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?"

Comments

prefabs are great

[Bishop]

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.

Re:prefabs are great

[Zeinfeld]

From a process engineering (geek) point of view you can't beat a prefab house built in a factory.

The first ever pre-fab homes were built by Thomas Edison for his own use. He had two built next door to each other on his place in Florida. There was no way he could have got the quality of contractors localy in what was then a swamp mostly.

If you are going to build a wooden house you are almost certainly going to build it in panels and then fit the panels together. Bob Villa builds all his houses that way at any rate. So there is not much difference between building a partly finished panel onsite and a fully finished panel back at a factory. Certainly no intrinsic reason pre-fab should be worse.

I have a Victorian arts and crafts house, some parts are completely hand crafted, others are machine made. The real difference is not the type of manufacture, its the quality of the materials.

Re:Consider how they're built

[Hanzie]

Forgot 2 things:

#1: Apparently the expensive homes are generally very well built, since the owners are, or can afford, lawyers. The opposite is also generally accepted.

#2: Pa-in-law was the building inspector who caught the rebar theft out of foundations. He inspected multiple concrete buildings a contractor was putting up. The inspections were spaced far enough apart that they could pull the rebar out of building #1 and get it to #3 while #2 was inspected. Then #2's rebar went to #4.

Apparently they figured that once the cement was poured, there wouldn't be any way to tell the rebar was gone. They probably also figured that it would be such a boneheadedly stupid thing to do that nobody would think to look out for it.

Anyway, something triggered suspicions, and he went back and checked #1 as it was being poured. No rebar. Stop the pouring and drive straight to #2. Same story, but no cement yet.

The end of the story involved jackhammers and large fines. Building inspectors herabouts get badges and citation authority.

It was a huge risk for such a tiny gain, since rebar is so cheap. On the other hand, as my father in law says: If nobody ever tried it, there wouldn't be inspection requirements.

but maybe you don't like colonial ?

[HughsOnFirst]

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.