"It's a wonderful feeling where I just want to stand outside and just look at the house. Just stare at the house and constantly say 'Is this really true?'" Habitat Wake Homeowner
Homes Built By Habitat Wake
Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat Wake builds safe, decent, affordable houses in partnership with families and individuals who don’t quality for traditional mortgages. Photo by Bob Chapman, volunteer house leader.
Habitat Wake builds traditional single family, minimally-attached single family, and multi-family homes using a variety of architectural designs and floor plans. Most homes consist of three bedrooms with approximately 1200 square feet of living space. To the extent possible, houses reflect the neighborhood’s prevailing architectural style and streetscape. Homeowners select interior features such as carpet, cabinets and countertops. All homes are professionally supervised and built to ensure high quality and consistency—including a comprehensive one-year warranty.
Volunteers and future homeowners perform most of the labor on Habitat homes including all carpentry, roofing, siding, interior trim, painting, and landscaping. Habitat Wake usually hires subcontractors for the site and foundation work, electrical, plumbing and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC). Scenes of homes currently under construction show the fun and teamwork of being on site.
Building Methods
Habitat construction standards make homes environmentally-friendly while reducing operations costs. Each home is constructed to Advanced Energy SystemVision™ program standards. This improves the families' health and safety while assuring that homes are durable, comfortable, and affordable to maintain. This effort exceeds Energy Star standards and reduces energy use by 15-30% so that homeowners may participate in a program that lowers heating and cooling bills. At left, an Advanced Energy program manager measures the air flow at an intake vent.
