I know some folks think modular homes are a new thing, but I know the idea has been around for quite some time…. But how long?
Friend sent me some scans from an American Home 1971 mag (attached one) of a modular design back then. And I seem to remember that there were pre-fabs in the 1940-50’s?
Earlier?
jt8
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate– Thornton Wilder
Replies
Certainly house trailers have been around since the automobile was invented (and probably before), and they slowly morphed into your "modular home". Doublewide modulars easily go back to 1970, but I can't remember them before that. I remember "prefab" homes back in the 50s -- don't know if these were panelized or sectioned.
That one looks like a trailer full of giant bath-tubs!
Our house is a 1978 modular ranch (3br, 4 sections). It's built conventionally except the electrical all runs up the side wall and down from the attic. It came originally with electric heat and if the plumbing was done in the factory it's hard to tell that provided any advantage. The roof appears to be from the factory using a modified 50/50 truss system, but not the tilt-up type I've seen recently - they must have driven it down the highway with the roof structure in place. The sticker on the service panel says a company in Texas was responsible, though I doubt the economics of driving a house from Texas to New Hampshire with 1978 fuel prices, so there must be more to that story.
When they bolted it together the tolerances weren't very tight - one half of the house is about 3/8" lower than the other. I had to devise a silly progressive back-cutting scheme when I put hardwood in across that boundary - what a pain, though the resultant wave in the hardwood is fun in a quirky way. I took this to mean that the mating bolt holes weren't done at the factory, or else the alignment would have been better. So, the technology wasn't perfected at that time, at least at this builder's factory.
I found the plastic wrap buried in the yard a few years ago. It's true, that stuff doesn't bio-degrade!
Sears and others sold houses in kits turn of the last century.
Well, a kit is a somewhat different critter. The people still had to put all the individual pieces together, didn't they?
jt8
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate-- Thornton Wilder
That was kits with all th enecessary parts but sill had to be assembled. Then came the wall sections prefabbed in factories. then the modules.One of my first construction jobs was in Virginia in '71 where I was hired as a laborer, then promoted to foreman of 11 laborers. We worked under one old carpenter who showed us how to swing a hammer. The walls came in on a semi and a crane hoisted them into place, where we stitched them together. It turned out that I knew how to read plans better than the carpenter supervising us.Funny thing, I can't recall doing any roofing or roof framing on those townhouses. Must have been subbed out...
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I could be entirely wrong, but my memory of the history on this is that the SeaBees developed a lot of prefab techniques during WW2 for establishing bases on the Pacific islands. Then after they came home, a lot of kit homes and cottages started springing up using similar methods. I have worked on five such homes from the late forties and early fifties here. The concept grew from there.
When I worked in TX in the mid seventies, there was an outfit building complete homes ready to move to your site that I drove past every day, so the process was that far along already by then.. I moved to CO in '76 and a whole subdivision had sprung up with modulars based on double wide mobile home style sewed back together
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
The Air Force brought some modular housing into a radar station in Central Maine in the late Fifties - early Sixties. As I recall, they were shipped by rail and were then trucked about eight miles to the site. Ugly, two sections, low roof pitch, about 24' x 40' on slabs when completed. Poor choice for a Main hilltop.
In northern Europe they've been doing modular homes for a while. The building season is so short that it makes sense to build them inside.
I can't remember where I read it but they are pretty well built and super insulated also.