Modular homes are houses built in a factory and are later assembled at the building site. These homes look just like the homes one would see in a housing catalogue.When choosing a home the builders will visit the designated building site/ location to determine whether or not a plan would be suitable for that particular lot. Once a plan has been chosen and the home has been built the home is then transported to a building site and is placed on a conventional foundation and assembled. After that the construction is completed. The steps required to complete the home include: HVAC hookup, connections to utilities, construction of suitable foundation and most importantly finishing the exterior and interior. Now the home is 100% move-in ready.
The difference between the two is that a home constructed sitetakes much longer to build, a foundation must be laid before construction can begin and construction can be delayed due to bad weather conditions or waiting on materials to arrive on site. On the other handwhile your foundation is being laid, a modular home is built inside a factory where weather is never an issue and all materials needed for construction are readily available. Once completed the home is then transported, assembled and completed. In the end they both look the same, in fact there is no visible difference between the two.
No modular homes are not substandardwhen it comes to quality. In fact they are better than site constructed homes because of the weather conditions, the material used to make them and the supervision given during the time of construction. With any traditional home the weather conditions play a huge role during construction. Workers get the ideal environment and weather inside the factory to build Modular homes and that means better quality homes in less time.
Another reason for modular homes being of quality is due to the QA checks preformed during construction. In the factory there are different assemblies and the modular home is built in steps. At every step there is a licensed engineer or inspector who inspects the quality of each and every part of the home, from a screw to the connections and at the end a local building inspector performs a final inspection. You cannot expect this type of QA from a site constructed home.
Modular homes are built 4 times faster than site constructed homes. It takes 3 months at most to build a modular home but on the other hand it takes almost 10-12 months to build a site built home. The reason behind such a quick process is that everything needed to build a modular home is already at the factory, secondly, in a factory different things are done on different assemblies which means multiple parts of the home can be constructed at one time. At the end all the huge parts are joined together and a big structure of the home is made. Butwith site constructed homes this cannot be done. Everything needs to be done one step at a time which takes much longer.
No there are no such differences in the permits of both types of homes. It might be a little easier and less costly to get the permit for a modular house because it is inspected at every step during the manufacturing process in the factory while site built homes require special inspectors to inspect them in the end.
