FAQ’s

What’s the price difference?
If you're shopping solely for upfront price difference, you may be disappointed. Entities with the ability to look 2-5 years beyond initial price will be pleasantly surprised. Not only will building operators and occupants see much lower operating costs in all environments, special benefits are realized in each environment.

Why do operating costs drop?
In high-threat environments operational security costs should drop significantly. With a reduction of maintenance traffic onto the camp, a smaller guard force can do the same job. Because of the high level of durability of every building, attacks by both the environment (dust storms, debris, sunlight, etc) and humans (small arms fire, terrorist action) won't do as much financial harm.

 

What’s the difference between a HIAC and a trailer?

Where a trailer will be completely ruined from a mortar explosion nearby, an Exup HIAC may only need a can of spray foam and a small paint job. Not only will building materials be protected, the occupants (much more important) will be kept much safer. It costs about 1 million dollars to bring a man from new recruit to seasoned special operations veteran.

 

What exactly does Exup protect?

In high-threat environments, the majority of a camp's occupants are going to be "high-dollar" human assets. With every company required to carry large (and costly) insurance policies, protecting human assets can be the best way to secure profits. Losing just one man can cost the company the equivalent of a million dollars; more than enough to pay the difference between building conventional and building the Exup way.

Seriously, what’s the price difference?
In post-disaster environments that see recurring weather patterns (like the hurricanes that hit the U.S. every year), not re-building every year can save millions of dollars. As an example, if just 20 of the homes (out of the thousands that were destroyed by wind damage in Katrina) were Exup HIACs and did not have to be re-built, it would have saved homeowners, the U.S. government, and insurance companies (at $90/sq ft, average home 1,600 square feet) $2.8 million dollars.

 

Even if a storm like Katrina hits every 20 years and destroys homes, it is still more cost-effective to build with Exup HIACs.

 

Why build with Exup?

Exup combines years of building, engineer, design, and general mud-rut bar fighting experience to bring your idea to fruition. We're a group of ex-Navy SEALs, engineers, and general contractors that have worked throughout the world on various projects, and can apply our hands-on experience anywhere on the planet.

 

We work closely with the largest ICF building company in Southern California, as well as experienced engineers and draftsmen. All have been involved in green building in some way.

 

We are not a huge corporate entity, and we don’t have a complicated phone-answering system; you can always talk to a human when you call Exup.

 

How many baby whales will an Exup building save?

We haven’t done any baby whale calcs, but the average residential home we can build does not use CFCs, formaldehyde, or other poisonous chemicals and is safe enough for your child (or employee) to lick the walls without getting sick. Exup buildings cut water use by about 50%, and are healthier inside than most suburban areas are outside.

 

Commercial buildings are so varied that it’s tough to throw out numbers that don’t sound either outlandish or too small to think about, but production has been measured to increase by 15% in green buildings vs. conventional buildings. It doesn’t have anything to do with baby whales, but usually office managers and accountants love production more than they do baby whales.

 

How much maintenance does an Exup building need?

We realize that while we like to pick up hammers and pickaxes and swing them around, physical labor is not most people’s idea of a good time, and is the last thing you want to do after coming in from a PSD run. Maintenance on an Exup building is the same or less than a conventional one.

 

You’ve got to change air and water filters, you should clean your solar panels once a year, about the same time you clean your gutters is OK. You should close the curtains at night and shut the door when you go through it.

 

You’ll probably spend a lot of time sitting around and staring at the inside of the building, wondering how we built it so well, so if saving time is your only reason for building an Exup house, go back to our home page and start over.

Does it look different?

Unless you’re looking at the roof from the roof, nope. Well, if you want it to we can. We can show off your new solar panels so the guys next door go all green, and not from environmentalism. Our guys have built everything from funky artists studios with no straight lines to modern buildings that are all edges and corners.

How does it affect the building value?

Green buildings are usually worth more than conventional buildings. Not only do Exup designs increase value compared to nearby conventional buildings, utility bills are lower, and environmental impact is considerably lessened.

 

With clients who want the lightest footprint possible, Exup can help create a net-positive building, returning cleaner air and water to the surrounding area than exist outside, and producing more energy than the home uses to feed back into the grid as natural, renewable energy.

I thought concrete was bad for the planet?

Yes, it is. We decided that although other building materials are more earth-friendly, A: concrete lasts such a long time that its life-cycle environmental costs are good enough to consider it “green”, and B: concrete is easy for us to work with, quote numbers on, and generally make a profit on.

 

We are happy to help with design considerations on other building materials, such as cob, adobe, rammed earth, and straw bale.

 

What’s this high-threat/hostile environment gig all about?

The original Exup ideas was formed under the (dusty) night sky on a camp just outside of Baghdad. After watching fuel trucks, water trucks, food trucks and septic trucks drive through the main gate all day, we thought, “There must be a better way.”

 

Our directors have been involved in green building for years, and they finally put their passion for green building together with their work experience as security experts and formed Exup to address next generation building. High threat environments include Iraq and Afghanistan, and hostile environments are usually nature related--weather stations in Siberia or on Antarctica are candidates for Exup buildings.

 

Because of the high level of uncertainty in both HT/HE environments and in post-disaster areas, Exup made the natural cross-over to service both sectors.

 

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For hundreds of helpful facts and figures regarding green building, energy, and the economy, check out our GREEN FACTS page.