HOW TO FIND A MODULAR HOME BUILDER
We have recently teamed up with The Modular Builder Network for in order to better serve our customers. They can be found at http://www.modularbuildernet.com. They supply all of our customers with free quotes for all of our models. If you would like a free quote or more information, you can contact them here:
1. Fortunately modular building has become more commonplace today. There are enough manufactures to select from in many parts of the country and that are willing to manufacture the custom-“ middle end” to “higher end” modular home. Modular homes can be shipped 300 to 500 miles to a site so much of the country can be covered.
2. Remember most factories sell direct to Builder/Dealers not to the general public, so it may be irrelevant to select a factory at the early stage of your project.
3. Modular factories can vary in capabilities, some able to do more complex homes others not. Some factories will include more finishes and fixture in the assembly and others not. Naturally the price can vary from one manufacturer to the other (price charged to Builder/Dealer) although the price difference may not be as much as you may think.
4. Some factories specialize in the higher end modular homes including garages, cupolas, porches etc. In addition they will include more interior finish such as tile, hardwood floors, even carpet, These extra may not always make the most sense in every case from an economic sense or a logistical sense. These options offered could change from time to time, check factory policy it does and can change.
5. The biggest issue in selecting a factory may be the backlog of orders. Traditionally once a factory has been given an order (deposit received by the Builder/Dealer and “shopdrawings” approved) it could take 30 to 60 days for the modules to be completed and shipped. Even though the physical house is built in only 5 days, it takes lead-time to receive all the materials and finishes prior to a being put on the assembly line slot. Check carefully before arriving at a decision for selecting a factory, in a busy housing market, or sometimes in the spring, some factories could have backlogs out 4 to 6 months. This could delay your project and defeat the timesavings advantages of modular building.
1. To total price to build your home, not including your land cost, can never be determined immediately. All homes get plugged into the earth some how and the region of the country you build in can vary the cost of the parts of the home that are not built in the factory.
2. To make a fair evaluation of what a modular home may cost, one should break the costs down into the following categories and understand them as well.
a. Wholesale Price: This is the price the Builder/Dealer pays the factory, this can vary from, in general, from * $50 - $60 per square foot, (depending on the level of finish & fixtures specified & included by the factory and the complexity of the architecture) This number can include taxes and shipping of the modules, which is rather negligible, relative to the total cost of your building, in most cases * prices as of 2005
b. Retail Price: This is the factory cost, plus the Builder/Dealers markup. The Builder/Dealers mark up, can vary from 10%, 15% or even 20% in general, this then is added to the wholesale price. This is not the total price of your home however.
c. Price from the “Sill Plate Up”: This is the total price of the home not including foundation down, but the complete building both what is built in the factory and what needs to be installed and completed on site by the Builder/Dealer. This would be every thing in the picture and drawings we provide, see diagram. We are looking for the Builder/ Dealers Franchises to hopefully market our homes on this basis so to make evaluating pricing less difficult for the consumer.
d. Turnkey Price: This is the total price, excluding land. This is the bottom line the Builder/Dealer/Contractor will charge, including his profit, for the complete building, including site work, which includes site clearing, excavating, foundation, sewer/septic, electrical service, driveways and walkways, decks, up to finish grading and seeding. This should be your most important number, everything necessary to receive your “Certificate of Occupancy”, everything complete and ready to move in. Here is hence the term “Turn-Key”. This price unfortunately can a will take time to determine by your Builder/Dealer with any accuracy. The Builder/Dealer must have seen your property and have access to proposed site plan, in addition to all drawings and specifications others and we may provide.
Pricing a modular built home may never be as simple to determine as the pricing of a car, because every site and region of the country is unique, therefore level of construction difficulty relative to the land built on and cost of labor for the elements of a home not built in the factory, can be big variables. It is important to consider a competitive bid process when selecting a Builder/Dealer this can yield potentially a bigger savings than the decision to use modular building methods verses conventional building in the first place. In general there can be cost savings by building with modular building systems over conventional methods of construction. Paradoxically some of the biggest savings are with bigger houses in the more expensive regions of the country.
1. Zoning is a necessary collection of local town and or county regulations to limit the size and shape of buildings so as to not make buildings look overdeveloped for the particular neighborhoods designated.
2. Before you can check your zoning regulations however, you should selected a building lot and before you can determine your building area with any accuracy, you should have a, drawn to scale, survey or plot plan.
3. Before selecting a home design that will fit your lot you must determine the building envelope. If you have a small lot, some of our designs may not fit.
4. Typically the common regulations of concern are as follows. What are your (See attached sample)
a. Front yard setbacks
b. Side yard setbacks
c. Rear yard setbacks
d. Building coverage*
e. Building height
These regulations are typical in many areas country, so find out what zone
District you are in and check the zoning ordinance or tables that may be attached. Today many zoning regulations are now on-line.
5. Other more obscure regulations limiting development besides the ones mentioned are also regulations determining setbacks from wetlands, rivers, streams, wells or other environmentally sensitive areas, in addition to this, site coverage beyond just the coverage of the building foot print but the additional coverage of driveways, sidewalks, patios, decks porch roofs, overhangs etc. Read the fine print carefully in your local zoning ordinance. You may need to seek the services of a surveyor, civil engineer or architect in the more highly regulated areas of the country to determine you’re permitted building area. Do this before committing to buy plans.
1. We generally leave this process to the builder/dealer providing the documentation is in order i.e. architectural plans, shop drawings, site plan, the Builder/Dealer/Contractor provides proper insurance and discloses the contract price to the town officials. And a permit can be obtained.
2. You as the owner can also obtain a building permit in most cases also
But you would need to go through most of the same steps the builder must go through.
3. Additional supplemental services by other professions may be required before building permits can be obtained depending on your soil conditions and slopes to your site etc. The foundation drawings may need to be revised to account for grade configurations and adequate design for soil bearing. A civil/structural engineer or in some cases an architect can help revise the drawings for this. In addition most jurisdictions require a site plan prepared by these same professionals showing where the proposed building is located on the site and other required information necessary to allow for a permit.
4. Modular building has additional advantages in so far as professional oversight and checks and balances. Most State laws require modular manufacturer to have a third party engineer review the shop drawings for all the modular components to your project. This third party review and inspection shows up as read stamp on the shop drawings the factory provides the contractor and customer. Our drawings show the basic design intent and outlines the other elements the builder must provided to complete the building. In many cases the builder, owner & building official should have the drawings reviewed and if necessary modified by a local licensed design professional for any modifications to specific local codes governing the snow loads, wind loads, frost line distant etc. that impact your design.
5. A shop drawing is prepared by the selected factory, in many cases should accompany the other drawings before a building permit is granted. So this does compels the owner to have the Builder/Dealer/General Contractor selected prior to obtaining permits.
1. They are necessary drawings, prepared by the selected modular factory and must be prepare before
The project can be built. They are basically extractions or copies of our drawings showing only the portions of the building the factory provides the Builder/Dealer. They may also include specific details of how certain elements of the building is manufactured specific to the factory. The design intent of our drawings should be followed however.
2. Shop Drawings often require a review and approval by the Builder/Dealer and owner before put on line for manufacture. Make sure they match the original design.
3. We often “up load” via email our drawings directly to the factory to minimize the redrawing for custom projects. Contact us for this addition service if you would like. There would be a small charge if this were required.
Building a new home can be an exciting and rewarding experience but it can be stressful, regardless of whether it is built “modular” or conventionally “stick”. There are many layers to the building process and everything needs to go right to make the experience rewarding.
Building a home, may be not for everyone however building with modular does streamline the process, reduces the risk and aggravation that come with building. Chasing down contractors, subcontractors and the time delays that go with it, along with weather delays can make for a negative experiences that come with building your own home.
Modular building minimizes this some, because so much of your home is built in a factory. A single point of manufacture, where most of the materials and finish come to be assembled. The home is more complete than any other building technology by far. The home is said to be 80% complete in many cases, this from the sill plate up. This makes the balance of the work less overwhelming. It worked for me. Maybe with this in mind people that would not ordinarly build a home may consider building one usining modular building methods.
By default the home is stronger than other building methods simply because the product must be designed to withstand the rigors of shipping. The many redundant framing systems give for a much stronger house. We have designed modular homes to withstand 120 miles per hour wind zones.
The barriers to growth in this industry have not been the technology as much as its been the process. It may only take 5 days to actually build the home in the factory but in the case of a custom modular home, it could take 5 months to process the customer. From conceptual design, to zoning compliance, to engineering, pricing, bidding, contracts permits, etc these are just of some of the many steps to building a new home. We are committed to streamline this process.
By making the modular product attractive adds value to your property. By expanding our design selection and offering as many sizes and styles of architecture, for every taste and budget, can save the arduous time and expense in creating a custom design.
The modular industry grew out of the trailer home industry and design was not as important on such simple buildings. The modular factories, at a loss paid for the design development, in house, as required for each product. This expense was only recovered at the back end once the modules were built. As the industry grew, for the most part this policy was maintained. Modular manufactures in some cases began charging nominal, up front, design and engineering fee, passed on through the Builder/Dealer. This still was a loss for the modular manufacturer until the boxes were completed and paid for. Because design was avaviable nearly for free, builders and customers opted this approach, this unfortunately kept the architectural design community out of modular building design because there was no way an architect could be compensated for the design development required for a new product, sometimes taking several months. The modular manufacturers refused to invest in well paid architectural talent which was an upfront cost they feared could not be recovered, as a consequence modular building design suffered, and modular homes received the stigma of boring, ugly architecture.
We as a firm tried to forge ahead, some of our past customer recognized the lack of design quality verses, construction quality and hired us to design custom modular homes we being using trained licenced proffesional architects. For this the design void was filled and both the customer and us were able to overcome this barrier. After almost 20 years, we now have a collection of homes that people are attracted to.
We realize the great propensity for the consumer to personalize their homes and request unique solutions to there needs. At the moment are design collection can’t cover every size and style request but as the collection expands we hope to attract more interest in satisfying the customers requirements.
Modular industrialized housing is here to stay. Designing attractive, affordable industrilzed housing is the future, we believe. As this industry moves forward, design will be the driver, any one can build boxes, it is how those boxes are positioned, laid out, stylized and detailed that makes housing into architecture. Design will be the differentiator in this industry soon, as are with other industries such as fashion, automotive and many other consumer products are. We hope that the better Builder/Dealer/Contractor/Developers offer more user friendly pricing based on our collection from the “Sill Plate Up”
Terms of Sale:
All home plans sold through this web site are copyright protected, Reproduction of these home plans in whole or in part, including any direct copying and or preparation of derivative works thereof, for any reason, without the prior written permission of Douglas Cutler Architect is strictly prohibited, The purchase of a set of home plans in no way transfers any copyright or ownership interest in it to the buyer except for a limited license to use that set of home plans for the construction of one dwelling unit. The purchase of additional sets of that home plan at a reduced price from the original set or as a part of a multiple set package does not entitle the buyer with a license to construct more than one dwelling unit.
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About Reverse Prints:
You can build your house in a reverse fashion and order plans accordingly however we recommend a copy of right reading plans because all notes, titles, dimensions, etc will read backwards on reversed printed plans.
Our Refund Policy:
We produce and ship plans in response to individual, orders we cannot honor requests for refunds and at the same time adequately protect our copyright interests.
Modular Design:
Our plans are designed and formatted to general “modular building systems” construction methods now commonly used by many modular home manufacturers. Construction capabilities and shipping size can vary from one manufacture to the next and as such, not all modular manufacturers may be willing or able to manufacture all the homes in the Cutler Series collection or all the construction components suggested on the documents. It may be necessary to seek other more capable manufacturers out side of your imeadate trade area for fabrication. Our design collection shows the design intent only; supplemental drawings may be required such as Shop Drawings, Foundation Drawings, prepared by others. Modular building plans can be converted so to be constructed by conventional building methods if necessary. Seek professional services for review and modifications to plans as may be required.
For all parties that would like to reserve an order for a model not fully executed as construction drawing click here____
Note give us approximately 90 days to finalize plans. Once complete we will contact you to confirm if you are still interested in plans for purchase.
