Showcase of Innovative Products for an Energy-Efficient Home.
The Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) is a public-private initiative dedicated to accelerating the development and use of technologies that radically improve the quality, durability, energy efficiency, environmental performance, and affordability of America’s housing. PATH is supported by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The PATH Concept Home is a way to showcase how innovative products and construction techniques can be used to create an energy-efficient and affordable home. The Concept Home is an outgrowth of PATH’s Technology Roadmap: Whole House and building Process Redesign and Technology Scanning report. These studies found that modern homes are currently built to be inflexible, with systems tangled behind interior walls and embedded in structural elements.
The Concept Home represents a vision for the future of housing, with an emphasis on flexibility of systems to meet the specific needs of the homeowner. Innovations in the Concept Home include flexible interior walls that can accommodate family changes, customizable designs that will give the home the quality and curb appeal of a custom-built house without the high cost, and improved practices and materials, including Rhino Linings® spray polyurethane foam, that speed construction and improve durability.
Torti Gallas and Partners, an award-winning architecture firm, translated the PATH vision for the Concept Home into an applicable design, which meets ENERGY STAR, Environments for Living, Green Building and FHA Accessibility criteria. The Department of Housing and Urban Development broke ground on the project in October 2006. It was completed June 2007 and open for public tours during the summer.
Open celled, 0.5 lb spray foam was installed in the walls and attic of the PATH Concept Home. This spray foam uses water-blown technology and integrates renewable ingredients as a replacement for a portion of the petroleum traditionally used in spray foam insulation.