We are looking at building our 3000 sq ft home in the sierras through a panelized package kit. Have any of you seen homes by Viceroy (Canada), Allpro Building Systems (Canada) or Landmark Homes (USA)?
These are NOT modular homes. They ship all the exterior and interior walls preassembled along with the floor and roof structure, shingles, siding, windows, interior and exterior doors and trim and your framing crew puts it all together on site. You have your house “dried-in” in just a few days which saves on labor costs vs a conventional stix home where you have to start from scratch.
Edited 3/14/2008 1:34 am ET by ptmckiou
Replies
A friend bought a panelized house from ABS and we put it together, a couple of years ago. He got I joists and subfloor, panelized walls, and roof trusses and sheathing. Your 3000 SF house won't be dried in in "a couple of days" unless you have a LOT of carpenters there. The floor system(s) take the same amount of time as they would anywhere. The walls go quicker, although they are heavy enough so that staging and moving them around is a big chore. The roof goes on the same way any truss roof goes on.
What you probably save is a lot of trips to the lumberyard, along with a lot of time making lumber lists, ordering windows, etc. You also save the time that would be spent assembling walls, which is considerable. You can put the walls up with just a nailgun, no skilsaw needed. There is definitely some time savings, and the one-stop shopping could be a plus. I think you can count on some mistakes by the panelizer.... either missing materials, excess materials, possibly some assembly issues.
ptmckiou
I knew very well a person who owned just such a plant.. They made panelized homes. I can't begin to explain how much money he had invested in facilities equipment, trucking, and training crews. Just to mention some of the added costs which quickly offset the gain in efficencies..
Yes there are efficencies to be made in panelizing walls but those are quickly offset buy added start up costs.. costs which are financed and have their own inefficency. In addition when new home construction is in a slow down phase as it is now crews that could be laid off untill building resumed are far less flexible and what isn't flexible is the payments on all that equipmant and facilites. Those continue no matter how busy or slow the industry is..
In the end careful review of cost benefit ratios will prove that you the end buyer gain nothing other than perhaps the faster gratification of an instant home..
Which really isn't all that much of a real gain, I've seen new houses go from a vacant lot to move in inside of three weeks. (and at the normal sale price)
I've designed and sold panelized walls for a long time. I've also bought and installed them. So I think I have a unique perspective.
Personally, I think they're great. Less jobste waste, less jobsite labor needed, etc.
I've tried both setting them by hand and using a crane. I think the crane method is by far the best. If the crane sets a panel down and someone immediately unhooks it, the crane can swing back and get the next panel while the first one is being plumbed and braced off.
We did the "Spec house from hell" that way. The crew I had set walls on a neighboring house from 7 AM to about 9 AM. Then they came over and had mine set by noon. (Exteriors only in both cases)
My Dad, one cousin, and I set the interiors after lunch on my house. It was ready for trusses by 4 PM.
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Quality can vary a great deal from one panelizer to another. But so can stick framing in the field. It would pay to ask around to see who does good quality work.
Some framers resent panelized walls. I've had people tell me their framer would charge the same amount to frame a house regardless if panels were used or not.
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I attached a PDF file that's partly about panelized walls. It's from a demo the WTCA did called "Framing the American Dream". They built two houses side by side - One fully panelized, and the other one all stick framed.
The results show that it would have been cheaper to build a panelized house. Since the whole thing was staged by the WTCA I would kind of expect that.
Based on my experience, I believe that panelized construction is as cheap or slightly cheaper that stick building. But yuo'll get a lot of heated debate on a discussion about that.
I read in some of the old threads on this site that several people had experience with a few of these manufacturers but I haven't seen anything posted in the past few years - so thats why I ask. My attraction to panelized is the controlled environment that they are built in and the fact that you know what your exact cost is going to be....no surprises. Plus, it's "green" building and less waste on the job site. We are going to be building high in the sierras where there is a narrow window for building. It would be nice to put these up in late Fall and then work through the winter on the interior. We thought about going with SIPs for the walls instead of the prefab panels but they are a lot more expensive.
ptmckiou,
Frankly I'm surprised you found SIP's more expensive..My own experiance was that they were cheaper than stick building the same size and R value. (material costs were all that was considered) I think I can understand the circumstances where they would be.... Either contractors not familar with the ease they can be built, or a source extremely remote requiring monster shipping costs..
The later is doubtful since you were considering a American source for panels and I have to believe that shipping those panels from America is about on par with shipping from whatever source you looked into for your SIP's .
I take it from the tone of your post you are a long way away from a concrete ready mix plant? If you aren't you really should look into ICF's. Call the ready mix plant for a quote..
SIPs are a bit "tighter" construction than panels once up and I think that is having some impact on their perceived value. All the "green" sites push SIPS and not panelized walls.
Concrete is not a problem and we are looking at ICF for the walkout basement. There again... not many in our area have used ICF construction, so the crews are available but somewhat limited in quantity.
ptmckiou,
Excellant! Why not go all the way to the roof line with ICF's? I'll bet that you can work a deal with the local ready mix plant..
Approach them as a training session for future builders and I'll bet they are pretty eager..
You win in that they will moniter quality control, provide a lot of extra willing hands, and take real care to make sure everything goes flawless.. .
ICF's all the way to the roof is much more money than stix frame panels. We would definitely go this route but our budget is so tight that I don't think it will be possible. Plus, pouring 3 floors of ICF is not a newbie task. Those walls have to be dead accurate and having a bunch of new people training their skill doesn't thrill me. I would want an experience crew to come in and do 3 full floors and that isn't exactly cheap. So, our budget is pushing us towards ICF for lower level and panel for the top to floors.
PTMCKIOU,
You don't pour three floors at one time.. you pour one floor and then set up the next one. pour that flour and then set up the next one..
Slight adjustments as you go same as any other building. One floor at a time..
I'm willing to bet that if you don't have a monster big house, or anything really complicated.. you can set up one level, call for a morning pour. next day set up the next level and call for a morning pour again. Have your window and door bucks premade.
(actually it's pumped in and a pump operator will control the flow rate as slow or fast as you feel comfortable..
Have you watched the video tapes of the process? It is really easy! when you are done you'll wonder what all the worry was about.. (I sure was, I got positively cocky with my last pour. I mean a round wall with square block? That took some Balls) Oh and I did the footings and the walls all at once rather than the safer more common way of footings and then set up the forms.. Plus I took off the footing forms and poured the floor afterwards while the pump truck was still here.
That still left me enough time to pump a retaining wall 120 feet long! (In the 4 hours I had the pump truck there).. I was setting Granite capstones on top of the forms as I did it..
Either I'm positively brillant and the worlds best builder or it's really simple. you pick.. <grin>
Plus, pouring 3 floors of ICF is not a newbie task.
Frenchy is right here, it's really three one-floor pours.
Depending on how your engineer details the floors out (and you ought to have an engineer do that), you'll either step the ICF to make a bearing ledge for each floor. Or, you'll need a bond beam-type pour for simpson (or similar) floor connectors.
Even if it's only a let-in ledger, that creates a natural break line limiting how high a "lift" of concrete that gets set. Frankly, I prefer shorter lifts as it can mean better concrete ("can" being a divil of a word in that usage, too).
Walk-out basement lets you build three-ish "plain" walls with the walk-out wall to bone up on door and window openings with the brand of ICF you select. Get that in, and you'll be ahead of the curve for each additional wall over that basement.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
CapnMac.
You could also do a reverse brick ledge... Reward forms offer a nice galvanised grate for the brick ledge so it's really structural..
With Reward forms they will do any engineering for you as part of the price of the forms..
Or like you say step down in wall thickness as you go up a floor
You could also do a reverse brick ledge
That's what I was actually thinking, 12, 10, 8 flush to the outside--engineer spec-ed that for a project that was canceled by a sudden divorce (do not want to go through that ever again, "Which'n you paying this community property bill y'owe me?")Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
My FIL built a Viceroy (with my help) back in the late eighty's.
Nice package.
Viceroy was started by the guy who started Lindal Cedar homes.($$$)
Since then FIL and BIL have built Panelized Homes from Cavco
You still have to stick build your Floor system and roof system (or trusses for the roof)
But they do go up fast!
and you pay for that, crane time aint cheap!
as with any custom home the devil is in the details.
A good design and attention to the mechanicals are key.
One thing I didnt like was on BIL home they changed joist spacings from 12 to 16 to 24 according to span.
but when you put down Tile 24 oc just doesn't cut it.
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"After the laws of Physics, everything else is opinion"
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If Pasta and Antipasta meet is it the end of the Universe???
Here's a little panel job we have going now.
Sometimes you win sometimes you loose.
It's all about the review, on smaller jobs the review and planing can take longer than just sticking it.
http://picasaweb.google.com/steven4077/CapitolCove
NAIL IT !!!
I'm in agreement with Frenchy. The end user doesn't save anything. If you're choosing to use the panelized package for reasons other than economy, then you need to do your homework and verify the quality and reality of their packages. That means: go to an ongoing jobsite and look with your eyes at the ongoing construction. It also means that you should walk through a completed job and verify with your own eyes the actual condition of the package in it's finished state. The sales guys make it sound like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Remember, they are sales guys...
I'm a proponent of onsite panelization. We've done the same thing that the factories do but we do it onsite. We don't have 100k nailing machines nailing the entire sheathing stud in one blow, but we can get stuff done pretty fast. It's all relative.
Heres a pic of one of our panelized walls being flown in. The main walls of the house below were framed, sheathed and papered by two guys standing in a cornfield on a wintery day in 8 hours. They just framed them and slid them off into a pile. The walls were all framed before the foundation was done. The lower floor walls that needed overhangs on them (the two sides of the attached garage which isn't visible) had them on too.
It's interesting that this topic came up because I was searching for some pics for marketing purposes and ran across a sequence that shows this dormer wall being built and assembled and I was going to do a photo thread on it. I might have time later to do that.
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/at.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&guid=EF22E8FE-BD05-4902-AAA3-45066C855CC5&frames=no
Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Edited 3/14/2008 6:22 pm by Jim_Allen
Pic?
LOL! I musta selected it and just hit the "done" button. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
I have framed houses both with panels and stick.
I prefer stick, the panel factories always seem to screw up somehow.
One house the put the ply. on inside!!!!
several of them had the wrong rough openings.
Unless your framing crew is familiar witrh building them, there is a learning curve.
We always found the house packages sit on jobsites waiting for framers.
I am not familiar with the co. you are considering.
Frenchy, I still find it hard to believe you how inexpensive those homes can be.
frammer52,
I am not a fan of panelized construction.. I am however a fan of SIP's My last purchase of SIP's was several years ago now so I can't tell you currant costs but I paid about $3.00 a sq.ft for 6 inch SIP's and about $3.50 a sq.ft. for 12 inch. Those were about 2004 prices (same OSB, same labor to make a, little more foam.. foam is cheap) I put mine up and cut them myself to fit.. really fast and simple to do. zip with a skill saw and then cut thru the foam with a long blade on the sawzall. I tried cutting with the sawzall to save the extra step but it took too long..
Please remember I'd get home in the afternoon and work untill dark so I didn't have much time to dawdle around.
Oh and my prices don't include the adhesive they sold me nor the long screws to put them in place.. However, later on I found out a much faster way to build using SIP's than what the book showed.. I mean my time wasn't even 20% of the way the book had me install the first 1/2 of the panels.
As for ICF's I bought mine locally direct from the redimix place (cemstone). I'm sure I didn't get a good deal but I got a nice video a booklet and a lot of support.
What else would you like me to help you with? I suppose I could get someone to teach me how to scan receipts and and show them to you of if you want. There are several people here in the local area who post and they can come over and check them for you..
It wouldn't offend me at all. I've saved every one..
Where are you located?
With the slowdown in new home construction, you may find it is less expensive to stick frame.
We are about an hour North of Yosemite up in the sierras at 4500 feet. There is definitely been a slow down in construction. However, there has always been a shortage of workers in the area so they've always received top dollar. Not enough competition in the area to get competitive. I think there is only one granite guy within 50 miles. Everything is more expensive because it has to all be shipped in. Windows bought up there at the local distributors quote pricing about $3000 to $5000 more than the same windows bid from Los Angeles distributors. Whats the deal with that? The window manufacturer ships the windows directly to the job site!
Buy the windows, have them shipped in.
I've priced panelized walls several times for the homes I build and I couldn't save money doing it that way. What you are talking about sounds different though - more like a house kit... As far as I know, they don't have those around here.
I don't think you would save money but it would be a lot easier and probably be quicker and a really big advantage for your situation would be the smaller budget variations and much less time on takeoffs, lumber order backs - etc.
I gotta wonder if these kit companies offer installation too? I would think that even if you had to pay for accommodations for their crew they could still get it done 2x as fast since they are used to using their system. The 2x as fast would probably equate to the same cost as a local crew with less chance of problems and having your project rained in before it is dried in - which it sounds like would be essential. Plus you would have something closer to a one responsible party for warranty issues.
If the walls come with windows installed and some have some sheetrock on them, it definitely sounds like a crane would be needed for the entire process. If the house company did the install, I would assume the crane would be just another expense that they would include.
Even if f you hire a local crew, I'd still try to get to where the crane is included in their price as this would put a "fire under their butt". If you do end up having to pay for the crane, you can probably just get a boom truck, unless there is site access issues requiring that the panels be moved a longer distance.
One final thought is that you will need to be sure your foundation is as accurate as possible. This would start with using a surveyor to set the foundation corners. If it is to be strip footers with foundation walls built on top of that that would likely mean 2 trips from the surveyor or at the very least 1 trip the morning after the footers are poured where the surveyor drives fluted concrete nails into the footers at all the foundation corners. My surveyor charges about $125 per trim which is cheap insurance... Don't leave this up to the foundation company as they will likely DIY it to save money and they would't have the kind of instrumentation or expertise your licensed surveyor will have.
I just had a few houses set a few weeks ago. My surveyor is a husband wife team - kind of unique - and they are nice people. They had something called a Total Station that made the whole process pretty automatic - they showed me how the thing works - very cool - and they made it sound idiot proof - although I'm sure 20 yrs of surveying experience made it pretty evident to them...
My experience with panel houses is limited to watching a neighboring builder put them up on a few occasions and listening to panel salesman give their pitch.
Panels usually only provide walls, and floors and roofs take at least as long as building walls, depending on the design. On site labor costs might be less, but this savings is offset by the cost of the panels, shipping to the site, crane costs, etc.
The chief advantage is that you get to a closed in shell in a shorter amount of time.
The panel houses I have seen have walls that are not as straight and true as most site framed houses. Lots of dips and wows etc.
I build fairly small affordable houses and just finished framing one of about 1500 square feet (two stories). Three of us shelled it in in about 6 days. Only two days were spent on building walls however. Hard to see how the economics of panelizing would work in this situation.
The panel companies I'm dealing with offer a lot more than the shell. They have the windows (Jeld-Wen or other top line) already installed in the walls, one side of the interior walls are sheetrocked, they provide all floor and roof structure along with 40 year shingles, electric chases predrilled in walls, Hardiplank siding, trim, decking, insulation (R20 walls and R40 roof), interior and exterior doors (Therma-tru), locks, plus your entire custom construction drawings and engineering... one stop shopping so to speak. Apparently, they buy at such high volume that they get really great pricing. All that for $28 -$35/sq foot sounds like a great deal to me. I don't have to go running around ordering everywhere and waiting on multi deliveries... it all arrives in one load. Convenience for me is worth alot along with a fixed price tag up front makes it easy to budget.
That sounds like a similar package the neighboring contractor used last winter. Panels came with windows installed, stairs prebuilt, wall between house and garage already sheetrocked. Shingles, siding, everything showed up. (they had to hire someone to come and lift the shingles on the roof) I'm not completely dissing the system--these guys next door were good carpenters and this was a higher end home they built. I did hear bitching from the trim carps about out of level windows (windows were pre installed). Also, door jacks out of whack. The stairs were prebuilt, and you would have to cheat your first and last riser up or down since it would be unlikely to get an exact fit with stairs cut at the factory. The house had enough jigs and jogs that a casual observer wouldn't notice the warped walls, but any carpenter would see them. I'm just repeating what I heard from the guys next door. Not saying it's a bad system--I just have heard all this BS about quality from panel salesman and it ain't so. A well crafted site built home is going to beat a panel house in terms of fit and finish. Again, maybe they are good enough and I am just a stubborn old fart. Also, you better have a lot of room on your site for all that stuff to show up. I usually need the room for a crane truck before I want a pile of hardi in the way, for example. And keep that hardi dry!
Have you considered ICFs (insulated concrete forms) for all your outside walls?
They provide a light-weight, easy way for amateurs to build a modern, energy efficient home.
There are numerous threads on this board on that topic, all available by using the "Advanced Search" function, above the topics column to the left.
Many of the ICF manufacturers offer training and real on-site support to first time users of their products. http://www.arxxwalls.com is one such manufacturer.
We won't do our own ICF... don't have the time. The only reason we wouldn't do all exterior ICF is only one thing - money. The figures I've seen thrown around as a general cost estimate for ICF is $10/sq ft of wall space (thats the block, steel, concrete & labor). I don't know if thats a reasonable assumption or not. If so, all ICF is about $20,000 more than stix or panel package. If it was only $5000 to $8000 more we could swing it....but $20K is way out of our budget if $10/sq ft of wall space is correct.
this is a figure i just had thrown at me,10 a sf for icf also. how does your panalized walls figure out against that? i'm real curious to know because i thought the icf's sounded high,but when you break down the cost ,i see where they are coming from.larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
always over budget.
Where are the costs? I did 560 sq.ft in 4 8 hour days my first attempt.. I watched experianced crews do about 1000 sq.ft. per man per 8 hour day.. concrete here is about $120 a yard for 4000# pumpable. A pumper is $500 per 4 hours..
i just sat here and plugged some numbers,tell me if you see something way off.i took a 8'high by96' long wall, 16" by 48"x8" block 16.50 each= 144 blks.20 yds concrete at 100. a yd, 1200' of rebar for 375.,pump truck at 750.
i came up with aprox 6.50 per sg ft of wall,and thats not counting any ties,bracing etc. so the guy that bid it out to me was making 3.00 plus a foot,or about 3,000 labor. i don't think he'll make the fortune 500 anytime soon.
i'd figure a day to set up with a 3 guys thats block and scaffoling,come back the next day ,do a little bracing and pour at noon.go home by3-4.
i have done a icf and they are the easiset type of form for a diy to set up,but there is defintly a learing curve,and if you screw it up your screwed big time.[saw a guy pour one with a 5" bow in the center!].
i guess i need to set down and pencil a stud wall the same size. larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
I built my own ICF home last summer after 30 plus years of frame construction. About 220 lineal feet of walls, 9'4" tall. 6" Amvic blocks. My total material costs (blocks, rebar, concrete and pumping) were $14,500. Three man crew, none had done it before, spent 3 weeks from building window bucks to cleaned up and ready for the next stage.
No bracing available here, so we had to build bracing and scaffolding which was a time and material sink. Probably over braced a bit too.
This was in Colorado, near 4 corners. Of course, no mark up as it was my own home.JohnThe ICF guys in GreenBuilding all seem to say $11 - $13 per foot depending on location.
A local California ICF guy just told me $16 a sq ft. $4 block & ties etc, $1 rebar, $3 concrete, concrete pumper, & bracing system, $8 labor. ACK!!!
Where are you?
In the sierra foothills of central California just over an hour above Yosemite.
I just got a similar $13-16 per sf price range quote. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Wonder if that includes footings? So, at $16/per a 30x40 sq ft ranch house with full basement would cost $40k for 1200 sq ft of first flr living space and 1200 sq ft of basement - allowing 9' for the basement and 9' for the 1st flr... foundation and exterior walls only. I think I could fully dry-in a same sized house using conventional construction for the same amount... I might even have enough left over to buy some regular insulation... I guess a lot of it depends on what climate you live in...
I'd betcha if you took a poll on the street here in NC only 1% of the people could even tell what ICF stands for.
Its $16 per sf of wall surface. I doubt that he was including the footing in that figure. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Jim is correct. That was wall surface only. I'm' hoping to get it for around $14.
ptmckiou,
$10.00 a sq.ft.? labor, material, concrete pumping everything? OK I did 560 sq.ft. in 4 days, (well my sister-in-law installed 75% of it in about 6 hours or so while I was in bed)..
That was my first attempt. No prior experiance.. I watched a video and the rep came out and made a couple of suggestions.. Oh and that also included about an hour to pour and level the floor
I would think a fair amount per sq foot (assuming $120 yard concrete,, $500 pumping costs, rebar and forms, labor costs at $25 an hour, would be closer to $3.50 to $4.00 a sq.ft. OK add 20% profit for the contractors profit and overhead etc.. I'm thinking an experianced laborer should be able to put up more than 1000 sq.ft. per 8 hour day.. A thousand sq.ft. should pump in less than an hour.
Now I could be wrong by something, those numbers came off the top of my head as I typed.
I got faster & better each time I did it..