Case Studies

These examples use the CLI house simulator with real scoring models. Each preset is a different construction profile at the same walkable Cooper-Young location in Midtown Memphis (lat 35.13, lon -89.99). The five construction-driven dimensions are modeled from each build; health, socioeconomic, and walkability are fetched live for the location (so they're identical across presets).

See the interactive nutrition label →. It shows the same construction profiles rendered as an interactive label across all thirteen dimensions.

Score Any US Address

Type any US address (or the name of a place or business, which resolves to its street address) to generate a live nutrition label for the real building at that location, auto-filled from public records (USACE structure inventory + Census) and scored across the same thirteen dimensions the CLI produces. Health, socioeconomic & walkability are scored against national reference distributions (comparable across locations); energy uses the local climate zone; seismic and flood are pulled for the exact point. Disaster Resilience is the combined expected loss from flood, tornado, earthquake, and fire. Expand Refine building details to correct any auto-filled value (year built, wall type, square footage, upgrades) and the label re-scores. To compare hypothetical construction profiles head-to-head, see the interactive label or the side-by-side table below.

Single-Family Comparison

The five construction profiles, scored side by side at the same Cooper-Young location by the live API (/presets), so this table always reflects the current scoring model. (The Key Metrics table and the specific figures cited elsewhere on this page are illustrative examples, and may differ slightly from the live values above as the model evolves.)

Loading live comparison…

Key Metrics (illustrative)

Metric	Worst Case	Baseline	Premium	FORTIFIED Gold	ICF Passive
Expected Annual Loss	$370/yr	$57/yr	$87/yr	$55/yr	$13/yr
Monthly Energy	$313	$140	$107	$112	$55
EUI (kBTU/sqft/yr)	63.0	28.3	21.5	22.6	11.1
Fiscal Ratio	0.13	0.27	0.75	0.58	0.83

Key insight: Construction choices lift the composite from C (42.9) for the worst-case build to A (81.6) for the ICF passive house, which posts an A on resilience, energy, and durability, plus a strong environmental score (78.5, B) once its long-lived concrete shell amortizes embodied carbon over a ~100-year service life rather than the ~60 years typical of stick-built. The three location dimensions are identical across presets (same parcel): strong health (87.6, A) and solid walkability (65.4, B) in Cooper-Young lift every build, while the modeled ICF passive home runs about $55/mo on energy (EUI 11.1) versus $140 for the baseline frame, roughly $30,000 less over a 30-year mortgage.

The Density Dividend: Multi-Unit Comparison

Metric	Baseline SFH 1 unit, 0.25 ac	Duplex 2 units, 0.15 ac	Quadplex 4 units, 0.20 ac	ICF Quadplex 4 units, 0.20 ac, loaded
Density (DU/acre)	4.0	13.3	20.0	20.0
Resilience	72.8 B	80.1 A	80.3 A	93.9 A
Infra Cost / Unit	$4,804	$3,314	$3,314	$3,314
Energy / Unit / Mo	$146	$63	$44	$6
Fiscal Ratio	0.27	0.36	0.30	0.36

The density dividend: going from a single-family home to a quadplex lowers the per-unit infrastructure cost (the same roads and water mains serve more homes), which lifts the fiscal ratio. Multi-unit energy is now scored off the measured NREL ResStock EUI for that building type rather than the detached curve, so the per-unit energy figures reflect the real intensity of that stock (small 2–4 unit buildings can even run higher per sqft than a detached home).

The table above is an illustrative snapshot; the live density tool is authoritative. Score any address in Score Any US Address above, then switch that label to “What-if denser” to compare 1–4 units on that exact lot, including fiscal productivity per acre (in Memphis a quadplex generates roughly 4.6× the total revenue per acre on the same land, and flips net fiscal productivity from negative to positive), or call the /density API endpoint directly.

Case Study: An ICF Passive-Standard Duplex vs. a Traditional Duplex

A hypothetical comparison of two duplexes on the same 0.12-acre lot in walkable Cooper-Young, Memphis (900 sqft per unit), built two different ways. First, an ICF duplex built to passive-house standard ($330K total value): insulated concrete forms, a passive-house-standard envelope, solar panels, hurricane straps, hip roof, and sealed roof deck.

Scoring the ICF duplex…

The owner-occupant math: $330K at 6.5% ≈ ~$2,087/mo PITI. Renting the second unit at $950/mo → an effective payment of ~$1,137/mo, less than renting a 1BR in the same neighborhood, while building equity in a tornado-resistant, near-zero-energy building whose modeled per-unit energy cost is shown on the label above.

The Traditional Frame Duplex, Same Lot

Now the same duplex on the same lot, but built with conventional wood-frame construction at $250K:

Scoring the frame duplex…

The ~$80K question: the ICF duplex costs about $80K more upfront ($330K vs. $250K), but the labels above put a number on what that buys. The ICF card's “cost over a mortgage” figure is its live 30-year operating + expected-loss savings vs. this frame duplex, on top of lower insurance premiums and dramatically lower disaster risk. All three location dimensions are identical (same lot). The entire difference is the build.

Location, Location, Location: The Walkability Dimension

Unlike construction-driven dimensions, walkability is purely a function of where a house sits. The same building (identical resilience, energy, and durability) earns a very different walkability grade depending on its neighborhood. Walkability comes from the EPA National Walkability Index (a national index of intersection density, transit proximity, and land-use mix), scaled to 0–100 and resolved by census tract.

Location	Downtown Memphis tract 47157004200	Exurban Shelby County car-dependent tract
EPA Walkability (0–100)	92.0 (highly walkable)	≈ 6 (car-dependent)
National Grade	A	F

Key insight: Shelby County spans nearly the whole national range, from car-dependent exurban tracts near the bottom to Downtown's older street grid at 92 (an A on the national scale). Because the EPA index is national, the grade is directly comparable across cities: the Downtown tract is genuinely walkable by national standards, not merely relative to its neighbors. Nationally, most US neighborhoods are car-dependent. The household-weighted national mean is ~45.