First documented 'All-American' home being built in Montana

A Bozeman, Mont., contractor is building the first documented all-American home, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

At about 2,000 square feet and an estimated final cost of $400,000, the all-American home is a little house that represents a big idea: every piece of it is predominantly American. Even its plastic sewer caps and underground copper connectors, said Anders Lewendal, the contractor.

He puts particular emphasis on the term “predominant,” because some things – like the computer chips that might regulate an American-made furnace – could have been made in a foreign country.

Lewendal after reading about 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which aimed to lift the U.S. economy out of despair. The act required least 51 percent of a product’s components to be made domestically for it to be considered “made in America.”

He studied reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and concluded that if every contractor in America increased their use of domestically made products by 5 percent, the country’s economy could grow by more than 100,000 jobs.

Lewendal also calculated that if families followed suit and bought 5 percent more domestic products for use in their daily life, the recession could be over.

For more information: www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/environment/article_b6f5b70e-bfbe-11e0-89f1-001cc4c002e0.html