The Modular Building System
Extending the concept of panelization and sub-assemblies, a
select group of home builders developed the modular building system. Their goal
was to combine the benefits realized by high volume production builders while
maintaining the flexibility of the small custom home builders. This goal has
been met through the building process we know as the modular building system.
Working within a high volume factory environment, the
modular building system results in better quality control, increased production
and labor efficiencies and lower material costs. These benefits are then passed
on to new home buyers. Rain or snow never delays the construction of your home.
The climate controlled factory environment protects the new homes from the
elements. Unaffected by the outside weather, your home progresses through the
factory in a professional, well planned manner. Skilled tradesman diligently
attend to the details of your new home. These labor efficiencies help to keep
the total costs down. Building anywhere from several hundred, to thousands of
homes a year, modular home manufacturers achieve lower material costs. Factory
direct purchases, recycling and reduced vandalism all contribute to reduced
material costs.
To maintain quality, modular systems manufacturers rely on a
highly developed and fully staffed quality control department. The quality
control staff reviews every phase of design and construction ensuring that the
home is properly designed, and built. Review and acceptance by a third party
inspector completes the final stage in quality control. The third party
inspector ensures the home buyer that the building has been built according to
all applicable building codes.
The financial survival of modular system manufacturers and
their builder/dealers depends on their reputation to the home buying public.
Manufacturers go to great lengths to protect and maintain their reputation.
Unlike small home builders, modular systems manufacturers have millions of
dollars invested in buildings, equipment, and inventory. They can ill afford to
compromise their quality and reputation. As an advanced system for conventional
construction, the modular system reduces material costs, lowers labor costs,
and reduces the total time to completion.
Quality Control
One of the least appreciated but most important aspects of a
home built using the modular building process is quality control. Every home
built with the modular building process undergoes an extensive series of
quality control steps unmatched by any other building system. The quality
control process at every modular home manufacturer is under the direction of an
external, third-party inspection company. Before the house can leave the
factory, every module requires a third party stamp signifying the house met or
exceeded all building codes and quality standards.
Modular home manufacturers achieve these quality standards
by maintaining full-time quality control departments. Extensive quality control
manuals documents every quality standard, policy and procedure required to
receive the third party's stamp of approval. Following written standards, the
quality control department's primary objective is to ensure that your new home
is well built. While much of their effort focuses on structural integrity and
other hidden quality issues, aesthetic areas also receive a high level of
attention.
At the end of the building process, the third-party company
evaluates the quality of the house, and approves your new home only if the
house meets or exceeds the necessary quality standards. So when your new
modular built home arrives, you can be assured that your new home has a
third-party seal of approval.
In contrast, few if any stick built homes ever undergo such
an exhaustive quality review process. For a stick built home, usually the job
supervisor building a new home acts as the quality control department. If they
are in a hurry, the quality suffers with no one to check their work. As a new
home buyer, when the house is finished we can inspect the exterior finish work,
but how do we know if they took shortcuts on the hidden, but most important
components like the plumbing, framing or electrical. Unfortunately, we don't.
For most new home buyers, we are forced to rely on the local building
inspector. They do a fine job, but they cannot check every detail the way a
quality control department of a modular home manufacturer does. In south
Florida, many people found out just how bad the stick-built shortcuts were after Hurricane
Andrew destroyed their homes. Too many of us judge the quality of a house by
how well the drywall and trim work were fitted, but the most important aspects
of quality are hidden behind the walls and beyond our reach. With a house built
using the modular building system, you have a third-party inspector looking out
for your interest.
Climate Controlled Environment
Building homes in a factory controlled environment gives
modular home manufacturers several advantages. Perhaps the most important is
protection from the elements during construction. Using the modular building
system, the structure, including floors and walls, is never exposed to water
damage. Climate controlled protection significantly reduces the risk of weather
damage. This reduced risk greatly minimizes the probability that your new home
will suffer from warping walls and sagging ceilings.
Advantages of Production Builders
In the building industry, smaller independent contractors
have difficulty competing against large production stick builders when it comes
to price. Production builders build hundreds of houses a year. The largest
builders build over a thousand homes a year. Often they establish an entire
sub-division. Then they build out the subdivision one house after the next
moving workers in an assembly line fashion. This allows production builders to
achieve labor efficiencies comparable to a factory environment. Materials often
come factory direct, further lowering the total cost of the house. These lower
labor and material costs result in a lower total cost to the new home buyer,
but to maintain these lower costs, production builders have to impose certain
restrictions.
In return for a lower cost, production builders place
restrictions on the styles, options, location and even the timing of
construction of your new home. Almost always, the number of house designs
available is limited. It's not uncommon to find that your selection is limited
to four or five basic styles. Some production builders allow minor changes,
others don't. When they do, it is extremely limited. Location is also limited.
You can get the house only in their subdivision. (Sure they will be happy to
arrange to have it built elsewhere, but at a much higher price.) Timing can
also be restricted. Production builders build sequentially down one street and
up the next. If the house site you want is at the end of the subdivision your
new house may not be started for months. If it's a large subdivision, it could
be years. The price is right, but the restrictions can be prohibitive.
A major goal of the modular system builders is to create a
environment that achieves the benefits of a production builder without imposing
the restrictions. Using the modular building system, homes can be built with
lower material costs, increased labor efficiency and minimized waste. With a
factory based setting, construction on a new home can begin at any time, even
in the dead of winter. Specially designed tractor-trailers enable the delivery
of individual modules wherever there is a road. Customization is also not a
problem. Well trained in-house design staffs offer full customization at modest
cost to the new home buyer. On the production floor, highly trained tradesmen
completed each custom house as easily as if it was a standard stock plan. The
modular building system has achieved its goal of providing customized housing
at a production builders price.
Volume Discounts
A big part of the cost savings and efficiency comes from the
increased buying volume. Production builders have always realized volume cost
savings, but as a new home buyer, you had to buy a home in their subdivision.
The modular building system allows you to take advantage of volume savings
while building a home on your lot. You're no longer forced into a production
builders subdivision with limited selections.
Minimized Waste
Home building generates an enormous amount of waste
material. Scrape lumber builds up during the construction of the floors, walls,
ceiling and roof sections. Small pieces can often be used in other parts of the
house, but for a typical stick built home, the lack of storage and timing make
reuse difficult. If the pieces are unavailable when needed, they simple are cut
from full size lumber. With reuse difficult, most stick builders simple dispose
of the lumber. Builders have even been known to bury waste materials on the job
site, but stricter building and environmental codes have all but eliminated
this practice.
In a modular system factory, surplus pieces can easily be
recycled into small component pieces. However,
with the relatively low cost of wood, recycling rarely results in any real cost
savings. It does lower the total number of trees cut down while reducing amount
of materials hauled off to the local landfills and that benefits all of us.
Lower Labor Costs
The ability to build your new home in a climate controlled
factory does more than just protect your new investment from the ravages of
rain, snow and sleet during the building process. Working in a production
oriented building system, modular home manufacturers build custom homes with
the efficiency of a production builder. And like automobile manufacturers,
modular home manufacturers are in a better position to utilize the latest
manufacturing innovations. New tools like automated panel fabricators and foam
sealant adhesives, enable modular home manufacturers to rapidly assemble the
frame of your new home with lower labor costs.
Other areas of your new home still require a high level of
detailed workmanship, but even here access to a controlled working environment
has its advantages. Rather than string wire one line at a time, electricians
layout a wiring harness, just like the ones used in automobiles. Precut,
sorted, and coded, a wiring harness allows for rapid installation. The plumbing
systems are equally pre-built to specification before installation. At the
appropriate time, the individual sections are installed with minimal connection
work required in the house.
Reduced Costs: Lower Purchase Price
Individually, each of these manufacturing efficiencies
generate only a small amount of savings, but collectively, they add up to
thousands of dollars of savings. These savings are then passed on to you, the
new home buyer, in the form of a lower total cost. So now you know why modular
homes cost less than a stick built home.
Time to Completion
One of the most frustrating aspects of building a house is
how long it takes. The bigger the house the longer it takes. For someone
building a detailed, custom two story house, don't be surprised if the project
takes anywhere from nine months to a year. Instant gratification is not part of
the building process. Fortunately, with the modular building system completion
time is dramatically shortened.
For example, let's consider the construction of a small cozy
Cape Cod with an unfinished upstairs. With the foundation ready, an average
stick builder will complete your home in around two months. Using the modular
building system, once your new Cape is placed on the foundation, an average
builder will finish your Cape in a week.
Now consider building a much larger custom two-story house.
Large master bedroom, three or four bathrooms, oversize kitchen, mud room, the
works. It's not uncommon for a builder to take upwards of nine months to
complete a large custom home. Nine months is a long time and time is money.
Your money. You're paying interest on the construction loan, insurance, plus
all the costs to carry your current home or apartment. If the building process
was shorten by six months this could add up to a substantial sum of money.
Every day a sub-contractor fails to show up costs you that much more, and with
the stick built system it's the only way.
If you used the modular building process, a good builder
could cut the completion time down considerably. Depending on the level of
difficulty and complexity of your new custom two story, the completion time
necessary once the modules are placed on the foundation could be anywhere from
one to three months. That's a savings of six months worth of interest and house
payments.
Builder Efficiency
A controversial, but important factor that needs to be
addressed is the overall productivity of general contractors. Like everyone
else, builders need to make a living and that requires charging a premium to
the total cost of the new house that you just bought. If a general contractor
builds only a few homes a year, it's no surprise that the level of profit that
the general contractor needs will be high. This is especially true for those
builders who have a strong reputation for quality. They charge more, but in the
end, their homes are of a much higher caliber.
As we saw above, the modular building process reduces the
time necessary to build a new home of higher or comparable quality. Builders
utilizing the modular building process have the ability to build more homes
without compromising on quality standards. With higher volume, they are in a
better position to offer you, the home buyer a lower price, which usually
happens.
Another advantage of the modular building system is that
builders are better able to build houses year-round, even in bad weather. According to some reports, the majority of new construction in the country of Sweden uses one or more forms of modular or manufactured components. Except
in extreme cold a foundation can be prepared for a new modular home. After
setting the house on the foundation, with in a few days the electrical and
heating system are fully functional. From then on the remaining interior finish
work is completed in a fully heated house. With a longer building season, both
the builder and the home buyer win. Builders sell more homes, increasing their
total income, while keeping their prices low to sell even more homes. Most
builders and their workers hate to be idle. The modular building process allows
a builder to sell a quality home at a lower price for a longer period during
the year.
Design Flexibility
Another under appreciated benefit of the modular building
system comes from the ability for you and I to freely customize a new home.
Most of the better modular building manufacturers' allow unlimited
customization at a nominal price. Modular home manufacturers build a large
number of custom homes. To meet these intense design demands, modular homes
manufacturers operate well staffed design departments. In the past, the
designers worked at drawing tables, but today, virtually all modular home
manufacturers utilize computer aided design (CAD) systems. Using the latest CAD
tools, designers quickly modify any existing home design to meet your needs.
Design flexibility does not stop there. If you have a
specific style or floor plan in mind, virtually every manufacturer will work
with you and the builder/dealer to create a custom floor plan and house style
that matches your wishes. This total flexibility is unheard of in the stick
built world with out the use of expensive architects. But with the
sophistication of the modular home manufacturers, the need for costly
architectural support can be completely bypassed.
Hiring an architect typically runs from 10%-15% of the total
construction bill. With new home construction (excluding land) costing anywhere
from $75,000 to $400,000 or more, the bill for an architect might be $50,000. Custom design work at a modular home manufacturer is not always free,
but for the majority of homes the average will be under $1,000, with few
reaching over $2,000. And some manufacturers don't charge any additional few
for custom design work. They just consider it as a normal part of business.
The experience and depth of the design department of the
typical modular home manufacturer is equally impressive. Each year, the design
department lays out hundreds of homes. Since a typical design manager has five
to ten years of experience, your home is being reviewed by someone who has
built a thousand or more homes. That's experience!
Benefits of the Modular Building System
The most important reason to consider buying or building a
modular home is value. Compared to the majority of today's site built homes,
modular homes provide a better value. Utilizing climate controlled environments
and strict quality control standards, a home built using the modular building
system undergoes far more quality reviews than a stick built homes. You rest
assured knowing that the third-party inspector has looked over your new home to
make sure all the specifications have been met.
The efficient modular building process offers you a better
build home through the utilization of modern manufacturing techniques, yet the
quality of the home, both inside and out is in there. The controlled factory
environment allows your new modular home to be built promptly in a
cost-effective manner. And as we saw, this swift completion of the home, both
at the factory and at the final job site is especially important with large
homes. The rapid completion of your new home reduces exposure to the elements
while saving you money on interest and alternative housing. Better still, the
overall cost of your new home is most likely lower than a stick-built home
thanks to volume purchasing, production efficiency, and waste savings derived
from the modular building system. Yet despite the production environment,
modular homes are built utilizing a blend of manufacturing efficiencies and
hand craftsmanship. Most manufacturers add to the uncommon value by using some
of the finest, high quality materials available. With all the benefits of
buying a modular home, it is no wonder that more and more people are building
with the modular building system.
