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Plastic panel house makes debut in Charleston
Company looking at Charleston for panel manufacturing plant
By Holly Fisher
Supplements Editor
When hurricanes, earthquakes or other disasters leave hundreds of people homeless, a perfect solution would be a durable house that comes in a readymade kit and can be put together in a couple of days.
That’s exactly what The Octogon Group LLC has created. Using a high strength composite panel, the North Carolina-based company’s goal is to meet this housing need.
The panels consist of a piece of insulated foam sandwiched between two pieces of sturdy plastic. The design concept isn’t new. Other companies, including some locally, have created panels made with foam inside concrete or oriented strand board, but The Octogon Group is the first to use these plastic panels.
The panels are lightweight, termite resistant, water and mold resistant and can withstand fires, natural disasters and winds up to 130 mph. The panels are put together using industrial glue. The outside of the house can be covered in vinyl siding and the inside walls painted or wallpapered, but drywall isn’t needed.
The demonstration
The company built a two-bedroom prototype house in the parking lot of the USS Yorktown during the week of Nov. 28. The demonstration was part of the Homeland Security Innovation Conference sponsored by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s ThinkTEC initiative.
Part of the conference focused on disaster preparation and crisis management—situations ideal for the use of the Octogon Building Systems.
In about two days, crews built a house complete with porch, siding and windows to show conference attendees how the building system works. It is the first prototype Octogon has built.
Although The Octogon Group has an address outside Charlotte, the company’s six employees are scattered around the country. Their immediate plan is to build a manufacturing facility, and the Lowcountry is on the short list of desired locations.
David E. Johnston, Octogon’s board chairman and an attorney in Charlotte, said the Charleston coast, with its military presence, air service and port, is an ideal location for the company. Johnston said the company has been looking at Charleston, North Charleston and Mount Pleasant. To cinch the deal, the company needs other businesses or individuals with which to partner.
In an interview two days before the Homeland Security Innovation Conference, Johnston said he had heard from some interested parties locally and hoped the conference would spur more interest in the panels, either from potential collaborators or from those looking to purchase the panels.
“We have to make a decision pretty quickly,” he said of the company’s impending move.
Many people just need to see the panels before they can buy into the concept, Johnston explained. “Once it’s finished, you wouldn’t know it was made of plastic.”
The history
This composite panel has been five years in the making, and The Octogon Group officially formed in 2003. For years, founder Don Stanley wanted to produce low-cost housing. CEO Jack Moellendick and his son, both plastics engineers, worked with Stanley on his project.
They tried several different processes before getting the combination of products—fiberglass reinforced polymers—just right. The final refinement of the product came in the past 60 days, Johnston said.
The six initial employees have invested their own money into the company; they have received no outside investments. But to continue their work and build a production machine, additional investors or orders for the panels are needed.
The solution
The panels aren’t just for two-bedroom homes, Moellendick pointed out. They can be used to construct buildings up to 23,000 square feet, including commercial facilities, churches or upscale housing.
The panels have been thoroughly tested at the National Research Center in Montreal, Canada, where the company also has temporarily located its prototype building systems machine, Moellendick said.
Moellendick sees no disadvantages to using these panels. One of the pluses is that the panels can be produced continually. And because they don’t use wood, concrete or steel, they aren’t subject to shortages or price increases, he said.
The houses are comparable in cost to stick-built homes, Moellendick noted.
“We could produce a house at equal to or lower than the cost of traditional housing,” he said.
These types of panels look to be the future of construction, both for residential and commercial building, as well as a solution to affordable housing and in times of crisis.
Octogon’s plastic panels, and some other forms of insulated panels, can be made into kits, packed onto shipping containers and sent around the world to help alleviate poverty housing or for disaster relief situations.
In the case of earthquakes in remote areas of the world, such as in Pakistan, these housing kits could be dropped from airplanes and easily constructed by the people on the ground, Johnson said.
“This is long-term, real housing,” Johnston said. “This is not an alternative to trailers. It’s not emergency housing; it’s long-term, sustainable housing used in emergencies.”
For more information, visit www.octogongroup.com.
Holly Fisher is the supplements editor for the Business Journal. E-mail her at hfisher@charlestonbusiness.com.
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