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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.
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.
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.