Building Homes with Products Made in the USA

 

MILLS RIVER, N.C. – Made in the USA Day on July 2nd serves as the ideal time to focus on the benefits of constructing homes with Made in America products.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, there are 12.3 million manufacturing workers in the United States. And, American manufacturers contributed $2.18 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2016.* Many of those companies and workers are making everything needed to construct a home: windows, roofing, siding and garage doors.

“Purchasing Made-in-America products for home construction means builders and homeowners are getting top-quality items that arrive faster than most products manufactured overseas,” says Randy Miller, vice president of sales at Nu-WoodTM, a polyurethane manufacturer based in Indiana. “Selecting American-made products supports our economy, keeps Americans working and provides reliable products for the home.”

American Built: From the Ground Up

Starting construction of a new home with a precast concrete foundation system can mean gaining energy-efficiency in the home and a fast start on building a house. At 10 Superior Walls locations across the United States custom foundations are created and shipped to job sites. Cranes install the massive concrete panels in just a day, so builders can start framing the house the very next day.

Once the foundation is set, engineered wood products, lumber and oriented strand board, can be used to create sturdy walls, roofs and floor systems for the home. Weyerhaeuser, based in Seattle, Wash., operates dozens of mill facilities across America, using harvested trees from more than seven million acres of sustainably grown trees on their own U.S. timberlands. The fiber from these trees goes into manufacturing essential building materials that provide the “bones” for the house structure.

When looking to enhance a home with decorative millwork, many builders, remodelers and homeowners turn to easy-to-maintain polyurethane products like those from Nu-Wood. The company makes 600 standard pieces at their Syracuse, Indiana manufacturing facility. The moisture- and impact-resistant pieces can be used on both the interior and exterior of the home. Because they’re made in the USA, pieces generally ship in less than two weeks, compared to a wait of several weeks to a few months for competitors’ products made overseas.

“Our American work force creates about 52,000 pieces each year,” says Miller. “In addition to our traditional products we also create custom and specialty pieces, plus we have a Classic Color Program where we can pre-paint the pieces in more than 9,000 colors before shipping.”

Colorful options are also available from DaVinci Roofscapes®, manufacturers of synthetic slate and shake roofing tiles in Kansas. The Made-in-America roofing products come in 49 colors plus a variety of color blends. Each roofing tile resists impact, high winds, insects, fungus, algae, mold, cracking, fading and curling.

“We’re extremely proud that all of our products are made in the United States and that we support our economy by providing jobs for hard working folks around the country,” says Ray Rosewall, president and CEO of DaVinci Roofscapes. “We’re part of the multiplier effect because our ‘Made-in-America’ commitment also means we purchase from suppliers located only in the United States. So, with every roofing tile we sell we’re helping our economy to expand in many, many ways.”

Garage doors manufactured by Haas Door are another exterior home product that’s Made in the USA. The family-owned company manufactures premium steel and aluminum garage doors at its Wauseon, Ohio facility. The company recently added new wood grain finish options of American Walnut and English Oak to their popular selection of American Tradition SeriesTM garage doors. A new Door Finder® program easily provides door installers and homeowners with technical information regarding any Haas Door.

Inside the house, consumers can rely on Mansfield Plumbing for Made-in-America toilets, sinks and tubs. For almost 90 years, Mansfield’s production of sanitaryware and bathware products in the United States means the products have a lower carbon footprint versus other similar products made and shipped from China or other locations.

“We’re proud of our dedication to maintaining our ‘Made in the USA’ manufacturing efforts,” says Jim Morando, president of Mansfield Plumbing. “We support the American worker by keeping more than 600 people across the country employed producing our first-class plumbing products in Ohio and Texas. We’re also providing support to the local communities where we have facilities, so there’s a positive ‘ripple effect’ of our commitment that benefits our country’s overall economy.”

In a unique move that bucked the growing trend of companies importing their products from China, when Hy-Lite was acquired it moved all the company’s vinyl extrusion purchases and acrylic block manufacturing out of China in late 2009 and back into the United States.

“We are successfully purchasing all our vinyl extrusions from extruders in the U.S. and we’re manufacturing our Hy-Lite acrylic blocks at our own company facility in Florida,” says Roger Murphy, president of Hy-Lite, a U.S. Block Windows Company. “That’s where we create our acrylic block windows, partitions and walls.

“The trickle-down effect of our decision back in 2009 has been beneficial to several companies in America and to many people,” says Murphy. “Every job counts. We feel exceptionally proud that we can say all our acrylic block and extrusions are Made-in-America.”

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