Homeowners

If new homebuyers could reduce their energy bills 70 to 75 percent without the added upfront cost of typical alternative building materials, would they “go green”? Dan Dwyer, President and CEO of Dwyer Custom Homes Inc. is betting his company’s future that “if he builds it, they will come.” “Rising energy costs and our dependence on imported fuels will drive the need for more energy efficient housing,” he says. “Building with alternative materials must be in our future.”

Just north of Anthem in the desert hills of New River, his company is nearing completion on a prototype of a new super energy efficient home built with insulated panels coated with a thin cement-like shell. Unlike other builders who use alternative building materials for just the outside walls, Dwyer uses special adhesives and a unique technique to create an interlocking structure of both exterior and interior walls, along with floor and roof. “Our building system can be compatible with other conventional buildings that use concrete stem walls and a poured foundation, however we do away with exterior and interior framed walls and most of the roof trusses,” says Dwyer. The result is a building that is resistant to weather related events like micro bursts, tornadoes, and hurricanes also rodent and bug resistant: the latter, a plus in our termite prone desert environment. Wildfires would also present little problem to a house built with a concrete shell. “The buildings strength and flexibility makes it an ideal building for earthquake prone areas because the walls flex without cracking.” says Dwyer.

Less than 10 percent of the homes built in the United States are now built with alternative materials such as rammed earth, straw bale, and structural panels. Dwyer believes this will change as more people become familiar with the unique benefits and energy saving costs these materials provide.

While Dwyer’s insulated panel system tends to make a house more airtight, a whole house air exchanger can be added to achieve superior air quality. Additional cost savings are realized with the need for smaller air conditioning units and heat pumps, sometimes by half the size needed for a house of comparable size. The houses can also be easily wired for photovoltaic electric and plumbed for solar hot water.

Unlike traditional Phoenix homes, Dwyer says the insulated garage in his prototype home stays comfortable year round. Another advantage of this type of construction is portability. It could be built in modular units then shipped to other parts of the country in sections and reassembled on site. The prototype house in New River is 2,800 square feet of livable space, about 3,400 square feet under roof, including the garage, and should be completed by November.

Dwyer Green Builders requires fewer man hours to install our products mean more money in your pocket.
Our panels get glued together and coated; you can begin living in shorter amount of time. Windows are simply cut out after the walls are constructed. Electrical and plumbing runs can be cut into the foam core.
Because our panels have a foam center, changing electrical and plumbing runs to other locations is an easy task.
DGB create additional warm living space in the roof by eliminating conventional trusses. This can provide an additional 25% of floor space at no additional cost and makes use of all of the potential space in the building.
Our panels come in 8” thick for the exterior walls, 6 or 4” thick for interior walls depending on your energy efficiency requirements and/or engineer's recommendations. Improved insulation values, gaining greater internal space for the same size overall footprint. Unbeatable insulation value means energy costs can be reduced by up to 60% over conventional construction.
Buildings constructed with Dwyer’s Green Building System are quieter and more comfortable to live in. The panels provide significant resistance to airborne sound. The inherent airtight construction lends itself to modern ventilation systems which reduce energy costs and improve air quality.
Expandable Polystyrene Foam (EPS) and the Special Concrete facings used in the manufacture of Dwyer’s Green Building System panels do not provide any food value to vermin, termites and are resistant to attack by mold and microbes.
Excellent fire retardant properties in all our panels makes for a virtual safe haven for you and you’re family.
The solid core of rigid Expandable Polystyrene Foam (EPS) insulation in the panels cannot slump over time and the minimal thermal bridging ensures that the building is heated evenly, free from cold spots and condensation. The building will benefit from reduced heating costs for its entire lifetime. This is an important consideration at a time of rising energy costs.
The Special Concrete structure provides a continuous surface that compliments support structure ribs fixing of services, lights and kitchen cabinet units.
A DGB structure will form the hidden shell of the building. The external walls can then be finished in many ways because the panels are coated with a special flexible concrete coating; you have an enormous choice of surface materials to choose from. These can include traditional facing brick work, timber cladding and stone veneer or stucco systems. Internal walls are normally finished with your choice. Roofs are finished as normal with battens and tiles, although the inherent strength of a DGB roof does not require the same weight of finish as a conventional vented roof. This can allow the use of a lightweight roof finish if desired.

Cost comparisons have shown that building with DGB is less expensive than traditional building techniques and the following factors can also be taken into consideration:

DGB houses are attractive to future buyers and occupiers, due to the reduced running costs and the many other benefits that a DGB house provides.

DGB are an eco-friendly method of construction:

The outer skins of DGB panels are coated from special concrete. The core insulation is rigid Expandable Polystyrene Foam (EPS) insulation which is CFC and HCFC free and has an ozone depletion potential of zero.
Dwyer’s Green Building System provides an extremely high thermal performance and U-values can be as low as 0.15. There is minimal thermal bridging compared to conventional construction and the insulation will not sag or slump over time. The construction is draught free and is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. This drastically reduces energy consumption which leads to a corresponding reduction of up to 60% in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for the lifetime of the building.