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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'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!
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.
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.
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.
1. Steel is used for framing only. I'd challenge your assertion that you'd need some inordinate amount more insulation.. 2. You can easily let a regular electrical contractor do the wiring, the framing members are designed to pass the wire through pre-stamped holes. Most steel framing systems are just about big erector sets. Look at Excalibur Steel as an example. It's a big, customizable, kit.
The fact that the framing of a house is steel probably makes little difference in the combustibility of the house as a whole. The framing is only a fraction of the contents of the house, and you have to consider the furniture, flooring, wall materials, and stored materials (paints, varnishes, solvents,etc) that are also in a house. A steel framed house also has the potential drawback of conducting electricity, and could be a hazard, particularly when using Romex cable, unless the edges are properly protected. Wood framing is less likely to have sharp edges, and does not conduct electricity to any great degree unless it is soaking wet. Of course, you could use BX Cable or conduit, but that adds to the cost of wiring the house over Romex.
I have noticed though that steel roofing is making a comeback around here. Most of the older houses >50 yrs old have tin roofs, most of which still serve their purposes, though they need repainting every few years. After WW2, most houses were built with the familiar asphalt shingles we see today, and those roofs need to be replaced every 20 to 30 years.
Prefinished metal roofing is becoming the standard for most agricultural type structures and outbuildings, but I have also seen it being used on several houses around here as well.
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.
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.
Plasterwork is a great example.
Another lost art is metalwork. Our local rail station needed a new copper dome... The nearest available tradesman was in Italy (the station is in New York) they had to wait 6 months to the Italian to come over and do the work, and I believe that he was in his early 60's.
The Navy is in a similar situation. There are approximately 50 people who can safely perform a specialized kind of hull welding that is needed to assemble the bows of submarines. They actually extend submarine production cycles purposely to keep their skills fresh.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK