving housing - availing low cost build techniques by enabling anyone to build a high quality house at the lowest possible cost
• Awakening possibility and providing opportunity - for both house building and entrepreneurship to build for others
• Transitioning the economy from proprietary to collaborative - by creating a collaborative kernel to transform the housing industry
• Proof of concept that large-scale, moonshot collaborative development can be leveraged on-demand, in a replicable way
• Universal design - usability for the greatest number of people, including a wide spectrum of age groups and abilities, offering greater safety and increased comfort, with ease of operation and flexibility to meet the needs of different people.

Progressive Value Proposition

• Only house model that comes with PV system option built-in to the main offering. Open Source means you can maintain it for a lifetime of service. OS Power Inverter.
• Future: only house model that comes with a water reuse system built-in (future).
• Open Source Smart Home - Open Source Energy Monitor + open source energy management.

House Value Proposition

1. Lowest cost house per square foot to address the housing issue. See What Makes Housing Expensive? and Solving Housing
2. 10x potential of build time compression using parallel build techniques
3. Modular design, allowing inexperienced builders to build a house like legos
4. Attention to producing materials - ie, making lumber or bricks or 3d prints...
5. Using common, off-the-shelf materials, so that supply chains are resilient
6. Simplest possible design, without sacrificing performance, that translates to lower build cost, faster build time, and a high quality product

• Has significant LEED and Living Building Challenge qualities
• Comes with a standard off-grid option for electricity with 7kW of PV and 5kWhr of storage for night time allowing for full off-grid operation in the summer, and full off-grid operation year-round if no heating is required.
• Uses superefficient induction cooktop, energy saving tankless water heater, heat pump that works down to -23F, and superefficient shower and water faucets.
• Can be built by inexperienced builders
• Has a support community for continuing improvement of features.
• Provides superefficiency in electricity and water consumption, saving about $1k/yr in electricity bills, about $1k/yr in water bills, and $9160/lifetime in toilet paper costs
• Debt-free housing strategy, where one can start small and add on as needed. Financeable using standard methods, so that a route exist for anyone as long as they can afford to buy land.
• Comes standard with a polished concrete floor
• Is designed for expandability so it can grow with a family as needed.
• Practical starter home that grows with a family
• $50k for a 1000 sf house that you can build with a friend in one week. But you have to pre-build all the modules.
• Economic benefit - save $39k in electricity costs over 30 years, and $31k after investment, and displace $4500 of water supply costs, saving $30k in water over 30 years, or $25k after counting investment cost. But more specifically, if you can afford $80k up front one time including land - then you're saving $566/month in general on the housing part - according to Cost of Living.
• Expandable for starting with concrete floor and building up to more expensive floor if needed.
• Additional options include an aquaponic greenhouse for food production, and we are working on a water recycling system for off-grid water operation - in dry and wet climates.

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Utilities Value Proposition

Pitch

The Seed Home v2 features an efficient utility strategy that reduces costs significantly while benefiting the environment. We are proposing a robust set of high efficiency, state-of-art utilities - without breaking the budget. And this is only the beginning, as we are working on making the Seed Eco-Home synonymous with state-of-art housing, easy to build, at the lowest possible cost.

Standard features that fit within the $40k-$50k materials-only budget, typically associated with much more expensive housing, include:

• Photovoltaics - this small house is fully off-grid capable with a whopping 5.6kW of rooftop solar panels, 5kW continuous power inverter, and, 1 full kWhr of energy storage for night-time power. This means that in the summer, when space heating is not required - or year-round in warmer climates - the house has plenty of electricity, during the day - and has 5 hours of night power in a super-energy saving Smart Mode - when only critical power such as lights, internet, and computers are on - while still allowing for cooking or taking a shower. This can save you your full energy bill on average - about $100/month. All the standard utilities such as heat pump, washer, dryer, dishwasher, are supported.
• Induction Cooktop - Induction electric heaters are the most efficient way to cook- over 2x as energy efficient as gas.
• Heat Pump for Heating and Cooling - one efficient device that still uses electricity - but puts out 3x more heating power than the electrical power it uses. And it heats your house efficiently even in arctic temperatures down to -22F.
• Energy Efficiency - with an Open Source Energy Monitor, and Open Source Smart Home Automation - parasitic loads are switched off when not needed, a super-efficient refrigerator (Superfridge) that uses 1/8 the energy of a normal refrigerator, and night-time energy conserving mode lets you sip energy in comfort. Thus, the energy system is to provide the same average power use as the national average - while doing so without the grid. We also use point-of-use tankless water heaters, which are 30% more efficient than water heaters with a tank - and electric is 2x as energy efficient as gas water heating.
• Water-Saving Appliances - the washer, dishwasher, toilet, shower, and sinks feature water-saving as a standard option. You save on average $40/month on water bills based on a national average.
• Produce! - energy and food. Edible garden/forest + energy + unjob with OSE Enterprise Training.
• Sustainable Battery Bank - the house features the only known sustainable battery technology in the world - Nickel Iron batteries. These last 60 years, and could well be the last storage battery for your home that you'll ever have to buy. They are made from common, abundant materials - nickel and iron - and do not pollute the environment. You will never have to worry about running out of power during an emergency outage. And - the nickel-iron batteries are designed to be discharged to a full 100% without any damage to the batteries- unlike any other type of battery. So you get a true wattage - not a wattage that kills your battery from overdischarging.
• Zero-Energy - the house produces more energy than it uses (unless you are heating after the sun goes down in winter). Thus, grid connection is optional in some cases. And, you can go gasless - with the induction cooktop, on-demand-electric water heater - you don't have to install a gas line which saves you $2500 on average.

Admissible Appliance/Utility Choices

Meeting efficiency and performance criteria: high performance, lowest lifetime cost, lowest embodied energy.

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FAQ

Q: What are the goals of the prefabrication part other than for a handful of people to be able to raise it in a week?

A: The prefab is done by the owner builder. Outside of build time optimization, 7 reasons are: 1.  lowest possible cost, 2. simplest design possible, 3. portability, 4. parallel build ability, 5. lifetime design value, 6. economic value, 7. modularity.

1. Achieved by using common, off-the-shelf parts such as 2x6 lumber and wood panels.
2. By using repeating modules, complexity and thus skill requirement is reduced, availing the build method to more people.
3. If screws are used, structure can be portable. Since it's on helical pier foundations, even the piers can be unscrewed.
4. A predefined parametric structure allows a large number of teams to build in parallel. This means that if you have a large team, all of them could work together on making the panels, so all the panels can be build by a team in a single day - and even shorter - limited only by the size of the workspace and the number of people.
5. If the panels are modular and fastened with removable fasteners such as screws, then they can be removed and thus reused in a Construction Set Approach. Each module thus becomes a uniform and high value item that can be used as-is within other projects congruent with the Seed Home building system.
6. Think about a marketplace developing for OBI modules. If the panels are standardized into modules, they can be used readily in other projects. Thus, they retain their economic value, and can be negotiated in the marketplace.
7. The essence of prefab is modularity. If designed properly, any module can be used readily - by following basic design principles, to create a wide range of building types and functions.