RSG 3-D's non-combustible panel system offers a financially competitive alternative to conventional construction that delivers wildfire, earthquake, and hurricane resilience.
The federal government's retreat from climate adaptation has created a gap in data, funding, and coordination, but a new decentralized ecosystem of nonprofits, state governments, and coalitions is stepping up to fill the void and may prove more resilient to political disruption in the long run.
As federal disaster support shrinks, resilience districts offer local governments a promising new financing tool to fund climate adaptation on their own terms.
RSG 3-D's non-combustible panel system offers a financially competitive alternative to conventional construction that delivers wildfire, earthquake, and hurricane resilience.
When the Valley Fire swept through Northern California in 2015 and destroyed nearly 1,900 structures, one building didn't burn. It was built with RSG 3-D panels: a composite system of steel, insulation, and concrete that has been around since 1990 but is only now starting to gain large-scale adoption as California residents and developers seek a resilient building solution.
The Epicenter interviewed Ken Calligar, CEO of RSG 3-D, about the system's growing adoption and what it means for homeowners, builders, and insurers navigating California's wildfire crisis.
Calligar, who acquired RSG 3-D in 2018, has a blunt thesis: "The first principle of any building and development has to be resilience, because without that, nothing else occurs. If we build a LEED building or a beautiful energy-efficient home and it burns down the next day, what have we accomplished? Nothing."
The Building Envelope is the Foundation for Multi-Hazard Resilience
“For us, the building envelope is everything,” says Calligar. Each RSG 3-D panel has a core of expanded polystyrene insulation sandwiched between two faces of steel mesh, connected with a proprietary steel truss, and then covered on both sides with 1.25 inches of structural concrete. The company says the system has never suffered damage from wildfire, earthquake, or hurricane in over 30 years of deployments. The panels were tested to a 9.4 Richter equivalent at UC Irvine without producing a cosmetic crack.
Calligar says that the home building envelope typically surpasses California's Title 24 energy code by 25%-30%. The combination of disaster resilience, energy efficiency, healthfulness, and affordability offers a comprehensive building solution. One customer observed, “Your thing really does a lot of things.” Calligar simply says that the company is building for “what’s next.”
The Economics of Resilient Construction Have Shifted in Favor of Premium, Efficient Materials
The upfront cost premium that once made RSG 3-D a hard sell has largely disappeared. “Twenty, thirty years ago when the system was invented, it was very much a premium cost,” says Calligar. Now, "for a quality home, we are generally at the same initial cost, or maybe a 3%-5% premium. But RSG 3-D will be the most affordable home to own.”
The materials are more expensive, but they often cost less to install. In a typical build, RSG 3-D panels require two materials to install and three trade specialties, compared to the dozen materials and six trade specialties common in high-performance wood-frame construction. “They'll have five inspections, we'll have one,” says Calligar.
Meanwhile, he says, “our homes are generally appraising 10%-15% higher than the wood-frame house next door.” On a $2 million Palisades rebuild, a $60,000 RSG 3-D premium can translate to $200,000-$300,000 in immediate equity based on the increased home value.
Over a few decades, the lifecycle savings compound further. According to Calligar, RSG 3-D has negotiated with insurers to offer approximately 50% reductions on fire and seismic premiums for RSG 3-D structures. "These insurance companies want to be in the business of insuring people," he says. "They don't want to run from these markets. But they've got to have a viable way to do business, and they recognize that RSG 3-D has a very low-risk product."
RSG 3-D Is Building 80 Homes in LA
RSG 3-D currently has about 60 homes in process in Pacific Palisades and roughly 20 in Altadena. Calligar shared that clients rebuilding in California have boiled their questions down to three: How much, how fast, and can I get insurance? "Not how much is the insurance costing, just ‘Can I get it?’"
Calligar is thinking about those homes collectively. A cluster of non-combustible structures changes the entire neighborhood’s fire dynamics. "In a fire event, a house is nothing but a fuel depot," he says. Harden enough of them, and you interrupt the chain of combustion that turns a wildfire into an urban disaster. In the process, you also make the neighborhood more insurable. Insurance companies that retreated from California are beginning to see a return path, but the terms of re-entry increasingly favor fire-resilient structures they can actually underwrite.
The transition won't happen overnight, Calligar acknowledges. “In the U.S. about 1% of single-family homes turn over every year, so theoretically, if we built everything going forward with RSG 3-D, we'd be out of this risky mess in 100 years,” he says. “That's why some of these natural disaster rebuilds are a great opportunity for us to help a lot of people. The LA fires have been a great tragedy, but we can assure our future with purpose-designed building solutions.”
Read more about insurance on The Epicenter here.
Read more about resilient public infrastructure and government solutions on The Epicenter here.
Read more about resilient real estate on The Epicenter here.
Read more about private investment on The Epicenter here.
7%
Market research estimates that the global satellite-based Earth observation industry is expected to grow 7% per year through the end of the decade.
Source: The Business Research Company
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The Epicenter helps decision makers understand climate risks and discover viable resilience solutions. The Epicenter is an affiliated publication of The Resiliency Company, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and empowering humanity to adapt to the accelerating challenges of the next 100+ years.
The federal government's retreat from climate adaptation has created a gap in data, funding, and coordination, but a new decentralized ecosystem of nonprofits, state governments, and coalitions is stepping up to fill the void and may prove more resilient to political disruption in the long run.
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