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What is a quality home?
Homes can be built with the strongest and most durable materials, but still have major maintenance problems. Occasionally, homeowners have energy-efficient systems installed but still pay huge energy bills. Such anomalies are the result of poor craftsmanship or of homes being built too quickly or under tight budgetary constraints. PATH believes the care taken in selecting quality materials and innovative technologies should be matched by the care taken to construct and install these materials in a home. In addition to these financial considerations, quality issues arise from environmental concerns. Imbalance of land use, improper disposal of material wastes, and poor installation of systems in a home can affect air and water quality.
While PATH's vision does not specify a goal for something as difficult to quantify as quality, PATH hopes to reduce maintenance costs by 50% for future homeowners.
PATH Tools
Building Better Homes at Lower Costs January 1998
National Construction Goals assigned highest priority to the two following goals: to reduce production costs through improved technology and to improve product durability.
Life Cycle Assessment Tools to Measure Environmental Impacts December 2001
Given the potential importance of these tools for America's homebuilders, HUD commissioned the NAHB Research Center to convene a meeting of experts to critique LCAs and offer suggestions on making the tools more useful.
Making the Quality Connection: Improving the Building Industry Insurance Situation Through Quality Assurance Programs (*.pdf, 65 KB)
January 23, 2003
The goal of this roundtable was to produce a better understanding of the nature of the insurance problems facing the home building industry, and identify how a quality assurance development and certification program might address these problems.
New Horizons in Quality Management
April 23, 1999
This roundtable report explores where leading quality builders are heading in the twenty-first century.
PATH's ISO 9000 Program
Pilot project to integrate within the framing industry ISO 9000 practices for quality assurance in design, development production and servicing.
Quality Assurance System for Wood Framing Contractors December 2000
This document is geared toward the framing activities of home building. It identifies a framework that a contractor can use to develop a quality management program that delivers maximum value.
Technology Stories
Success stories gathered by PATH to demonstrate the use of new housing technologies.
ToolBase
ToolBase is the housing industry's resource for technical information on building products, materials, new technologies, business management, and housing systems.
Content updated on 10/29/2004