GREEN SOLUTIONS: THREE CHEERS FOR THE MODULAR
A NEW WAY FOR A HOME TO TAKE SHAPE
By Andrew Miller / Photos by Carter Photographics

Years ago, structures known as trailers appeared, and over the years, morphed into mobile homes. When the wheels came off, the modular home industry was born.

Today, custom homebuilders are beginning to embrace the concept of building a home in a controlled environment, namely a factory-sized shop space, and the systems-built home industry has found acceptance in the company of custom homes.

Consider the advantages of building a home under a factory roof. To fight the weather, a typical home is built from the outside in, hustling to get a roof over weather-sensitive materials as quickly as possible, but the green building goal of waste reduction is easily met by the systems builder.

There are four Grand County builders – DMJ General Contractors, Complete Construction, Distinguished Builders and Colorado Modular Homes – who work with three different systems-built manufacturers. All four offer custom homes; none have built the same systems-built design twice.

Nathan Peterson, owner of Colorado Modular Homes, points to a Cornell University study done in 1996 showing the average site-built home generates 4.4 pounds of waste per square foot; the modular home production process generates two pounds. His supplier, Genesis Homes of Berthoud, recycles everything from vinyl to drywall.

Factory delivery efficiency increases and worker travel time decreases, leading to a 69 percent reduction in pollution produced by construction related vehicles. Economy of scale makes it easier to recycle materials in a factory rather than on a remote building site.

Wardcraft Homes are certified under both Energy Star and Built Green™ Colorado programs. Wardcraft uses blownin Spider Fiber fiberglass insulation in their five-and-a-half-inch walls, which many consider superior to batting insulation because it fills gaps more effectively.

What are the cost savings of a systems-built home? All four local contractors believe owners will save money, pegging it in the 15 to 20 percent range compared to custom-built homes. Large-volume buying, a controlled construction environment and the lower cost of employees in the plant location save money, and that is passed on to the homebuyer.

Setting a final cost up-front is another advantage of systems building. You tell the company what you want and there aren’t any additions unless you add them. Speed of completion goes hand-in-hand with cost control.

Dennis Carpenter of DMJ Contractors completed a project in nine weeks for a woman who was injured in a car crash and needed a wheelchairaccessible home. From the first cocktail napkin sketches to turnkey in a year is a typical schedule according to local systems builders.

Manufacturers offer window options ranging from vinyl-clad doublehung to aluminum-clad wood casement windows. Huge temperature differentials in our local environment raise concerns with the long-term viability of vinyl-clad window systems, but aluminum-clad wood windows constitute a significant increase in price.

There are obvious design limitations with traditional modular structures. Most are about 28 feet wide, 60 feet long with low-pitched roofs and one-foot roof eves. “I’m not embarrassed by what we do, but we do whatever we can to hide the fact that it’s a systems-built home,” says Curt Taufen, owner of Distinguished Builders. Multiple stories, two-foot eaves, and even octagon shapes mask the factory origins of local systems-built custom homes and differentiate these structures from modular homes of old.

“I’ve had tax appraisers walk into one of our homes and say how did you do this?” said Dennis Carpenter of DMJ. One DMJ home has a large master bedroom suite that goes across three 12-footwide openings between side-by-side components, flowing from sleeping to sitting to master bath areas.

“What I tell people is, no matter what, when your home shows up it is pretty much an ugly square box. What matters is what we do after it gets there,” Peterson notes. “On one home in Grand Elk we added exposed trusses on the end and trusses on the entryway. Modular success doesn’t depend so much on the supplier; it matters what we add once we set it down.”

While most older modular homes have forced air heating, today’s models offer hot water options ranging from traditional baseboard to in-floor radiant heat. Hot water heat offers the advantages of individual room control and even heat distribution.

A systems-built home must withstand forces such as wind and snow loads, as well as the abuse of towing at 70 mph.

What else is in the future of factory-based home construction? Companies such as Bensonwood and Davis Frame, both of New Hampshire, are shipping shop-built homes in large wall, roof and floor sections; utilizing timber frame structures and structural insulated panels (SIP), Loveland, Colorado-based ICS-RM Company produces an octagon-shaped SIP building component for a hightech yurt-style building they call the Solargon.

Factory based home construction makes sense for the environment and the pocketbook. It not only offers quality in the final product, it also offers flexibility and creativity in design, resulting in a “dream home” for the buyer.


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