The general impression on modular homes used to be that they were created with inferior workmanship, but since the industry has evolved over the past few decades, modular homes have become known increasingly not only for their affordability, but also for their superior construction quality. This is due to a few major factors: access to superior quality building materials, construction in a controlled environment, factory-quality inspections, and the need for each module to be so structurally sound that it can survive the trip over highways.
Superior Quality Building Materials
Anyone who thinks that modular construction is unsafe or shoddy clearly hasn’t heard that the new tallest building in the world, Sky City One, is set to be built from start to finish in just 90 days. How? They’re using modular building techniques.
At their core, regardless of the techniques used to build it, every house is made up of raw building materials. When those materials are of a lower quality, the whole structure suffers, but high quality materials are the foundation for a solid home.
Modular manufacturers hold an envious position when it comes to ordering building materials. They require so much lumber that they become the most important clients that lumber retailers have. As such, the retailers make sure that they keep the manufacturers happy by providing them with their highest quality materials.
With a small quantity of lumber, it is prohibitively expensive and can cause major delays to return less-than-optimal pieces and request new material. Since modular manufacturers buy in bulk, if any sub-par materials do get shipped, they can be returned before they threaten the structural integrity of your home.
Controlled Environment
Building indoors offers incredible advantages to modular manufacturers, not least of which is that no matter what the weather is like outside, construction on your home can continue. Bad weather can also damage your building materials, causing parts of your home that should not be exposed to the outdoors to weather prematurely.
The factory environment is also preferable to a build site because it can be kept locked up overnight. Budget overages and delays are frequently due to missing, stolen, or damaged building materials, particularly in more densely populated areas.
Quality Inspection
Since modular homes are constructed in a factory, they are subject to rule concerning factory manufacturing and therefore are thoroughly inspected at every step. The inspector is someone employed by the manufacturer whose whole job it is to make sure that quality standards are being upheld. These inspections are in addition to the third-party inspections done on every residential building, not as a replacement. There are no easements given to modular homes like there are to manufactured or mobile homes; they are subject to the same strict regulations that site-built homes must adhere to.
“These inspections are in addition to the third-party inspections done on every residential building, not as a replacement.”
Structural Integrity
As the final nail in the coffin to the argument that says that modular homes aren’t constructed soundly, consider that every separate module that is used to create your home has to travel over highways and back roads –sometimes for distances of hundreds of miles – to get to their final destination. This means they have to withstand high winds, constant vibration, extreme shifts in weight distribution due to turning and braking, and shaking from bumps in the road. Modular construction is so strong in fact, that FEMA says that modular homes hold up better against extreme weather than site-built homes.
