Modular homes - is quality an issue?

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
People seem to get held up on the word "modular" and confuse it with a mobile home. That's not what they are at all. If you walked through my parents home you would never know that it was built in a factory and brought in on a flatbed truck.

It's a 2000 sq/ft ranch with a full basement with 9' walls. It's a BIG ranch home. My Dad bricked up the entire exterior and added on a 1500 sq/ft garage to it. It's a nice home. They contracted out most of the flooring and put in their own tile and hardwood. My Dad and I did most of the basement/foundation ourselves.

It's a much nicer place than most stick builds you find. Houses built today are disposable. You buy them new, live in them for 5-10 years and then dump them. They are built as cheap and fast as possible. Just because they were built on location doesn't mean any more attention to detail or quality was put into them than one put together in a warehouse.

Yeah modular homes are so much different then mobile homes, with mobile homes you get to keep the wheels.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

tag

 

[funboy6942]

Originally posted by: Kaido
Wow, check out this modular house:

http://www.altamonthomes.com/

I wouldn't complain...

Damn, they have some nice homes there as well.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Myth Busted!!!

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I don't have a very good impression of them. They seem to be marginally better than mobile homes. I certainly wouldn't buy one.

humm, have you ever been in one? lets see i have 2X6 framing, R40 insulation. 1/4 drywall, sits on a concrete foundation. its just as good quality as a cookie cutter home but about 100K cheaper.

QFT my best friend got one, and at the time i considered it inferior to my block home built in 1955. it was a step up for him, since he was a trailer dweller at the time. he now has a killer house with all that blah-blah jazz in it, 2600 sq ft and paid about the same i paid for mine at 1500 sq ft. i think its the wall construction and the concrete foundation that make the difference, as well as he had drywall installed instead of the paneling they seem to love to use.

the builder also gave him a 36" tv, surround system and a ps2 when he bought it. pretty decent i spose. he still lives tghere, and its not falling apart or anything.

 

[waggy]

also people would be shocked to find many "cookie cutter" homes built in say the 70's and 80's are modular homes.

I know around here there is a sub-division that was made with them in the early 90's.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: funboy42

Originally posted by: Kaido
Wow, check out this modular house:

http://www.altamonthomes.com/

I wouldn't complain...

Damn, they have some nice homes there as well.

Yeah I had no idea...this thread has really changed my perception of modular homes, they have come a LONG way since I'd last seen them. I don't think it would replace my dream home made with concrete walls, but I'll have to look into this for a starter home. I'm reading an article on BobVila.com and it seems you can do some pretty neat custom stuff with modular homes as well:

http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Mo...Make_Sense-Building_Systems-A1854.html

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: amdskip
It really depends on who you have make it. I'm a fan of panelized houses which are built on site but the panels are framed in a factory.

a house is being built behind mine, it must be this "panelized" thing you are talking about. the sides went up too fast and these trucks kept coming and the siding and windows were already in each wall when i saw them each night

 

[Kaido]

On a tangent, where can you buy fully-grown trees from? It'd be sweet to put together a modular house and transplant some adult trees to have a nice-looking lot in a jiffy

 

[Specop 007]

Go talk to a realtor.

Obviously those talking about quality havent. If you think every new built home is top notch you've never been around homes much.

And EVERY price range home has new problems, dont think "you get what you pay for".

I'd do a modular in a second if I could. Like anything else, you will find poor modular homes and top notch modular homes. You will also find poor new builds and top notch new builds as well.

We have a group of Menonites in my hometown who do modular homes. I would buy from them because their build quality is exceptional. They truly take pride in their work. I may have other issues with them, but damn they do good work.

 

[imported_weadjust]

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. showed off his modular home on MTV "Cribs".

Looked pretty nice.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Specop 007
Go talk to a realtor.

Obviously those talking about quality havent. If you think every new built home is top notch you've never been around homes much.

And EVERY price range home has new problems, dont think "you get what you pay for".

I'd do a modular in a second if I could. Like anything else, you will find poor modular homes and top notch modular homes. You will also find poor new builds and top notch new builds as well.

We have a group of Menonites in my hometown who do modular homes. I would buy from them because their build quality is exceptional. They truly take pride in their work. I may have other issues with them, but damn they do good work.

i agree with the new builds. we have a new division with huge 3000sq/ft houses. well they were done very bad. many of them had windows that would fall out after a year almost everyone with a basement had them flood. way to small of heaters/AC units etc.

the builder was sued. So all original buyers were able to have something like a 10 year gurentee. to bad if someone baught from a seller was SOL the gurentee was not transferable.

as it is they are hard to sale. the prices for the houses are far c heaper then other well made houses in town.

oh and hte builder got in a lot of trouble with the state. don't think they can build in IL anymore.