Parrish is production director for the Ambiente brand of manufactured housing. Ambiente is a division of Abersham Commercial Services LLC, based in the Town of Brookfield, Wis.
A key ingredient of Ambiente's houses is waste glass.
In a process that was developed and eventually brought to market by Parrish and his father, Malcolm, waste glass is transformed into a very fine powder similar to sand. It is then combined with a resin to form reinforced wall sections that are resistant to fire, water and mold.
They are also engineered to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.
"It's absolutely the best material to make a house from," Simon Parrish said.
The process is also environmentally friendly. "Each house has 13 tons of waste glass in it," he said.
There is no wood or metal in the house. Channels for plumbing and electrical wiring are built into the panels.
Once manufactured, houses are shipped out as kits to be assembled at a construction site.
Fine-tuning the manufacturing process has brought the price of the product in line with traditional housing construction, Parrish said.
The company is selling into a $5.3 billion market, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute, a Virginia-based trade association.
Each of the Ambiente houses is reinforced with 5/8-inch flexible rods. "Weight for weight, their tensile strength is stronger than steel," Parrish said.
Those rods _ a skeleton of sorts _ help make the buildings resistant to the weather.
Parrish said he is seeking to attract the interest of the U.S. military, where housing that is resistant to small-arms fire is needed.
"We can really go anywhere in terms of what our customers need," he said.
The company this week has been holding an open house, inviting customers and potential customers to its factory to take a look at its work.
Among the product's features is resistance to hurricanes, Parrish said.
"Hurricane-resistance is all about keeping the roof attached to the house," he said. The flexible glass rods that run the length and width of the house help keep the roofs attached, Parrish said.
Those rods also flex and sway, giving them earthquake-resistant properties, he added.
Finding investors to fund the process of developing and bringing the product to market has been the biggest challenge, Parrish said.
The company produced its first house 15 years ago. Since then, Parrish has set about fine-tuning the manufacturing process.
Machinery and automation helped bring the manufacturing costs down, and the product is ready for a large market.
"It's just naturally evolved to where it is today," Parrish said.
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