HABITAT HOUSES / WHAT WE BUILD

While volunteer laborers do much of the work on each Habitat house, we also utilize licensed subcontractors, such as plumbers and electricians. We build Habitat homes to code and must pass residential building inspections.

Habitat for Humanity builds and then sells a new three-bedroom, one or two-story design of approximately 1100 - 1200 square feet to qualified families. The homes are air-conditioned and have 2 bathrooms. Dependent upon the city/county codes, a house may be built with a garage or a shed. It typically takes four to six months to build a home. Construction on the homes is a cooperative effort between volunteers and buyers of homes.

Moreover, every new Habitat house is EarthCraft and Energy Star certified! EarthCraft and Energy Star are voluntary green building programs which serve as blueprints for healthy, comfortable homes that reduce utility bills and minimize environmental impacts... a wonderful opportunity for our lower-income homebuyers.

Our Habitat homes now use 15-30% less energy, delivering hundreds in annual savings to our homebuyers. The savings in monthly utility bills is a winning economic situation for homeowners with a tight budget.

The new homes include a variety of energy-efficient features, such as higher performance windows, tight construction and ducts, efficient heating/cooling equipment and Energy Star-qualified appliances and lighting.

Properly installed energy-efficient features deliver better protection against cold, heat, drafts, moisture, pollen and noise, leading to lower maintenance costs over the long term for our lower-income homebuyers.

With a no-interest, 20 to 30-year mortgage, house payments are approximately $400 - $450 per month. Our families totally own their homes upon completion of their mortgage terms.

This design costs approximately $65,000 to build and is appraised at approximately $200,000 upon completion. This creates a significant asset for a family, a positive aesthetic impact on a neighborhood and adds to the tax base for municipalities. We are constantly striving to increase the number of homes we build, since the number of families in need always exceeds the number of houses constructed.