We are sharing a table for the second year with ISA at GreenFest Philly. If you are around, I highly recommend checking it out. It is the biggest green event in Philly each year and there are a ton of quality green vendors and service providers either presenting or walking around and networking. Brian Phillips and I really enjoyed it last year and were a bit dissapointed that we didn’t get to walk the event more.
The event will be this Sunday, Sept 7th, from 11AM – 6PM. We will be displaying a concept on the next steps for the 100K House brand there that have not even been discussed on the blog yet, so if you like to be the first to know, this event is the only way to find out right now. Here are a the drafts of our posters below created by ISA (their graphic design is almost as good as their architectural design!).
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Chad:
As always, I love what you are doing.
I still think that you may be asking for trouble showing two renderings of the 120K house and then putting a plan of both the 100K and 120K house in the corner that is smaller than the title trumpeting the 100K house. We cant even see the edge of the 100K house in the renderings this time.
Someone is going to be mad when they find out that the home rendered here is not the 100K house. It smacks a little of the ole bait and switch. More politely, someone might say it is false advertising.
I think that this issue must be more clear. As you begin to get more new people interested in the project, there is bound to be some confusion.
It should also be clear that this price is only the builders cost and that you cannot buy this house for anywhere near 100K.
Sorry to bring this issue up again, but this poster seems to make these issues even more unclear than previous promotional pieces.
That is just my two cents, but other than that, keep up the good fight.
Maybe in conjunction with GreenFest you could do a special post on your decision to use SIPs. In searching through your site, it seems that using SIPs has always been your plan. It would be very helpful to understand more about the rationale behind your decision: how you weighed the pros and cons of using SIPs vs. using other materials/approaches.
George – We will certainly have more posts about SIPs during the construction period. The bottom line with our decision to use them was that they came back saving us both raw material costs and labor costs while providing a far superior finished envelope in terms of insulation and air tightness. It was a no-brainer once all the facts were laid out in front of us…
modern – Thanks for the comments and these are good points. As for the rendering, there is no bait and switch or thought in advance whatsoever.
This is simply the angle that ISA came up with that they is the best. I have not yet dictated to ISA what the renderings should look like and they have gone way above and beyond the budget for renderings in this project.
When we take the 100K brand to the next level, we will certainly have stand alone images and renderings of the actual 100K House. They are already in the works at ISA. I am purchasing the 100K house now so there is no confusion on my end as to which house I am getting. The one that will be sold soon is being shown most often which makes perfect sense to me.
As far as the price, this is something we thought of briefly from the beginning, but never thought there would be quite the confusion there has been. We were always thinking of this as a case study blog from the beginning for other developers, builders and those interested in being their own GC to build an affordable modern and green home. I think a lot of our readers don’t fall into these categories and the media that is covering us certainly doesn’t either.
We’ve been very clear from the beginning in the distinction between construction cost and sales price, both on the blog and in our interviews. Putting a number to the sales price would be impossible as we still don’t know what it will be exactly and future homes will all be different prices depending on the land costs. The construction budget is the one constant.
The project pages created recently on the site also make both of these issues of price and which house is the 100K very clear. We are doing the best we can with these issues. Someone glancing at the site may accuse us of false advertising if they like, but anyone familiar with our process and marketing philosophies would hopefully not make the same mistake.
Getting away from corporate marketing liars was a big inspiration for me starting my own company. Honesty, transparency and ethics come first and foremost in all of our marketing that we do, followed closely by innovation, low cost, direct messaging, clean design and a dash of humor.
i stoped by the booth at the fest and the person working it was unclear about the “concept on the next steps for the 100K House brand there that have not even been discussed on the blog yet”.
he did say he read that on the blog hear but wasn’t aware of what that announcement was. so…..?
jason – The next steps were shown a bit in the handout at the table. Did you get one? We really had a much poorer showing than intended due to all of the key team members being out of town that day… Sorry about that.
We’ll have an official press release soon about the next steps.