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The U.S. House just voted to cancel efficiency standards for new manufactured homes — a move that could hit especially hard in the Southeast, where such housing is common and energy insecurity is high.
The measure would rescind 2022 criteria for insulation, air sealing, and other energy-saving features in prefabricated, or mobile, homes, restoring weaker standards more than 30 years old. The legislation comes as utility bills are rising fast nationwide — and if it is passed by the Senate and signed into law, it could cost households in double-wide houses hundreds more per year in increased electricity costs.
“The very first energy bill that the House of Representatives passed this year would increase energy costs on some of the households and families in the United States that are most struggling to make ends meet,” said Mark Kresowik, senior policy director with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “This will have more harmful impacts in the Southeast than anywhere else in the country.”
Of the 4.7 million prefab homes delivered nationwide in recent decades, more than half are in just 10 southern states. Texas leads the country, with nearly 600,000 units, and North Carolina is second, with over 330,000, according to the U.S. Census.
Manufactured homes are exempt from state and local energy codes, and older models are notoriously energy inefficient, with thin insulation, drafty windows and doors, and often outdated modes of heating and cooling. Those who live in manufactured homes also tend to have less income than those in site-built varieties, making these needlessly high energy costs even harder to handle.
“Utility costs can be in the several hundred dollars for folks in a manufactured house,” said Claire Williamson, senior energy policy advocate at the North Carolina Justice Center, which advocates for low-income families. She added that “$300, $400, even $500 a month in peak costs is not trivial.”
The prefabricated homes exacerbate energy insecurity in the Southeast, which is the most energy-burdened region in the country: One in three households in the region struggles to pay their utility bills, according to the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last updated standards for manufactured homes in 1994. In 2007, a bipartisan law directed the Department of Energy to issue more protective rules. In 2022, the Biden administration finally did so, but the new criteria were paused last summer by the Trump administration.
The Manufactured Housing Institute, the trade group for prefabricated home builders, has long fought against the stricter standards, which it argues are too costly, confusing, and bureaucratic.
The bipartisan bill that passed the House last week largely gives the builders what they want, restoring the 1994 standards and preventing the Department of Energy from ever issuing stronger rules.
The 2022 rules were expected to cost an average of $4,222 per double-wide home up front but pay for themselves in the form of lower energy bills in less than five years. For single-wide units, the additional up-front costs were pegged at $660, which households would recoup within one year.
“This is so clearly about the homebuilder special interests,” Williamson said, “and has nothing to do with ensuring better, more affordable housing for people.”
About half of all factory-made homes are already built to efficiency standards that are much stricter than those rescinded by the House, said Grant Beck, vice president of strategic partnerships at Next Step Network, a Kentucky-based nonprofit that supports ownership of prefab homes.
This fact shows that better-built manufactured homes can benefit the industry and consumers alike, say affordability advocates, far better than the bill that’s now before the Senate.
“We understand that we’re in an affordability crisis, particularly with relation to housing and first-time home buyers trying to enter the market,” Beck said. “However, the lower purchase price on a home for a family is eroded if they’re unable to make monthly payments due to high and rising energy costs.”
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