Slashdot Mirror
Pre-Fab Homes?
itwerx asks: "I am considering purchasing a pre-fabricated home to put on an empty lot in an urban area. I have researched hither and yon and Googled to my heart's content and found great gobs of information online. The question here is what the SlashDot community's own experience has been with this type of technology? Anybody purchase a pre-fab home recently? What was your experience like?"
It might say: "Termites Not Included."
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Just remember, no matter HOW drunk you get, your cousin is NOT a viable hook-up...
Going to hell, I know...
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
It's big colonial that came in 5 pieces... and it is absolutely magnificent.
If you go with a good builder, you're gonna get a house as good or better than a conventional home for less money.
It tends to be easier to find a good prefab builder than a reliable contractor, depending on where you live.
Just one tip: If you are building a house in the country or suburbs where there is no city sewer, MAKE SURE that you perform a perk test BEFORE purchasing the land. If the soil is clay or too rocky, you could spend as much as 50-75k putting in a septic system!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I work in construction, we've worked on a few modular homes and from what i've seen you can find some well build ones.
We did some repair work on one last winter, a tree had fell on the house and it was barely damaged.
This particular house was build WAY above code, it was very empressive. I wish i knew who manufactured it, i would have recommended them highly.
If you get a fibro&tin house then it sucks - I lived in one for 10 years.
If you buy one with non-tin roof and sound-proof walls (that you can put a hook into without it falling out) then itd be OK IMHO - Ive seen some like this on the TV.
Pixels keep you awake!
It is people like you that get the highways clogged with oversized load trailers!
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Is that like a double wide?
Yea there's plenty of prefab homes around. Someofthem are 4billion years old i heer.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
From a process engineering (geek) point of view you can't beat a prefab house built in a factory. There is much better control of the process and allocation of workers. For example if the frameing is finished early the electricians can start early. It is also easier to train a framer/drywaller/painter (which the trade unions hate) who can be quickly moved around as needed. If a house is running late it is possible to work 24hrs instead of only durring dayling. The quality control is also going to be better as a knowledgeble foreman can supervise many homes at once. Also the house designer or someone with similar training is probably onsite and can be called upon to decipher the drawings.
Anecdotal evidence shows that locally prefab houses are of much better quality then regular built homes. The better process builds a better home. By "anectdotal evidence" I mean the 2 prefab houses I know of had no serious problems. Whereas 7 other new home owners have had significant issues from cracks in the wall, to no insulation in the atic/roof, to improperly installed hardwood floors. It is possible that the local home builders are simply incompetent.
And get your spiel ready for when the 11 o'clock news is there asking what it sounded like.
pre-fabs are cheaper than a 'properly' built home but offer a way for someone with a limited budget to have something of their own.
I purchased one back in may (2003) and over all have been very happy with it. All of the problems that I have had have been from installation of the home and not construction of it in the factory.
Its solid, roomie and costs as much as renting an apartment but without the landlord hassels.
I'm sorry, a prefab home may be cheaper, but you cannot put a price on work done by true craftsmen. There's nothing like a nice house with done by hand trim and bricks that have each been touched by someone's hands. Of course, if you don't know any real craftsmen and cannot do it yourself, then a prefab is probably a safer bet. A factory built house that's true is better than a hand built one thats crooked.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I've had exactly these questions. Fortunately my wife's father spent 20+ years building houses, and firmly believed that building a house to last a century saves money in the long run. Since he's gotten older, he's worked as a building inspector for the local city, and a couple of others.
When we get together, he tells me stories of stupid dishonest contractors. (I ask for them so I know what to look out for). Apparently, it's pretty common for the cities not to have enough inspectors, especially in fast growing areas. It's also common for inspectors to let the contractors know in advance what will be looked at closely and what wont. Large tracts of homes are especially vulnerable to inspection oversight. For dishonest contractors, it's cheaper to fix what an overworked inspector catches than to build the entire thing to code. Especially if you know the inspector, and know what he looks for and what he ignores.
He very much likes pre-fab houses for quite a few reasons (detailed below). He's also a big fan of steel framed houses, since they're strong and easy to put up. And don't burn. Wires are also very easy to fish through them. They also have extremely strong points under the supporting I beams, good for hanging unlikely things like water beds.
Pre fab vs onsite:
Pre Fabricated houses are built in a heated factory by workers with all tools and materials close at hand. Building supplies are instantly available, and are replaced as needed.
On-site building requires timing of delivery of supplies. Lumber brought in advance is subject to waiting in the rain, theft, vandalism, and bugs in the dirt. Tools are brought to the site, and if one breaks, gets lost, borrowed or needed elsewhere, an inferior tool will probably get drafted for the job. Supplies are bought in quantities just enough for the job, and if an accident or shortage happens, they're will probably be a "stretching" of supplies to make it through the job. Or it's running over budget and cheap stuff is substituted.
Pre-Fab: The compressed air is high pressure and lots of volume, meaning that the tools all work properly. The factory is well lit and problems, if arising, can be corrected immediately.
On Site: The compressors are small enough to carry around. They don't have the same power (they work, but can't handle the same duty cycle)
Pre Fab: completely engineered, and any problems have been long since solved, and properly corrected. It's on an assembly line.
On Site: often designed one at a time, for each plot of land, so each one is different. Sometimes boneheaded mistakes are made in the design, but not caught till later. The fixes are ugly, but hidden (suprises later!). Once the house is built the contractor is gone, and he didn't do the work anyway, he subcontracted it to guys who are operating on a shoestring,cutting corners everywhere possible.
Contractor: Get the job done for the least amount of cash acceptable. Do a good job where the building inspector is looking, unless it's a subdivision. Then there's no time for inspections and horrible things happen, like stealing the rebar out of the cement forms before the pouring. Unbelivably stupid, but it happened.
The mentality of the factory owners is like Avis rent-a-car "We're #2 so we try harder". Everybody equates them mentally with ramshackle mobile homes, so they have to be nearly perfect to even try to compete. Oh, and since the "mobile home" rep is still dogging them, they have to compete on price, and the house is a continuing "model home" because all the owners friends are going to ask about it.
Any materials for building on upper floors have to be lugged up stairs^h^h^h^h^h^h ladders (ever try to climb a ladder with both hands full?). Every extra bit of adhesive/lumber/brick/drywall mud/nail used is one more that has to be lugged up. Was it even delivered in the first place? If they run out of something, they'll substitute with something else to get the job done.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
No matter how good the quality is or how much better it is than a "normal" house, the resale value is going to be shit on a pre-fab as compared to a conventional.
For many folks their house is the best investment they'll every make. Your situation might be different. It's just something to think about.
Surely the geeky thing to do is casemod an existing home. What you could do is add a window, and put some lights on the inside, so making the internals visi... I'll get my coat.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The build quality was uniformly excellent - everything was both square and true to the plans. The bottom line? "Manufactured" homes aren't just for trailer parks anymore. Having worked on both prefab and stick-frame construction, I can say with confidence that prefab materials can be easier to work with and save a good deal of money. While they may not be perfect for every application, I strongly suggest that you check out what prefab options are available to you.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Don't forget to take the wheels off. Trust me, you do NOT want your house being repossessed.
Seriously, I know a few people with prefabs (off site construction, or some other PC phrase exists) and they seem okay. Watching the home shows, it seems they can do amazing things these days. While you can't get a true 'custom' home (also unlikely as most contractors only want to build from one set of cookie cutter prints) there is enough variability in modules that if you find a large manufacturer, you're unlikely not to be satisfied.
There, think that second paragraph might be serious enough to avoid a downmod as a 'troll' for what is really a 'funny', 'insightful', and 'intelligent' joke in the first.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Check with the manufacturer, ask for details on how it's constructed. They've been required since the mid-80s to build them to at least HUD code and since they're generally shipped down the road in pieces, each piece is usually sturdier than many "stick-built" homes (in order to survive the trip).
:D Also, prices vary from dealer to dealer (even with the same manufacturer), so you may be able to drive an extra hour or two and save yourself a few thousand bucks.
Even with these requirements, there's still a _very_ wide range of construction quality, both exterior and interior. Shop around, walk through a few lots physically. Beware, we work on commission. Don't seem too interested or you may find yourself sitting at a table with a pen
As for the houses themselves, there are several different types (manufactured, modular, etc.) each with their own features and price ranges. I sell manufactured homes. They have their own shipping frame built into the bottom of the house. The structural benefits make construction less expensive for the manufacturer, but as a result they're built less like a stick-built home than a modular is (where rooms are preconstructed, minus foundation, and shipped to the site). Also, much of the construction contains OSB (oriented strand board) which can cause problems for severe asthmatics due to possible low-level formaldehyde release from the bonding adhesives. Most modern homes actually use this material in one place or another, it's just more prevalent in a manufactured home. If you're worried, look for adequate ventilation in the construction. As a side note, I've worked 8 hours a day (sometimes more), 5 days a week in one (for an office) for a few years and feel fine.
I actually got into the business when my wife and I moved and were looking for a new home. We considered a manufactured home, but eventually settled for stick-built. Here's why: the house was already built, all we had to do was pay a price. With paperwork, site-work and build-time, a manufactured home can go up in as short as 2 months. This is _extremely_ fast in comparison to constructing a stick-built home, plus you have a considerable amount of 'customization' available (at roughly half the cost per square foot). However, it _is_ a construction site and will probably end up being a construction loan. Be prepared for it to take time and you'll need to be in constant contact with your salesman and bank.
As for the prior poster who wrote: "If the soil is clay or too rocky, you could spend as much as 50-75k putting in a septic system!", I can honestly say I've _never_ seen a system cost that much. Maybe it's just where we live, but high end systems here run just under $20k, while the average is $12k. You will need to be sure of: Electrical access, septic rated for the house you order, site-work for the foundation, garage (?), access for getting the pieces of house on-site, etc. There are a lot of costs that aren't included in the house, _make sure you get it all up front before you sign_.
All said and done, manufactured homes are a great way to go for a semi-customizable home at about half the cost of building your own. You'll probably be limited to a single floor (2 story homes are still a rarity, but they exist), but we've got some that are in excess of 2700 sqft. I really like the product and may end up living in one at some point in the future. Good luck in your research.
If you don't want a colonial, or other "traditional" home you should check out
FabPrefab, a web resource dedicated to tracking developments in the realm of 'modernist prefab dwellings'.
Also check out Dwell Magazine and the Dwell Home which is a showcase project for the magazine and is prefab.
The Loftcube is a cool Prefab Penthouse ( delivered by helicopter ! ), but whether you could get one shipped from Germany is something else.
Damned kids these days! Doesn't any one say "thither" anymore? ;)
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
Tax laws in the U.S. say that you can build a home, live in it for 2 years, and sell it. You keep 100% of the profit (I think it requires rolling it into another home). The labor cost is generally 40% of the total, leaving a nice incentive.
There are people who take advantage of this by building and living in homes, one after another. They generally do this every two or three years, and earn a tidy profit each time.
These homes generally are extremely well built since the contractor is living there. They are sold to realize a profit, but are generally an extremely good deal, because they're so solidly built. High quality parts and materials are used, because they know what works, and have no desire to put up with the maintenance headaches associated with shoddy workmanship.
You have to do your homework, making certain that the real estate agent, or owner isn't lying about who built it, but (knowlegable) owner built homes are an incredible deal.
Also, right now is the time to buy, if you're going. Real estate is dead from halloween to New Years, and motivated sellers are often willing to take extremely low offers if they have to sell now. Like: moving to a new job, medical problems force sale, impending divorce, etc...
Also, get to be good friends with a real estate agent who's been around a while. My family has used the same broker for 20 years, and he looks out for us. It's also a big family full of real-estate-ophiles so he's got incentive.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Suggestion: go to real estate school and get your real estate license.
It's kind of like a law degree. You don't have to be a practicing lawyer for it to help.
A real estate license will teach you the great unknowns about the laws and pitfalls of the business.
Unlike law, the real estate license takes about a month (around here, at least) and is subsidized by the real estate brokerage firms. They don't care to make money by tuition, they just charge enough to make sure that the prospective students are serious, not timewasters.
Around here it's $500 dollars, and that more than covers the savings you'll make on every house you buy or sell. It's a month, but the hours are extremely flexible at most of the schools, and your real savings will probably be closer to $3-5000 on each house you buy. More than enough to pay back your time invested.
Earning a real estate license will also let you forgo the need to hire your own agent. You'll be able to split the fee with the selling agent, and pocket about 3%. Yes, it's legal in most, if not all places, to act as your own agent when purchasing on your own, but there are some thing you really need to know. Accordingly, this paragraph starts with the word "Earning" rather than "Having"
Also, there are a great many people who don't like realators for various reasons, and prefer to keep the comissions for themselves. Hence "For Sale by Owner". It is very helpful to know what you're doing in this circumstance because both of you might very well be clueless to the laws and ordinances and local "gotcha's".
Another worry is that "For Sale by Owner" might be because the current owner is attempting something that no realator would risk their license by being a party to.
Caveat emptor. Knowlege can keep you from getting burned.
Good luck.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Do yourself a favor. Before you make your decision, go take a drive through a trailer park, and take a good long look at one their that is about 30 years old. Then, go find a 30 year old real house (or as the people who sell trailers like to call them, "stick-built home.") A trailer is still a trailer, even if it is a quintuple-wide instead of a normal double-wide, and even if they call it a "pre-fabricated home," or "manufactured home," or "modular home," or whatever new name they come up with next to try to make people think that they aren't trailers.
Best Slashdot comment ever
...is if a home should be unique, or something coming out of an assembly line. Also, what intrinsic compromises must be made if the building is shipped to site? Weight, dimensions, interconnections must all be considered.
Personally, I like some mass to a house, and organic free-flowing nature. I know there are benefits to assembly-line construction, but... there are also things to be said for something unique. Cost will always go to the assembly line, though.
and most sane people just stick their cars in them ;)
Look into steel building manufacturers and contractors. Many times, these people offer various packages to suit your needs (outside and inside details). Yours may be "funky" (ie, a house instead of a business or meeting hall), but they should be able to work with you to get what you want. Furthermore, such buildings can be *very* cheap (a place here in the Phoenix area is offering a 80 x 150 foot building for $50,000 - sure, that is probably without any "extras" - but still damn cheap for the sq footage).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I have done a lot of research on this question, but have no practical experience.
:-(.
That being said, there are two points nobody's brought up yet.
First, if you want to live in a beautiful place, with design you'll enjoy living with, a stick-built house may be the only way to do it. A good architect will design a house for you that's designed to fit you, your needs and the site like hand in glove. That kind of expertise costs money, and blows up costs everywhere, but if you want something great, that will bring you joy over a lifetime, it's worth considering. The works of Christopher Alexander (The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, etc) express the appeal of this much better than I can. They are worth checking out (yes, even at their rather hideous prices) before you make a final decision.
The basic difference is that a pre-fab house is built out of resuable components. If those components don't fit the site, if there is a specific angle that needs to be used to make the best view, you're never going to see it. Alexander argues most persuasively that there is a moral and ethical failing about allowing houses to be built in such a cold, sterile way.
That being said, I'll bet you can figure out pretty easily what he thinks of tract housing. There would appear to be little advantage of a stick-built tract house over a pre-fab, since they are both following the same rules, and are not custom in any meaningful way.
If you are building on a hillside, and the View is an important aspect of what you want with your house, I would almost certainly say you want a stick-built house. If you're not a view buyer, I would say a pre-fab or tract style house might fit your needs.
If you're eyeing a lot in Malibu or Topanga Canyon in LA, be aware that you have to go through the same amazing two year planning and approval process including delightful Coastal Commission hearings and other fun stuff before you can put anything on a lot.
So if you're considering this to avoid those tiresome regulations, they apparently run right after you anyway
I know because I asked.
You may not be around Malibu or Topanga, but you should still find out what the rules are and make sure you follow them, or that you can get away without following them. (Topanga probably has more building code violations per acre than anywhere else in the world).
Hope that helps.
D
Your points are good, and well taken. However, the motivations are completely different. I'm an computer and financial manager in a factory and I've learned a few important things:
...-
1. Running out of supplies costs money.
2. Unhappy workers can bankrupt you.
3. The biggest source of workplace stress not being able to do a good work.
Lets discuss your assertions and implications directly."
As if factory managers and workers and corporations never saved pennies in disgraceful ways.
-And subcontractors living on a shoestring dont? this is a specious attack, without specifics, so there's not much to say besides "oh yeah, so are you"
I myself will never buy a tract home because I don't want to live in a tract, but by gum I will get a stick built home to my own design by a builder I trust before I buy a prefab.
-your point seems to be you trust builders more than prefab builders. You seem to know and trust a plural of builders. Good on ya, and good luck. I, and many other people don't have pre-existing relationships of trust with any builders, so we have to use different criteria for decisions.-
-You also seem to be more confident of your own design abilities than the abilities of the engineers/architects working for the prefab builders. Bully for you. I, and many others, don't have the confidence to pit our design abilities vs the prefab folks. This isn't blind faith in their abilities, but it is tempered by a known lack skill on the parts of many of the rest of us.-
Such a rosy picture. My my, to listen to you, factories are little sections of heaven,
-Factories are better places to work than outside, in general. If that were not the case, factories wouldn't have roofs.-
populated by happy workers
-From what I've seen, they're somewhat more happy than the typical subcontracting drywaller. Less stress and not worrying about an inability to feed the family in case of the all to common disabling accident. Most of them are very small outfits which don't pay unemployment, health, or even worker's comp. Factory work in the US is generally better.-
singing at their jobs.
-Point to you, the radio is generally cranked at on-site buildings, while the suits in factories tend to think of music as "unprofessional"-
with bosses to die for
-Very interesting you should say that. There is a reason that construction jobs have such an unbelivably high Workers Compensation rate. They're extremely dangerous. Since every house is different there are few ways to standardize and make safe the job in construction.-
-In a factory, however, jobs are generally assigned to a particular area and standardized. This makes for greatly increased safety. Greedy bastard employers LIKE safety. Injured workers work slowly, require assistance are abscent and raise worker's comp rates. Honorable, trustable contractors just get a new carpentry subcontractor when the old one gets a sack of nails from two stories up. No muss, no fuss, no additional costs. If the subcontractor is unable to finish, it can be a bonus, since the work before the injury probably won't even be paid for (job not done- no paycheck).-
managers who really Really REALLY care about customers
-I can give you my own perspective about the manager "really Really REALLY caring" about customers. Belkin recently treated their customers badly. It hurt sales. Do you really think the marketing droid who came up with the spamming router got a promotion? Do you think he's even still with the company?-
-Paychecks don't materialize out of thin air. Somebody, generally customers, have to want to give that money to the company before it can land in my paycheck. So yes, I'm a manager and I absolutely care about customers. I want a relationship where they keep coming back and spending money with us again and again.-
-Subcontractors, on the other hand, don't deal with the customers. They deal with the contractor who has his own interests at heart. He may not feel
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Pay particular attention to how the foundation is adapted to the house and how much space (height) is used compared to a traditional house. If a basement is planned, then be sure to look into heating the basement as some of the smaller prefab houses are not designed with a basement in mind.
No experience myself but relatives in the country went the prefab route.
The slashdot crowd is probably far more knowledgable about prefabricated cakes and pies than prefabricated homes.
Of course I am prejudiced about this topic because I recently bought a brick rowhome in an urban area (Baltimore). I have a brand new house that sits between four 100 year old stacks of brick. I don't think you can buy a more solid home, and you get to contribute to urban revival in the process. If you want cheap, there are plenty of old stacks of brick just waiting for some work.
the instructions, place bead of glue on wall A edge side wall A and B together, clamp. let dry for 24 to 48 hours.
1. Saying that factories can cut as many corners as on site builders ... how is that any more a specious attack than your initial assertion that onsite workers are terrible and factories are perfect? You need to look up the definition of specious.
2. I don't have to know builders now. I only have to investigate builders when I get ready to build, and find a single builder I can rely on, from friends' experiences and local reputations. Someone who has lived in thearea for a long time and been building reputable homes for a long time is a fine bet. They are not hard to find.
3. As for my design skills, they are non-existent as an architect, but I know what I want in general, and that is enough to guide an architect. I don't have to know everything, just enough.
4. Factories are better to work for who? I notice your background is finance. Whoopee. Let's ask factory workers themselves, let's ask outside workers. Plenty of outside workers wouldn't be caught dead inside on a good day. Perhaps you ought to get out of the factory once in a while and visit the real world. Where I live for instance, it doesn't rain during the building season, and plenty of people would rather be outside working than inside. Further, once the framing is up, most of the work is inside, within walls with a roof overhead, and lockable doors and windows. A little onsite factory, if you will. Factory walls also exist to keep workers inside in addition to keeping weather outside.
5. Very little of a house is boring drywall. Most of the people who work in the construction industry enjoy it and take pride in doing a quality job, because it is their individual part, not some factory of cookie cutter projects. It's called pride in craftsmanship. Perhaps you ought to ask some of them, or even try a little manual labor yourself before condemning all of them as soulless sourpusses.
6. Yes, greedy bastard factory owners like job safety, but greedy bastard onsite workers hate it. See if you can spot the difference. See if you can spot who has a silly rosy picture of his own industry and a lousy view of the competition. See if you can spot the unbalanced view.
7. My neighbors and friends who are contractors of course don't want to be in business next year or ten years from now. Yes, factory pencil pushers like yourself can go get a job in some other different kind of office at any time. Contractors who want to build up a reputation so they can keep on building homes have nothing but their name and reputation. So we can all guess who is more dedicated to doing a quality job.
It is not worth going on. What is obvious by now is that you are a pencil pusher who has way too rosy a picture of your own work environment and company, and a very distorted view of the competition. One of the secrets to winning is knowing the competition. You don't.
Infuriate left and right
Now, if you are not going to move out from it, than yeah, maybe it could work out pretty good.
- Steel is an excellent conductor of heat, and studs and rafters will cause lots of "thermal bridging" between the indoors and out. This requires a substantial amount more insulation to fix than you'd need for conventional construction. (Your contractor wouldn't give a crap about this because they are not going to be paying the heating/cooling bill.)
- You can't just let any old contractor do your wiring. Holes through steel studs have sharp edges, and any wiring (and probably plumbing too) going through them has to be protected with special grommets. If you miss this, you could have some very expen$ive mistakes in your house.
I'd also watch for things like reduced room-to-room acoustic isolation, but I have not had an opportunity to check out a steel house first-hand so I can't say if they're better or worse.Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I prefer Jumbo-floorplan houses. 6' wide hallways :)
5' wide doors. I don't have any furniture, but if I
ever buy any I won't have any problems moving it around.
Manufactured (pre-fab) homes are discussed pretty often in misc.consumers.house -- most people who have them think the quality is as-good or better than stick built. The only 'gotcha' may be financing:
3 58 71-2003Sep19.html
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A
"...Fannie Mae, in response to a rising number of delinquencies and
foreclosures, is making it tougher to get manufactured-home loans. The
company now requires a 10 percent down payment for 30-year mortgages
on such homes, plus a fee of 0.5 percent of the loan amount."
"Manufactured homes are built in factories and assembled on building
sites. They include mobile homes, though many manufactured dwellings
have characteristics found on traditional single-family homes --
pitched roofs, decks and porches."
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
He's also a big fan of steel framed houses, since they're strong and easy to put up. And don't burn.
Oh yes they do -- not like you might think, but in fact a steel structure is more prone to collape in fire than a wood one. Steel will soften and fail at lower temperatures than it takes for wood to ignite. So steel structures can be very dangerous indeed when it comes to fire.
Sincerely,
Luke Skywalker
Prefab homes appraise for a lower value, simply because they are prefab.
I am currently in the process of building a prefab (modular) home, and while it is too early to say if I made the best decision possible, here are a few impressions I have of the business, . While my housing needs and budget are fairly basic, I wanted to try to make the most of a very nice piece of land that my Dad subdivided for me when he sold the old family dairy farm. Most comparable lots in the area would be sporting half million dollar McMansions, while the realities of my budget were more in line with a tract house in an older Baltimore suburb. The challenge was to build a nice, but modest house for my use and budget, but build in quality and expandability for when the day came to sell.
I had several meetings/phone conversations with each of the 3 builders I interviewed before I made a decision. All three seemed competent and had at least several dozen modulars under their belts. All had some pretty good ideas to build in some expandability, usually by selecting a model, or modifiying an existing one to have buildable space in the attic. Each represented a different manufacturer, and I speced out houses as close to each other as I could to make my decision based on who I thought would do the best work, at the fairest price. I priced the basic houses out when fitted with basic options, then set up a spread sheet to compare items line by line or items on allowances, as well as "wish list" items.
Builder one was very knowledgeable, had been doing modulars for 10 years and the base price of the house was attractive. Unfortunately, the house that was shown in the brochure was not the house that I would get without spending an extra 10 grand for the overbuilt roof. I would be a plain box house. Every little upgrade, such as mouldings, deluxe cabinets, and so on was priced as if the builder was tearing out the cheap stuff , throwing it away and installing the good stuff himself. The manufacturer he admitted was difficult to work with, and between the lines he was telling me that for more than a bare basic house he could do better by me by doing a stick built. I agreed with his assesment, and looked for a second opinion.
The second builder represented one of the largest manufacturers of Modulars in the region, and had at least as much time in the business as the first. The second manufacturer offered more attractive exteriors and floorplans than the first, and the builder seemed much more enthusiastic than the first about the company he represented. The price was somewhat higher for the basic house, but at least some of the increased cost was justified. He shared the same affliction as the first builder by pricing upgrades very aggresively. Another thing that unsettled me a little was his reticence at me doing either a site visit or to contact the owner of a completed house.
While the subdivision process for the lot dragged on and stalled, I took a break from the process for a while. When the wheels of bureaocracy started to grind again, I decided to widen my search for a manufacturer and builder, and found my third prospective builder, who represented a manufacturer in Central PA which offered a more upscale product in the square foot range I was looking for. He also had a nearby project, a modular addition to an older house, which was literally right under my nose, and I got a chance to tour a more upscale project he was in the middle of and I was impressed. In the end I ended up going with him, as the upgrades that I wanted in the other houses were either included, or priced more reasonably in his quote. The manufacturer is also able to do more in-factory customization, and in fact my house will be a hybrid of one exterior, with the floorplan based on a somewhat different model.
So far things seem to be going very well, and the foundation work went very smoothly. For now there are some minor foundation jobs to complete, but the next big event is the delivery and set of the house itself in about a month. My main concern there is the weather, which can turn ugly that time of year, but as long as he gets a decent dry day for the set, most of the rest of the work can be done inside in heated comfort the builder assured me.
I agree. We also purchased a "modular home" in May. It was finished in three weeks from the factory, but took 4+ weeks to set up on site because the dealer (not the builder) had different timelines. I think it is important to not only check out your builder, but also the dealer, as the dealer is who you will be talking to.
We got a home built by IC Creative from their Penticton, BC plant. (They also operate in the States.) We have been very happy with what we got.
But once the wall's up, they're both a pain in the ass to deal with. [I'm a big proponent of unfinished basements to run wires through, or unfinished attics.]
As for the fire issue, I'd say that metal houses are less fire-safe than wood structures. The best wood built structures, in my opinion, are built from large structural timbers, rather than today's balloon framing. Balloon framing isn't all that bad in a fire, as the drywall does act as a fire retardant. And wood itself needs to come to temperature to burn -- metal, however, will slowly lose strength as it is warmed up.
If you're looking for fireproof buildings, I'd go with concrete. [there are styrofoam forms that are stacked in like legos, the rebar's put into place, and the concrete poured in -- the foam can then be routed out for a cable chase]
I don't want it to seem that I'm not a fan of metal -- I am, but it just has to be used in the correct applications, like anything else. The one major advantage to metal is how it fails -- it doesn't tend to fail in spectacular fashion as often as other materials, as it'll noticably deflect under load, and under slight deflections, behaves elasticly. [As opposed to concrete, which will just fail outright... which is why you don't want to put too much rebar into concrete, or then the concrete fails before the metal does]
Oh-- and to keep this on topic. Although I have no experience with them, I like what some of the Swedish companies have done with pre-fab. [It's like a really large Ikea flat-pack]:
- Skarne
- Svenska Hus
I'd rather buy locally, if I can (shipping isn't cheap, after all), but I really like the concepts.Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Hope this helps.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
It's a HOUSE you fucking american cunts.
Stop this bullshit sentimentalizing of every aspect of your culture!
How did I do it? I worked closely with the manufacturer's engineer to design a custom floor plan. I was able to delete flooring, cabinetry, and fixtures. When it shipped onsite, I stick built the connecting garage, installed my own curved walls, custom flooring, cabinets and plumbing/lighting fixtures. I had carpenters add special dormers, and I installed brick and cement siding. You cannot tell the difference between my house and a stick built one except mine is better made and more efficient. If you want a custom pre-fab, there are ways to get one.
-Jimmy
don't fall into the engineer trap that a lot of /.ers are likely to fall in. You know "I'm going to build a 1000 year house so I'm going to use the strongest materials for my house." Most of the time those strong materials will rot out in 5 years, making your super strong good for only a few months. (before your doctor orders you to leave that mold infested death trap!) Weaker materials often have what it takes to last because they will let moisture out. (just keep the siding and roofing in good shape as they keep it from coming back in)
I've done all types of houses, and stick built gives you the most flexability. It is also the cheapest in many cases of all the houses that hold value. I have more I'd like to say, but I'm off to other tasks. Good luck.
My home seems to be pre-fab 5 if anything. Good heavens what a mess.
Aslan? is that you? anyways, I would have to agree with that one, I like wide open houses, not narrow halls etc, and in my experiance, prefabs tend to be a little more closed than a stick-built
Well, they didn't actually build it. It was put up by Satterwhite Log Homes out of Loongview, TX. The crew was awesome. The house went up in 7.5 days, literally. All the log walls were the first day. Then we had 3 days of downtime whilst we received 7.5 inches of water (the first rain in nearly two months at that time). After that the remaining 6.5 days went fast as hell. Prior to the construction we dug out the basement and had the footing, stem walls, and 1/2 basement poured. Sidenote: get a decent cement contractor. Our's seriously screwed the pooch and his shoody work is *still* causing us grief. We then added the sill plate, floor trusses, mud plate, and sub-floor. We also built 200' of 8'-deep pressure treated porch (don't attempt to install this when it's 100+ outside and DON'T FORGET to leave absolutely NO gap between the boards or you'll regret it). Of course I'm leaving out digging the well, lagoon and sewer line, electric conduits, clearing the electrical easement, building the road, building and installing a bridge (wasn't built onsite), etc... But those are side points. The crew dried in the house. We're are adding the garage as we speak. We'll then wire and plumb the place. We hang the sheetrock but we'll hire out the mudding. All the rest of the finish work will be done by us. It's not a ready to live in place but it will be within a year. Satterwhite would build a turnkey house if we lived within a certain distance of their HQ. My folks didn't though. Log homes are extremely easy to heat and cool. The logs are apparently unbelievable temperature barriers. The logs are dead-standing spruce so there are no shrinkage or moisture problems that cause people to have to relevel their older log homes. It really is slick.
I live in an apartment so I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'll offer my opinion anyways.
I see prefab homes vs. a custom built "conventional" home like Fast Food vs. Home cooked meal.
Sure the fast food meal is faster, cheaper, and more or less "automated", but I'll take the home cooked (or chef prepared) meal anyday.
Another analogy is the construction of a Ford vs. a Porsche. Ford is built on an assembly line by grease monkeys who's job it is to turn one bolt on each engine as it arrives in front of them. Porsche engines are hand build (no robots) entirely by a single master technician. Do some homework and you'll see which one has better quality history.
This is not to say that all homes which are not pre-fab are good. There are plenty of cookie-cutter "conventional" homes which are made of substandard materials by lazy stupid workers.
Also, I personally despise siding on a home. I like concrete, stone and brick construction. What are monuments, the pyramids, castles, and 800 year old churches built of? Thats right. Stone and brick. Because it lasts.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
A lot of people are suggesting that prefab homes are essentially "throw-aways" that won't last. I don't think this is the case, and there seems to be solid evidence against it.
In the city of Savannah, GA many of the homes are known as "Sears homes", because they were prefab kits sold by the Sear Roebuck company about a century ago. Today, you can find plenty of those homes standing just fine, and built to last.
My aunt has a Sears home that has survived fires, hurricanes, Saint Patrick's Day parties, etc.
I'd buy prefab without any reservations as long as the parts met my quality requirements.
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
Garages are pretty standard. I've seen prefabricated concrete shell garages built into a variety of conventionally built houses...
Laurence
A couple of other advantages: there's been time for the chemicals used in the construction to air out (some new homes have really unbreathable air), and last but by no means least the depreciated value should be used for the property tax calculations. It's not just the cost of a house that's important, but the running costs also.
Looked after, late 70's doublewides are hard to tell from the current product and are are a very cheap way to get a sizable home.
Note though that many lots have restrictions in the deeds stopping you from moving older homes on to them.
I hate to tell you this; I have an 86 911
cabriolet and a 69 911.... and my wife's
86 honda accord is twice the car. It lacks
a certain "je ne se quois", but porsche
build quality is bollocks. The first thing
a porsche buyer discovers is that he's been
taken in by his own adolesence; you cannot
sell them except to other middle-aged
adolescents.
If the "Single Master Technician" is having
a bad day when he builds your engine; you're
fu**ed. At ford, they expect it and have q/c.