I find myself constantly having to explain to prospective customers why modular homes are superior to site-built (or â€stick-builtâ€) homes, so I’ve compiled a â€Top 10†reasons, Letterman style, for you: 10. It’s the state-of-the-art in home building For centuries (literally), human beings have built their shelters the old-fashioned way, one board (stud) at a time. In the past two decades, the modular industry has taken giant leaps forward in both focus and capability to the point where virtually every modular plant is able to produce modules for Custom homes. Whereas many traditional production builders are still stuck with their old-world ways of individually framing the same structure by hand, over and over again on different lots, the modular industry has left their former one-design-fits-all approach and created the means to take any design and build it in pieces in a factory, to be assembled into a custom home in the field. The former Achilles heel of the modular industryâ€"the inability to customize their product offeringsâ€"is gone, and they are cranking out solid, custom homes by the dozens. In an age where we’re all used to Googling a product, paying for it on the web, and receiving it in a few days, it’s fitting that the modular industry can finally provide the speed and quality we all expect. 9. You wouldn’t want your car built in your driveway, why build your house that way? Check out a stick-built job site. Better yet, check it out in the rain. See how much mud is caked onto the sub-floor of the home, how wet the lumber gets, and notice the extremes in temperatures and weather conditions workers have to contend with while building in that manner. Modular homes are built in climate-controlled plants, where workers are comfortable and do similar tasks every day. They are also supervised by the same supervisors every day, and are monitored by quality control managers both from the company they work for, and third-party inspectors. Workers in the field, on the other hand, have very little oversight, and it’s the builder’s superintendent who must single handedly provide supervision and quality control for each phase of construction. Even banks know that the quality of modular homes is on-par or better than stick-built homes, which is why they do not differentiate between the two for financing construction loans. 8. Shorter, more predictable time line While you’re visiting that stick-built home in the rain, consider the effect on a construction time line the weather can have. The modular process allows much of the uncontrollable forces to be mitigated because the home goes from foundation to 80% complete in one day. While a stick-built home might drag through different rain, snow, wind, and heat cycles, with all the associated delays and wear-and-tear on people and materials, the modular home is built in about 2 weeks in the factory, where the production schedule is virtually unalterable. 7. Built stronger Structures built on-site are built platform-style, where the ceiling structure of one level is also the floor structure for the level above it. Because modules must be transported and placed by a crane onto the foundation, they are built as six-sided structures (that’s why they’re also referred to as â€boxes†in the industry). The resulting home is then a product of stacked boxes, which is stronger and more stable than a platform-style structure. This explains how modular homes come from the factory with plumbing, electrical, drywall, and even cabinets and tile complete! It also explains why the resulting structures are stronger: they are built to much higher standards than site-built structures. 6. Reliable Quality Control Quality Control (QC) is the way you are sure your home is going to be built well. The nicest granite, most rare Brazilian flooring, and most beautiful interior decoration cannot rectify mistakes made during the construction process. The only way homes are built to exacting standards every time is by having a strong QC system in place, and with site-built homes, that responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the builder’s site supervisor (typically one person). Modular homes, by contrast, are built in factory settings by skilled workers who have the same managers overseeing them day in and day out. These managers constantly perform quality control checks as homes are being built, and beyond the QC they do, each modular production plant is inspected by third party inspectors on an on-going basis. Beyond the inspections in the plant, the modules also undergo inspections in the field once they are set to ensure the connections are made correctly between modules and to the foundation. But local inspectors are not inspecting for quality, only for building code compliance, so it is important to understand the builder’s QC process if you want your home built well. With modular, you are sure to have many more people checking the quality of your home before you move in. 5. More pre-construction planning, fewer surprises Any builder who has ever built a true Custom home, one that has never been built before, knows that inevitably some details of the plan end up â€not working†well in the field. The reason for that is that the Architect or Engineer who draws the plans typically is not a builder (and the builder is not an Architect or Engineer), so when the theoretical world collides with the practical world, things can go awry. With the modular process, this does not happen because the plans are given a great deal more scrutiny before construction begins by both the builder and the modular plant managersâ€"they have no choice. Builders who use the modular process are motivated to scrutinize plans much more closely than they would in a stick-build process because their crutch of â€figuring it out in the field†is not available. They know that what appears on the plans will be built at the factory, whether or not it is the best way. For the modular factory, they invest a lot of time and effort to ensure that they think through each plan so problems in production are averted. This coming-together of builder and architect/engineer is what makes the Custom part of Custom Modular run much more smoothly than it does with stick-built custom homes. 4. You care about the planet Green much? Compared to stick-building, modular construction creates WAY LESS landfill trash, because the factories that produce them get better lumber (fewer rejects), waste less during framing (reuse scraps), and some even use the bits they can’t reuse as fuel to heat the factories! Most stick-built homes produce over 4 dumpster loads of debris, and a great deal of it is just plain wasted material. If you don’t believe me, just look inside a dumpster the next time a framing crew is busy at a job site near you. It’s very hard to get framing crews who are paid for labor only to care about the materials they waste because the builder pays for that, not them. I’ve seen framers make 2’ blocks out of 10’ long 24’s when their dumpster was full of cast-off lumber. It’s a real problem. 3. ENERGY STAR †it’s not just for appliances anymore We’ve all seen the ENERGY STAR logo on appliances, but what does it mean, and how does it apply to homebuilding? In order for a home to bear the ENERGY STAR logo and certification, it must pass a series of inspections to prove that it was built to certain tolerances, AND performs well. The certification ultimately tells you that the home consumes 15% less energy than a home built to today’s building code. This is a third-party inspection process that takes place during construction, and just prior to move-in, where the home itself and the HVAC ducts are all pressure-tested to determine the energy losses. Many modular suppliers produce homes so well put together that they virtually don’t need to alter any of their processes to attain an ENERGY STAR rating. In fact, the losses that do occur in typical modular homes occur more often in the HVAC systems, which are usually done after the home is set. The ENERGY STAR logo, and the various other Green certifications available, should make you confident that your home will outperform homes built by other builders. 2. More bang for your buck Let’s face it, everyone likes a bargain, and Modular homes are right up there as bargains go. Because modular homes are produced in a facility that buys materials in mass quantities, and the labor rate in the rural areas where modular plants are is much lower than in major metropolitan areas, they tend to be cheaper as compared to a home built to the same specifications in the field. Custom Modular homes will be cheaper than Custom one-off homes built in the field if the finishes are equal as a general rule. That doesn’t mean that Modular homes are always cheaper, because there are cheaper ways of building a home. As is typical with most products, you get what you pay for, and all things being equal, a modular home will typically deliver higher performance than a stick-built home of the same price, giving you the proverbial more-bang-for-your-buck. 1. It just makes sense When all things are considered, the modular process just makes sense. If quality, speed, performance, and cost are all better with modular homes, why would anyone choose to build the old-fashioned way?
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