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Hardware

Pre-Fab Homes? 122

Posted by Cliff from the do-it-yourself-domicile dept.
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?"
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Pre-Fab Homes? More

Pre-Fab Homes?

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  • It might say: "Termites Not Included."
  • Just remember, no matter HOW drunk you get, your cousin is NOT a viable hook-up...

    Going to hell, I know...

  • My parents just put one up (Score:5, Informative)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @11:01PM (#7479215)
    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!

  • Do your research (Score:5, Informative)

    by dlockamy ( 597001 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @11:08PM (#7479253)
    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.
  • If you get a fibro&tin house then it sucks - I lived in one for 10 years.

    If you buy one with non-tin roof and sound-proof walls (that you can put a hook into without it falling out) then itd be OK IMHO - Ive seen some like this on the TV.

    • If your house is fibro and tin, then it is a trailer, and not a pre-fab. Or it is a Ryan home.

      In fact, I've seen houses go up across the street from my pop's place, and I have to say their construction speed / materials used are naff. They use particle board the whole way up, and they take up to three months to build and roof.

      That is in Pennsylvania, which is not the driest state in the union. Where I live now (NC), they build the roof first to cover construction then jack it up while building walls ben

    • The key is planning (Score:3, Informative)

      by N3Bruce ( 154308 )
      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 wit

  • EVIL! (Score:2, Funny)

    by jon787 ( 512497 )
    It is people like you that get the highways clogged with oversized load trailers!
    • Damn straight! I got stuck behind one on I-95 for an hour last week. Lots of fun.
    • And cause people like me, watching a whole convoy of prefabs going by, to crack, "Well, there goes the neighborhood."
  • Yea there's plenty of prefab homes around. Someofthem are 4billion years old i heer.

  • prefabs are great (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bishop ( 4500 ) on Friday November 14, 2003 @11:53PM (#7479454)
    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.
    • It comes down to you need to know what you're buying and the builder involved.

      You can get a great prefab home-- you can also get a big pile of tin, lousy wood, and shoddy construction.

      The quality of tract housing is widely variable as well. I've had lots of friends who've had bad experiences.. but my experience with my current builder has been top-notch; everything is well over code and anything that's out of square or otherwise not quite right has been promptly squawked by their foremen/inspectors and f

    • Re:prefabs are great (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:26AM (#7479586) Homepage
      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:prefabs are great (Score:3, Interesting)

        by shakah ( 78118 )
        The first ever pre-fab homes were built by Thomas Edison for his own use.
        FWIW, he also built some concrete houses [flyingmoose.org] in New Jersey (US).
      • don't know who designed them, but I was watching some PBS show (don't recall the name, "This Old House" or "Yankee Carpenter" or something) and it was actually showing homes that were sold out of the Sears & Roebuck catalog around the turn of the century. Actually, turned out to be quite well-built homes with lots of gingerbread trim, etc.
      • I'm sure Edison was the first person in the world ever to do that... .. Since he was so busy running around proving AC power deadly by inventing small furry creature electrocution death, yay.

        He also invented the airplane and ball point pens, and created the first mars colony (which you don't hear much about because of that whole "space goat ate it" scandal, which he invented FOX News to cover up).

        Yeah, I never tire about hearing all the things Edison single handedly invented. :-)
  • And get your spiel ready for when the 11 o'clock news is there asking what it sounded like.
    • Yeah, except they are talking about pre-fabs, not modulars.

    • There's a reason mobile home parks are known as "Tornado Magnets".

      Have an insurance agent tell you about insurance options/price difference between modular and stick built homes.

      Modular homes seem to have straighter lines, but they are made from thinner lumber. Where a stick built home is made from 2-by somethings, modular homes are made from 3/4 by somethings. Joinery is neater in modular construction, but materials are much thinner. One of the main interests in modular construction is weight of the f

  • You get what you pay for ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by altp ( 108775 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:00AM (#7479485)
    pre-fabs are cheaper than a 'properly' built home but offer a way for someone with a limited budget to have something of their own.

    I purchased one back in may (2003) and over all have been very happy with it. All of the problems that I have had have been from installation of the home and not construction of it in the factory.

    Its solid, roomie and costs as much as renting an apartment but without the landlord hassels.

    • I agree. We also purchased a "modular home" in May. It was finished in three weeks from the factory, but took 4+ weeks to set up on site because the dealer (not the builder) had different timelines. I think it is important to not only check out your builder, but also the dealer, as the dealer is who you will be talking to.

      We got a home built by IC Creative [iccreativehomes.com] from their Penticton, BC plant. (They also operate in the States.) We have been very happy with what we got.

  • I'm sorry, a prefab home may be cheaper, but you cannot put a price on work done by true craftsmen. There's nothing like a nice house with done by hand trim and bricks that have each been touched by someone's hands. Of course, if you don't know any real craftsmen and cannot do it yourself, then a prefab is probably a safer bet. A factory built house that's true is better than a hand built one thats crooked.
    • Wait what? Are you suggesting robots built pre-fab homes? I happen to know a local contractor who bids prices using new wood on re-models. He proceeds to use as much of the old would as possible no matter what shape its in as long as it will hold until he is gone. Only to pockect the difference in money of new wood. That's real craftmanship!

    • Ah, but the average building contractor isn't a craftsman.

      • Precisely. About ten years ago when I was finishing grad school, I spent a summer managing contracts and working as an assistant carpenter in the process of building a custom house for my father.
        We hired a carpenter with many years of experience and he was fully qualified, knew all the other tradesmen on the site and all of the inspectors on a first name basis. So, this was a real pro by the standards of the profession. But that's the clincher right there, the standards of the building trades are as lo
    • You cannot put a price on a craftsman's work -- but such people are in short supply these days.

      Try to find a skilled brick or stonemason, or a carpenter capable of building a staircase like they did 100 years ago. If you'll find any, they'll either be semi-retired or have a multi-year backlog of work.
      • My father is a contractor and he always told me about a local church that involved custom plaster work. He said the people working on it were 75 year olds because nobody younger knew how to do it by hand anymore, since everything now comes pre-molded.
        • Plasterwork is a great example.

          Another lost art is metalwork. Our local rail station needed a new copper dome... The nearest available tradesman was in Italy (the station is in New York) they had to wait 6 months to the Italian to come over and do the work, and I believe that he was in his early 60's.

          The Navy is in a similar situation. There are approximately 50 people who can safely perform a specialized kind of hull welding that is needed to assemble the bows of submarines. They actually extend submarin
    • In some parts of the country, you have to go to the modular home factory to find the best craftsmen.

      Why's that? Because the factories have their pick of employees. Why's that? Because the factories have the best tools, are air-conditioned in the summer, heated in the winter, and provide a stack of straight, level, and plumb 2x4's to work with. Work is consistent, and things happen on schedule. Then they offer bennnies, 401k, etc.

      There also tends to be an older workforce in the factories - maybe becau

  • Consider how they're built (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hanzie ( 16075 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:01AM (#7479495)
    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.

    • Re:Consider how they're built (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hanzie ( 16075 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:36AM (#7479632)
      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.

      • I've heard of contractors doing the same thing with insulation. and the owners wonder why their utility bill is so high...

        • Don't forget contractors who get parts delivered that they don't know how to install properly. I've lived in a recently remodeled house for the past two years, and I'm still reworking problems in the electrical system as I find them. They're not code violation problems (so far), but rather boneheaded things like recessed lights where they assembled and installed ALL the parts delivered for the kit, including the ones that were supposed to be ommitted for this type of install. Then there are the switches

          • A friend of mine used to inspect HVAC systems at construction sites and he'd find all sort of things the 'quality union workers' would totally mess up, such as putting fans in backwards.

    • Contractor: Get the job done for the least amount of cash acceptable

      Another pitfall I've heard occasionally is that contractors and the new home owner may have a falling out about the quality of the "product", so to speak. As a result, the contractor simply stops working. The home never gets finished, and the potential owner is stuck with a ruin that, being half complete (or half incomplete, if you're a pessimist) degrades nicely over time, esp. in fall and winter.

      Yes, the usually go to court, and yes
      • Lol, this is why you research your builder. All you have to do is contact their previous buyers (you can get a list of homes built from the permit office), and look at their constrution in progress to get an idea (if you don't know what to look for, ask someone for help). If you think you can get a prefab up and built in a few days you obviously have never had one built, seen one built, or compared to a true on site built home. Most premanufactured homes simply have the frame built with the necessary holes
    • He's also a big fan of steel framed houses, since they're strong and easy to put up. And don't burn.

      Oh yes they do -- not like you might think, but in fact a steel structure is more prone to collape in fire than a wood one. Steel will soften and fail at lower temperatures than it takes for wood to ignite. So steel structures can be very dangerous indeed when it comes to fire.

      • Re:Fire and steel... (Score:3, Informative)

        by N3Bruce ( 154308 )
        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 protecte

    • Steel buildings (Score:3, Informative)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 )

      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.

      There are some major advantages of steel studs. Yes, the punchouts make it very easy to fish lines through, as you punch a little circle out, add a grommit, and you pa

    • "since they dont burn"... yes, but steel does melt, quite easily... in fact, steel in a fire fails more easily than a properly done wood framed home, because the outside of wood burns until the exterior fuel is spent, but there might still be enough unburned wood on the inside to hold the building up, unlike steel...

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:18AM (#7479558)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I recently watched Armstrong Homes [armstrong-homes.com] do a good deal of the work on a Habitat for Humanity house in about 5 days, as a demo for some big corporate customers (and a huge tax writeoff ;). They brought in modular walls with siding and windows already installed, put them in place, put the trusses on top, and had the home framed, roofed and sided in a week. While the rest of the home does take a while (they use "conventional" contractors, or, in our case, volunteers for stuff like electrical, plumbing, heating an

    • Big deal, I can take a conventional home to roofed and sided in a week if I really wanted to. I worked in construction for a while. The limit is the ability to get people who know what they are doing all togather, as a normal crew is foremand and second who know what they are doing and a laborer who is around becuase some jobs need 3 people, but most of the time it would be faster for that guy to sit in the truck. (Trust me, there are some real idiots out there) Put 4 guys who know what they are doing o

      • As you indicated, there is more to building a house than framing, roofing, and siding. Most stick-built houses around here seem to go up and are closed in pretty quick, then seem to take months to complete. For that matter, some owner done additions around here have been under construction for 5 years or more. As you know, there is a lot of interior work that needs to be done to make that shell into a house ready to move into.

        The interior part is where a Modular can be a real time-saver. I visited a modula

  • Don't forget! (Score:4, Funny)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:32AM (#7479611) Homepage Journal
    Don't forget to take the wheels off. Trust me, you do NOT want your house being repossessed.

    Seriously, I know a few people with prefabs (off site construction, or some other PC phrase exists) and they seem okay. Watching the home shows, it seems they can do amazing things these days. While you can't get a true 'custom' home (also unlikely as most contractors only want to build from one set of cookie cutter prints) there is enough variability in modules that if you find a large manufacturer, you're unlikely not to be satisfied.

    There, think that second paragraph might be serious enough to avoid a downmod as a 'troll' for what is really a 'funny', 'insightful', and 'intelligent' joke in the first.

  • I actually sell them. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mike_lynn ( 463952 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:32AM (#7479613)
    Check with the manufacturer, ask for details on how it's constructed. They've been required since the mid-80s to build them to at least HUD code and since they're generally shipped down the road in pieces, each piece is usually sturdier than many "stick-built" homes (in order to survive the trip).

    Even with these requirements, there's still a _very_ wide range of construction quality, both exterior and interior. Shop around, walk through a few lots physically. Beware, we work on commission. Don't seem too interested or you may find yourself sitting at a table with a pen :D Also, prices vary from dealer to dealer (even with the same manufacturer), so you may be able to drive an extra hour or two and save yourself a few thousand bucks.

    As for the houses themselves, there are several different types (manufactured, modular, etc.) each with their own features and price ranges. I sell manufactured homes. They have their own shipping frame built into the bottom of the house. The structural benefits make construction less expensive for the manufacturer, but as a result they're built less like a stick-built home than a modular is (where rooms are preconstructed, minus foundation, and shipped to the site). Also, much of the construction contains OSB (oriented strand board) which can cause problems for severe asthmatics due to possible low-level formaldehyde release from the bonding adhesives. Most modern homes actually use this material in one place or another, it's just more prevalent in a manufactured home. If you're worried, look for adequate ventilation in the construction. As a side note, I've worked 8 hours a day (sometimes more), 5 days a week in one (for an office) for a few years and feel fine.

    I actually got into the business when my wife and I moved and were looking for a new home. We considered a manufactured home, but eventually settled for stick-built. Here's why: the house was already built, all we had to do was pay a price. With paperwork, site-work and build-time, a manufactured home can go up in as short as 2 months. This is _extremely_ fast in comparison to constructing a stick-built home, plus you have a considerable amount of 'customization' available (at roughly half the cost per square foot). However, it _is_ a construction site and will probably end up being a construction loan. Be prepared for it to take time and you'll need to be in constant contact with your salesman and bank.

    As for the prior poster who wrote: "If the soil is clay or too rocky, you could spend as much as 50-75k putting in a septic system!", I can honestly say I've _never_ seen a system cost that much. Maybe it's just where we live, but high end systems here run just under $20k, while the average is $12k. You will need to be sure of: Electrical access, septic rated for the house you order, site-work for the foundation, garage (?), access for getting the pieces of house on-site, etc. There are a lot of costs that aren't included in the house, _make sure you get it all up front before you sign_.

    All said and done, manufactured homes are a great way to go for a semi-customizable home at about half the cost of building your own. You'll probably be limited to a single floor (2 story homes are still a rarity, but they exist), but we've got some that are in excess of 2700 sqft. I really like the product and may end up living in one at some point in the future. Good luck in your research.

  • Hither and yon (Score:5, Funny)

    by breon.halling ( 235909 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @12:54AM (#7479704)
    "...researched hither and yon and..."

    Damned kids these days! Doesn't any one say "thither" anymore? ;)

  • Tax laws in the U.S. say that you can build a home, live in it for 2 years, and sell it. You keep 100% of the profit (I think it requires rolling it into another home). The labor cost is generally 40% of the total, leaving a nice incentive.

    There are people who take advantage of this by building and living in homes, one after another. They generally do this every two or three years, and earn a tidy profit each time.

    These homes generally are extremely well built since the contractor is living there. The

  • I recommend Real Estate School (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hanzie ( 16075 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @01:10AM (#7479768)
    Suggestion: go to real estate school and get your real estate license.

    It's kind of like a law degree. You don't have to be a practicing lawyer for it to help.

    A real estate license will teach you the great unknowns about the laws and pitfalls of the business.

    Unlike law, the real estate license takes about a month (around here, at least) and is subsidized by the real estate brokerage firms. They don't care to make money by tuition, they just charge enough to make sure that the prospective students are serious, not timewasters.

    Around here it's $500 dollars, and that more than covers the savings you'll make on every house you buy or sell. It's a month, but the hours are extremely flexible at most of the schools, and your real savings will probably be closer to $3-5000 on each house you buy. More than enough to pay back your time invested.

    Earning a real estate license will also let you forgo the need to hire your own agent. You'll be able to split the fee with the selling agent, and pocket about 3%. Yes, it's legal in most, if not all places, to act as your own agent when purchasing on your own, but there are some thing you really need to know. Accordingly, this paragraph starts with the word "Earning" rather than "Having"

    Also, there are a great many people who don't like realators for various reasons, and prefer to keep the comissions for themselves. Hence "For Sale by Owner". It is very helpful to know what you're doing in this circumstance because both of you might very well be clueless to the laws and ordinances and local "gotcha's".

    Another worry is that "For Sale by Owner" might be because the current owner is attempting something that no realator would risk their license by being a party to.

    Caveat emptor. Knowlege can keep you from getting burned.

    Good luck.
  • Do yourself a favor. Before you make your decision, go take a drive through a trailer park, and take a good long look at one their that is about 30 years old. Then, go find a 30 year old real house (or as the people who sell trailers like to call them, "stick-built home.") A trailer is still a trailer, even if it is a quintuple-wide instead of a normal double-wide, and even if they call it a "pre-fabricated home," or "manufactured home," or "modular home," or whatever new name they come up with next to t
    • now adays pre-fab homes aren't neccessarily made from multiple trailers, there are companies who build actual house sections (walls, floors, stairs, etc.), all pre drywalled, wired and piped. No I don't live in one or build them, but just a little Discovery channel (and the like) and building experience does go a long way.

    • Re:30 Years Later (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Spock the Baptist ( 455355 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @03:53AM (#7480260) Journal
      Check out this website...

      http://www.heritagebuildings.com/homes/home_more _i nfo.htm

      Trailer Park my foot.

      I'll never even consider a 'stick built' house. All of my family and friends have horror stories about contractors, etc.. To use one of my Dad's very favorite sayings 'If you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself.'

      • Re:30 Years Later (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by glenstar ( 569572 )
        Um... check out step 20. here [heritagebuildings.com].

        I wonder if they provide the studs, or if you have to go to your local gay bar. Either way, I'll stick to my convential house.

    • They way "trailers" were made 30 years ago is significantly different from what a modern "pre-fab" or "modular" home can be. We just traded our 27 year old trailer for a brand new modular home. There is a world of difference. We have 9-foot ceilings, drywall with rounded corners throughout, laminate floors. You would never know you were not in a "normal" house.
  • ...is if a home should be unique, or something coming out of an assembly line. Also, what intrinsic compromises must be made if the building is shipped to site? Weight, dimensions, interconnections must all be considered.

    Personally, I like some mass to a house, and organic free-flowing nature. I know there are benefits to assembly-line construction, but... there are also things to be said for something unique. Cost will always go to the assembly line, though.
    • well..

      i was building(with family/relatives) a cottage(on the islands on the coast of finland) from that was essentially a 'pre made' package. a basic kitchen+some room for sleeping+sauna type of thing.

      though what constitutes as premade here is that it came in a package, in pre-cut building timber(or log, i'm kind of lost what's the proper english word) that was numbered so that you knew which part went where. yet the thing is as 'assembly line' as anything(nothing is shipped fully constructed, and plain b

  • Steel Buildings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @02:47AM (#7480084) Homepage
    Look into steel building manufacturers and contractors. Many times, these people offer various packages to suit your needs (outside and inside details). Yours may be "funky" (ie, a house instead of a business or meeting hall), but they should be able to work with you to get what you want. Furthermore, such buildings can be *very* cheap (a place here in the Phoenix area is offering a 80 x 150 foot building for $50,000 - sure, that is probably without any "extras" - but still damn cheap for the sq footage).
    • There are some issues with steel that anyone ought to be aware of before buying:
      1. Steel is an excellent conductor of heat, and studs and rafters will cause lots of "thermal bridging" between the indoors and out. This requires a substantial amount more insulation to fix than you'd need for conventional construction. (Your contractor wouldn't give a crap about this because they are not going to be paying the heating/cooling bill.)
      2. You can't just let any old contractor do your wiring. Holes through steel studs
      • 1. Steel is used for framing only. I'd challenge your assertion that you'd need some inordinate amount more insulation.. 2. You can easily let a regular electrical contractor do the wiring, the framing members are designed to pass the wire through pre-stamped holes. Most steel framing systems are just about big erector sets. Look at Excalibur Steel [excalibursteel.com] as an example. It's a big, customizable, kit.
      • I would say the heat issue could be dealt with pretty easily by using lots of spray foam insulation and/or "dead air" gaps between the exterior and interior walls (with plenty of ventilation). You would only cool the interior structure, not the entire steel shell (which would be expensive, as you note).

        Wiring is also a concern as well, you wouldn't just run regular cable everywhere - you would want the special grommets as you propose, or PVC/steel conduit piping.

        Acoustic insulation should not be a problem -

  • I have done a lot of research on this question, but have no practical experience.

    That being said, there are two points nobody's brought up yet.

    First, if you want to live in a beautiful place, with design you'll enjoy living with, a stick-built house may be the only way to do it. A good architect will design a house for you that's designed to fit you, your needs and the site like hand in glove. That kind of expertise costs money, and blows up costs everywhere, but if you want something great, that will b
  • Pay particular attention to how the foundation is adapted to the house and how much space (height) is used compared to a traditional house. If a basement is planned, then be sure to look into heating the basement as some of the smaller prefab houses are not designed with a basement in mind.

    No experience myself but relatives in the country went the prefab route.

  • Prefabricated snacks (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cranx ( 456394 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @04:48AM (#7480368)
    The slashdot crowd is probably far more knowledgable about prefabricated cakes and pies than prefabricated homes.

  • Forget prefab.. buy a rehab (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course I am prejudiced about this topic because I recently bought a brick rowhome in an urban area (Baltimore). I have a brand new house that sits between four 100 year old stacks of brick. I don't think you can buy a more solid home, and you get to contribute to urban revival in the process. If you want cheap, there are plenty of old stacks of brick just waiting for some work.
  • the instructions, place bead of glue on wall A edge side wall A and B together, clamp. let dry for 24 to 48 hours.

    • No, they include a layout sheet only. They assume that if you know the garage wall is panel a-b-c-d-e, you can glue the splines in, and stand the walls without those instructions. (if you are the type that normaly doesn't read the insuctions you will find this refreshing, all the data you really need is on one page) Of course about half the time they flip the layout left to right, so you have to keep reminding yourself to look on the "east" side of the page for the west wall, and the "north" wall has to

  • Depreciation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phyy-nx ( 544808 ) <<aaronbrewster> <at> <hotmail.com>> on Saturday November 15, 2003 @01:00PM (#7481506) Homepage
    Now here is the big problem I saw in pre-fabs: they are more like cars than homes, especially if you put them in an already established village. They depreciate. My wife and I were very tempted by them, but one of the things that eventually turned us off was how insistent our salesman was that he could get us _out_ of it when were were done with it. That's a selling point? Are they so hard to get rid of? Yah, we ran. Maybe things have changed since then but its worth looking into.

    Now, if you are not going to move out from it, than yeah, maybe it could work out pretty good.

    • You're thinking of 'manufactured homes', aka trailers. The article is about modular homes, aka 'pre-fab' or 'factory-built' homes. They appreciate just as well as stick-built homes; when buyers are more educated they'll probably appreciate better, as they tend to be more structurally stable.
  • Manufactured (pre-fab) homes are discussed pretty often in misc.consumers.house -- most people who have them think the quality is as-good or better than stick built. The only 'gotcha' may be financing:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A 3 58 71-2003Sep19.html

    "...Fannie Mae, in response to a rising number of delinquencies and
    foreclosures, is making it tougher to get manufactured-home loans. The
    company now requires a 10 percent down payment for 30-year mortgages
    on such homes, plus a fee of 0.5 pe
  • Prefab homes appraise for a lower value, simply because they are prefab.
  • It's the difference between a product and a bespoke application. All the existing posters are talking about problems that arise in bespoke applications, and how the nirvana (a product) has solved these.

    Hope this helps.

  • don't fall into the engineer trap that a lot of /.ers are likely to fall in. You know "I'm going to build a 1000 year house so I'm going to use the strongest materials for my house." Most of the time those strong materials will rot out in 5 years, making your super strong good for only a few months. (before your doctor orders you to leave that mold infested death trap!) Weaker materials often have what it takes to last because they will let moisture out. (just keep the siding and roofing in good shape

  • Well, they didn't actually build it. It was put up by Satterwhite Log Homes [satterwhit...-homes.com] out of Loongview, TX. The crew was awesome. The house went up in 7.5 days, literally. All the log walls were the first day. Then we had 3 days of downtime whilst we received 7.5 inches of water (the first rain in nearly two months at that time). After that the remaining 6.5 days went fast as hell. Prior to the construction we dug out the basement and had the footing, stem walls, and 1/2 basement poured. Sidenote: get a decen
  • I live in an apartment so I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'll offer my opinion anyways.

    I see prefab homes vs. a custom built "conventional" home like Fast Food vs. Home cooked meal.

    Sure the fast food meal is faster, cheaper, and more or less "automated", but I'll take the home cooked (or chef prepared) meal anyday.

    Another analogy is the construction of a Ford vs. a Porsche. Ford is built on an assembly line by grease monkeys who's job it is to turn one bolt on each engine as it arrives in fron
  • A lot of people are suggesting that prefab homes are essentially "throw-aways" that won't last. I don't think this is the case, and there seems to be solid evidence against it.

    In the city of Savannah, GA many of the homes are known as "Sears homes", because they were prefab kits sold by the Sear Roebuck company about a century ago. Today, you can find plenty of those homes standing just fine, and built to last.

    My aunt has a Sears home that has survived fires, hurricanes, Saint Patrick's Day parties, et
  • A used modular home is good value - like a used car, sombody else has already paid much of the depreciation. Any local mobile home showroom should have some "trade-ins" to get rid of.

    A couple of other advantages: there's been time for the chemicals used in the construction to air out (some new homes have really unbreathable air), and last but by no means least the depreciated value should be used for the property tax calculations. It's not just the cost of a house that's important, but the running cost

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