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Sun Rooms and Spaces If your modular home floor plan includes a solar space or sunroom, It is highly recommended to have it built on site using structural insulated panels and prefabricated trusses. Solar spaces require thermal mass to collect the sun's energy during the day. The most cost affective thermal mass is concrete used in the floor system of a solar space. Modulars Concrete Floors and Thermal Mass It is not cost affective to pout five inches of concrete on a modular home's floor system to provide the required thermal mass for passive solar heating. Passive solar heating spaces should never be constructed using modules due to thermal mass requirements. Garages If your modular home floor plan includes a factory constructed garage that is integrated in primary foot print of the home, it can be cost affective to have the factory build and supply the garage. If your garage is built onto the home, You will save money by having the garage constructed from prefabricated building panels and trusses. If you decide to use panelized construction you will need to order additional siding materials from the factory to maintain a congruent appearance to the exterior of the home. Dormers Modular home factories can supply both "A" and shed dormers with the purchase of your home. Your builder will need to do a price comparison on which way cost less to construct. Dormers are a very expensive cost for a modular home due to the cost to set and finish the dormers on site. Each time the crane picks a building component to put it in place is an easy grand of additional costs. Modular home factories often prep the roof opening for dormers and the builders construct the dormers on site after the home is set on the foundation. | ||
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Custom Design
Hybrid Modular Home Design
Reasons To Use Multiple Building Systems
Modular home factories can produce almost anything that can be constructed on site. However, some design elements will cost more being constructed in a factory or can not be built in the factory at all. If you are building a modular home which requires hybrid construction you will add costs to the price of the home which include potential engineering and permit fees.
Primary examples where it would be more cost affective to use hybrid construction include: complicated roof systems, large spaces with clear spans; garages; sun spaces and rooms ; custom dormers and areas where slab on grade construction is part of the modular home's floor plan.
Complicated Roof Systems
Hip Roofs
The most cost affective roof system for a modular home or a site built home is a straight gable roof. A gable roof has two sloped planes and a ridge. If your modular home design requires hip roofs and reverse gables to give the home added dimension, using a hybrid design could save you hundreds to thousands of dollars in material, labor and crane costs.
Additional Costs for Manufacturer Supplied Hip Roofs
Material Costs - The additional materials a factory will supply when you build a hip roof include building panels, microlam or lam beam and ship loose shingles. Lam beam cost more than dimensional lumber used to construct either rafters or prefabricated trusses. The price for additional materials alone can add six thousand dollars for a simple hip roof.
The building panels will need to be constructed at the factory which could lead to additional transportation costs to the price of the home. A hip roof requires additional shingles and increased building material wastes.
Set Costs - A hip roof on a modular home adds labor cost to the set price. The set crew will need to install the factory supplied lam beams on each hip and attach it to the prefabricated roof system. All of the building panels will need to be lifted, put in place, attached to the roof system and shingled in by the set crew. Set crews often charge by the pick which means lifting both building components and materials into place. A hip roof on a modular home requires multiple picks: lam beams; building panels and shingles. Each pick adds to the price of the home.
Crane Costs - Every additional hour required to pick and place building components and materials into place will add additional time to your crane charges. Crane costs usually start at around four hundred dollars an hour. If a hip roof requires four hours of crane time, you can expect to pay an additional sixteen hundred dollars just for the crane alone.
Saving on the Price of Modular Home Hip Roof
Comparing the price of building your home's hip roof on site using prefabricated trusses or using the factories system will need to be completed by your builder. Depending on the number of modules required to be covered by the roof system, a site built roof could save you thousands of dollars on the price of your home.
Savings at a Risk - One thing to consider if your complicated roof system is installed on site by others is the potential weather problems. If your home is set on the foundation, you will need to have the roof installed and shingled in immediately. If your roofing crew does not show up the day after the set and it rains, you will have to contend with water damage to your home.
Open Clear Spanned Spaces
When building a modular home, the more the factory does the better, however when building rooms with large open spaces attached to a the home, this is not always the case. An example would be the construction of a church sanctuary attached to the office and class room of the church. The cost for empty modules will be much higher than a site constructed sanctuary. Some of the building systems I recommend for a sanctuary include light steel construction, structural insulated panels and even the tent structures.
The two other elements to building a sanctuary on site include the floor and the height of the ceiling. Most sanctuaries require taller ceilings and slopped flors. Modular home factories can construct sloped floors at a high cost to the church. In addition is the height of the ceiling in the sanctuary. The height of the ceiling will be limited compared to using a prefabricated truss roof system.
Slab on Grade Areas
If your floor plan calls for an area with slab on grade construction is used, using modular home construction loses financial benefits. Slab on grade construction would require the factory to install a temporary floor system requiring removal after the modules are set. using structural insulated panels to construct the entire building shell would provide a super energy efficient and comfortable building shell.