For most people who has ever gone shopping for a home outside of a major city the question of living in a mobile (aka manufactured) home, especially if you live in the country, rears its sometimes ugly head. For many people a manufactured home is a great idea, it costs less than a stick built home, and is ready to live in far more quickly. But some people look at a traditional manufactured home and shudder. They have a reputation for being hard to finance and insure, as well as a reputation for depreciating. Who wants to live in something that loses value like a car? Well, thanks to Clayton Homes, a large manufacturer of mobile homes, the manufactured home just became a whole lot more appealing, thanks to the Clayton Green I-Home.

The Clayton I-Home is the result of Clayton Home's president, Kevin Clayton, desire to go green. He gave his architects free reign, the only constraint was that the new green home had to be buildable in the company's existing factories. The result was the I-Home, a very modern, sleek and stylish manufactured home that looks nothing like a traditional mobile home. Some of the amenities include renewable bamboo hardwood throughout, tankless water heater, solar panels to augment the electricity, and energy efficient appliances. The insulation is also top quality and the paints used in the home are low-emission. In fact, Clayton homes claims that the home is so energy efficient that it can be run on a dollar's worth of electricity a day. I live in the county with the cheapest electricity in the country, and I still use five to ten times that much in a day!

The most basic model of the home consists of a 992 square foot, one bedroom "core", which can be added onto for an additional cost. This base model costs $100,000, and of course the land isn't included. For those who want to customize their home Clayton's website will allow users to design their own i-home and order it via the internet, and you can even visit the factory while it is being built.

 Alright, let's plug some numbers. At 992 square feet and $100,000 the Clayton I-Home averages out to approximately $100 per square foot. My local, more desperate builders have quoted as low as $75 for a traditional stick built home, which will take longer to build and probably be less green. But, on the other hand, a manufactured home is still a gamble with depreciation, no matter how nice or green. So, is an i-home really worth it?

Here's my take. I think the i-home is a great product and the right direction for manufactured housing to move. I actually really love the design and would be thrilled to live in one out in the middle of nowhere with some chickens and cows for company. But...the cost marks it as a "new fangled gadget". You know, like I-pods, or LCD tv's, because it is the newest technology it is pricey for its size and therefore relegated to the likes of uber-green treehuggers and techies. But I don't believe it will be this way forever! In the past five years solar paneling prices have plummeted, bamboo has become an ever more common flooring material, and tankless water heaters can be had for a few hundred bucks. My advice, be excited, but wait until the price, inevitably, drops.