Natural disasters can devastate entire communities. More than 16,000 homes and other structures were destroyed in California’s January wildfires alone.
Rebuilding can be time consuming and costly, but a Florida company says it can rebuild in a matter of weeks for less money.
A CBS News analysis found the cost of home construction supplies across the country has increased by 47% since 2016.
Patrick Murphy, a former Pennsylvania congressman, is the managing director of Renco, the company behind the new technology, which was inspired by an unusual item: Lego bricks. The bricks are a composite made of glass, recycled plastic and other materials.
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“We can basically produce about 16 homes a day in this facility,” Murphy said.
Their factory in Jupiter, Florida, is scheduled to begin scaling up operations in April.
How the technology works
The company said the homes built can endure 240 mph winds and are more fire resistant than most brick and wood. Another bonus: They are water resistant.
“We decided to start in the toughest area, and so did years of testing to ensure that it could withstand Category 5 hurricanes,” Murphy said about launching their factory in Florida.
Yessica Coronado has lived in an apartment near Palm Beach, Florida, for almost a year. Coronado said she did not know her complex was constructed differently than other buildings. The four buildings in her complex contain 96 units and are the first of their kind in the country.
“I just thought of it as a regular apartment complex,” Coronado said.
Eleven workers constructed the walls, floors and ceilings of each building — in only eight weeks.
“We built that much faster than we would have had we done it with wood or concrete, sort of a traditional material,” Murphy said.
Saving on costs and time
While the Renco bricks are more expensive, Murphy said they still save 20% because of decreased time and labor. They’re also saving on insurance.
“We can get a lot more product built a lot faster with unskilled workers. … This entire 2,000 square foot home can be built by two people in one day,” Murphy said.
Renco said the primary limitation is that they are currently capped at buildings of no more than five floors.
“They’ve been given such a long lifespan that the insurance on our first building is about 20% less expensive for the sort of long term insurance,” Murphy said. “It doesn’t rot, it doesn’t rust. Pests don’t eat it, right? Termites don’t eat it.”
Illya Azaroff, an architect who teaches sustainable construction at City University of New York calls it a “huge time of change” for construction.
“Globally last year, 114 million people were displaced for natural and man-made disasters. So when I think about that, this has to be a moment of change,” he said.
Azaroff said while products like Renco have design limitations and tend to be blocky, the structural and time-saving benefits are crucial.
“When I see innovation in the marketplace like this, yes, we can build to fire resistance, earthquake resistance, to hurricane force winds, tornado force winds, we just have to have the political will to do it, and we have to have the guts to try new ways of doing things.”
