Nick Horras: Vice President of Energy Conservation and Weatherization, CEDA

the opportunity there was that you're always going to get a good say a return on your investment typically when energy price super high no matter what the cost of construction is it's going to pay for itself but even construction materials are higher out there to even get them out and perform the work so even cost of construction is higher so your deal is like a double whammy but once you invest that you're going to protect that house for the long run and ensure they're saving i don't want to say forever but for the life of that building

Was there anything unique about the construction of the houses or the way that you would weatherize?

Yeah, really good question.

Yeah, so there's permafrost out in Alaska, and you cannot build traditional foundations in some parts of Alaska for several reasons.

Out in that part, it's very marshy.

There's a lot of tundra and permafrost, and you can't sink foundations like you would traditionally or pour foundations.

A lot of it would rely on either post and pad, so like blocks sitting on the ground that have to get leveled every year.

Um, there was some, you know, unique, uh, foundation opportunities, you know, now there's, there's different, um, foundation options, um, everything from helical piers to, um, you know, triadetic foundations.

It's all above grade foundation.

So there's no, there's no crawl spaces out in Western Alaska for the most part, unless you go to a community that has a lot of.

You know, rocks or then there's a different challenge of, you know, getting into rocks.

But typically there's the, it was all above ground foundations where we were working on floor systems that are exposed both, not just on the sides and the top, but underneath there it's extremely windy.

So you have wind load going underneath the home.

And so you got to tighten it up, air seal it, dense packet, and then you have to protect it from moisture and all these conditions.

So yeah, there was always a lot of huge savings opportunities in the floor system.

And then obviously up to the attic and the walls.

Yeah, it was very unique housing from that standpoint.

You also had situations where houses were built outside and we see outside lower 48 and some of the housing stock was actually brought up on barges and installed in various communities and actually frankly built a subpar specifications that it should be for the basically the Arctic.

You want to have high-performing buildings in communities that have extreme conditions.

And as energy prices weren't always really expensive or the communities weren't being properly served by getting a home from the lowest bid contractor to build the house, they'd be provided with a subpar housing if it was provided through a government program or otherwise.

But fortunately, there's a lot of great work.

up in Alaska through the cold climate housing research center.

Um, they're doing a lot of work to look at more, um, incorporating some indigenous elements and some, um, and some technology in the homes now to try to stop that.

And so by, and the housing authority is doing a good job too, of building, they're building houses out of, um, um, structural insulated panels.

So they're big sections of foam.