It has been called the future of housing- the construction of a home off-site in a controlled environment. Once thought of as cheap or tacky, today’s pre-fabricated homes are gaining popularity and are now likely to even be luxury homes. Like the factory production of cars, concrete, log, modular and panelized construction are now common place among our neighboring homes. It is a trend of building that is showing signs of growth despite a difficult building climate.
A new generation of systems-built homes are tearing down old stereotypes. These homes are delivered quickly, with attention to quality control, and offer many green characteristics. Its fast, less expensive than stick-built and low risk. With all the control systems in place in the factory environment, the quality is consistently high. The process of building panelized custom homes is pretty straight forward. Plumbers and other subs can put in the materials for four houses in one day in the factory. Then, the homes are set in place on site and assembled with startling speed, a crane lowering the pieces into place within mere hours. All the sections are clearly marked. The floor joists, walls and roof rafters match up the connection points so they are easily assembled. The home can be enclosed in about 10 days. Then comes installation of the exterior trim, windows, etc. Move-in can be accomplished in roughly four to six months
A study on the NAHB website compares two identical houses – one stick built and one panelized- and found that the panelized home saved 253 hours of labor and $4560 in labor. Currently, only 3% of homes in the U.S. are modular so competition with traditional stick built houses is minimal. But the idea of pre-fabricated homes is appealing to homeowners who are looking for options in the midst of a tough economy. According to experts, it gets built quicker and you can save 30 to 50% of stick built equivalents.
There are some downsides to building modular. The decisions all have to be made upfront, before the house is started in factory. Typically when you are building a modular home, you have to pay the builder in full before the home is completed. And you will need to own the land you decide to build on versus buying the house and lot from the builder.
A few tips if you are looking into systems-built homes:
-Choose your company carefully and stay local to keep delivery charges down. You can contact the Asheville HBA office for a list of companies who build systems-built homes.
-Get to know the production staff at the panelized factory, not just the salespeople.
-Request to take a tour of the plant and visit the assembly line to see how a project is created and completes.
