Since the 6th grade, Jeremy Clarke of Simple Life Homes has been an eco-warrior. The former elementary school Green Warrior Recycling Warden translated his passion for waste diversion and repurposing into a career. In 2017, Jeremy launched Simple Life Homes, manufacturing prefabricated, environmentally healthy, high-performance, low-carbon homes in Brighton, Ontario.
What Is a Prefab Home?
In the construction industry, a prefab home is a home manufactured off-site, shipped to the construction site, and assembled there. There are two ways to get yourself into a Simple Life Homes prefab house:
- Housing developers use Simple Life Homes prefab components, saving them the cost of designing the builds first. Simple Life Homes provides the designs and prefab components to the builder affiliate. If the affiliate wants something unique designed by an outside architect, Simple Life Homes can fabricate those panels as well. Simple Life Homes ships to the site, and the developer builds the residential structure.
- Home buyers choose from a catalogue of Simple Life Home designs and the Simple Life Home Construction team builds their home for them using the components designed and manufactured in the Simple Life facilities.
Regardless of the path you take to live in a Simple Life Homes build, every component of that home is designed and manufactured at the facility in Brighton in the Bay of Quinte.
As well as working one-on-one with environmentally conscious home buyers within a 2-hour radius of Brighton and developers across the province, Simple Life Homes also had the opportunity to work with Toronto Community Housing to provide new panels to go on the outside of brick buildings. This overcladding allowed residents to stay in place during building upgrades. The work provided Toronto Community Housing with their first low-carbon prefab retrofit.
Local economic development organizations and housing corporations have also toured the Simple Life Homes facilities, seeing the value in local, environmentally friendly building options.
Prefab Creates Good Homes and Great Jobs
With 11 employees, Clarke says that one of the benefits of an off-site construction model is the ability for construction and trade workers to do their jobs indoors, protecting them from the elements — a luxury in the construction industry. This also means that the materials are protected from weather damage.
Their new facility in Brighton has experienced its own repurposing as well. The showroom recently opened after a massive renovation that utilized some of Simple Life Homes’ own components.
When asked why he chose the Bay of Quinte to run his business, Clarke said, “It’s close to home and where we want to live. We love it here.” The Brighton Industrial Park gives them everything they need, and their proximity to the Highway 401 means that every product they produce hits that highway and is easily sent to wherever it needs to go.
Between good construction jobs in safe, reliable environments and eco-friendly homes that save costs for the consumer and builder, “we are the standard of what we should be doing with building,” says Clarke. “We sell housing for humans; it’s intimate, important, and it can’t be itemized.”
Learn more about Simple Life Homes and how QEDC supports manufacturing in the Bay of Quinte.
