When Sears Sold Houses

This is a history piece, not a rebate or upgrade alert, but it may interest anyone who owns an older home. In the early 1900s, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold entire houses by mail through its catalog. Customers picked a design, ordered the kit, and had all the materials, including lumber, nails, and paint, shipped to their property with instructions for assembly. Sears wasn't the only company doing this, but it became the name most associated with the kit-home movement, selling tens of thousands of houses over about three decades. Many of these homes are still standing today.

The program grew out of Sears' existing catalog business, which by some estimates reached a fifth of American households at the time. When a manager was told to close down an unprofitable building-materials division in 1906, he pitched turning the leftover stock into a new product line instead, called the Modern Homes program. It launched in 1908 with 22 house designs.

If you live in an older home, especially one built in the first few decades of the 1900s, there's a chance it started as one of these kit houses. Knowing that history doesn't change what your house needs today for insulation, air sealing, or heating and cooling upgrades, but it can be a fun bit of context when you're researching your home's age and original construction before planning any energy improvements.