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Another plea for a major revision in residential codes

No problem....just build them for the strictest code of the jurisdiction you work in....Problem solved.....Or we can keep having crap built in factories by trained monkeys installing violations instead of craftsman in the field with trained inspectors.......
 
steveray said:
Or we can keep having crap built in factories by trained monkeys installing violations instead of craftsman in the field with trained inspectors.......
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Years ago I worked in a factory that table framed apartment buildings that were sent to Chicago. Years later I worked for a company that table framed apartment buildings on site in California. Both operations sped up the process but the factory held first place.

One of the most significant advantages is beating the weather. Raining? no problem. 105°? no problem. Twenty MPH wind? no problem. There is a price to pay for controlling the environment but when I remodeled big box stores, the daily report always said, 72° and sunny.

The shortage of willing entrants to the construction industry might be ameliorated by providing better working conditions. I remember a college study group that was interested in how our ankles held up while we were framing condominiums in Aspen Colorado. There was a day when 150 carpenters were as quiet as a church sermon because it was 110° in Stockton Ca. Now that's losing money fast.

A drawback of factory built housing is a lack of imagination. The houses are plain rectangles that are less than attractive. Getting beyond that introduces complexity. Complexity defeats the purpose of producing a lot for a little.

Some dreamers have envisioned modular concepts whereby the design can be changed up. Once they get away from the one size fit all way of thinking, other costs creep in. High-end finishes, premium windows and doors, higher ceilings and lower utility bills. Lose the "one size" advantage and the point becomes what exactly?

The fact that modular housing is available is proof of concept. Getting it beyond military barracks and college dormitories is a steep hill to climb.
 
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Currently , most modular construction does not have to follow the same inspection processes as out in the field. Some prime examples are dwv testing, nailplate installations and draftstopping. We had a modular home and the plumber did not want to do a dwv test "because it was done in the factory". Explained that he did the connections between the units and installed the lines in the basement. He ended up doing the test which leaked in the kitchen. An elbow in the ceiling was broken because a factory installed nail hit it.
 
jj1289 said:
Currently , most modular construction does not have to follow the same inspection processes as out in the field. Some prime examples are dwv testing, nailplate installations and draftstopping. We had a modular home and the plumber did not want to do a dwv test "because it was done in the factory". Explained that he did the connections between the units and installed the lines in the basement. He ended up doing the test which leaked in the kitchen. An elbow in the ceiling was broken because a factory installed nail hit it.
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And yet that unit was supposedly inspected before it left the factory.
 
Right now, modular homes are beholden to the local building codes wherever the home will be installed, making it impossible to build a stock of them in advance.

Not an accurate statement, most modular built buildings are regulated at the state level and IMHO that is where it should be. Throughout this state we have different seismic zones; special wind regions and roof snow loads from 40 psf to over 120 psf. How would you build and store a stock of them in advance that could be used throughout the 4th largest land mass state in the nation?
 
In Virginia more state modifications to the International Codes are to ease them than to make them more stringent, and I wouldn't be surprised if most other states are the same. Modular homes built to the unamended IRC would probably be acceptable in most states. We don't need yet another code.
 
There's bound to be plenty of anecdotal evidence of the downside of factory built houses. In inspected one that was delivered in halves. I don't remember the length but is was somewhere near fifty feet. It came together at the ridge, tight at the north end and a three inch gap at the south end.

I went to work for a developer in Chico Ca. that purchased a prefab housing factory located in Sacramento. That factory built stick framed walls that were shipped to Saudi Arabia. The shipping containers were an engineering marvel in their own right. Well the developer had the factory frame the walls for a three story apartment complex. They screwed the pooch on every window and door. The brains at the factory saw a window dimension of 2040 as 20"x40". Every opening was too small. They didn't catch it until it was too late. They spent thousands on Sawzall blades.

I ended up running the show for two years. We built condo's. It was long after the apartment fiasco. They started prefabbing the condos in Sacramento. There was drywall backing on the exterior for stucco... wouldn't you know it, they put the drywall on the inside... because, well it's drywall and drywall is on the inside. Some years later I was asked to visit the Sacramento facility and consider turning it into a truss plant. It could have been done but I wasn't the guy to do it.
 
The US Constitution reserves to the states the rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Since the Constitution does not mention building codes it is state law that governs. Thus there can be no national building code applicable to non federal projects.

The states may agree to adopt a model code thus resulting in common requirements in several states but this is a matter for each state.
 
What a lot of nay sayers.

As far as a botched factory inspection, it's not like there aren't botched field inspections. Many threads here on that.

As far as quality and design, I know modular homes built in factory can be of very good quality and with lots of design variability. https://www.alvsbyhus.se/ Maybe not in US though.

I lived in the town where the Alvsby house are built back in 1969-70, actually lived in one, toured factory, knew owners. Very high quality and probably more energy efficient then than most houses in US now. (-40° all of January - they had to be good.) Unique in that modules were crosswise, not length wise, so you could have a longer ranch style house - saw one with 7 modules. Always on grade beams then.
 
bill1952 said:
What a lot of nay sayers.

As far as a botched factory inspection, it's not like there aren't botched field inspections. Many threads here on that.

As far as quality and design, I know modular homes built in factory can be of very good quality and with lots of design variability. https://www.alvsbyhus.se/ Maybe not in US though.

I lived in the town where the Alvsby house are built back in 1969-70, actually lived in one, toured factory, knew owners. Very high quality and probably more energy efficient then than most houses in US now. (-40° all of January - they had to be good.) Unique in that modules were crosswise, not length wise, so you could have a longer ranch style house - saw one with 7 modules. Always on grade beams then.
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I've never seen a field inspector approve a buried electrical splice....I have found plenty in pre-fab/ modular homes being remodeled....
 
steveray said:
I've never seen a field inspector approve a buried electrical splice....I have found plenty in pre-fab/ modular homes being remodeled....
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And I've seen plenty construction that was permitted and inspected that clearly didn't comply with code. Luckily there is a lot of redundancy in building and in codes.
 
I saw plenty of modulars, "double wides" "triple wides" etc. in other jobs in other parts of the country. It was under a state code, and that state had a separate and comprehensive manufactured housing code, with specific training for enforcement. If I remember correctly, the code applied to used homes only, new units had to be installed in accordance with the mfr. instructions. Used homes could use either the code or the original instructions if provided. We could really only look at marriage walls and MEP tie-ins as I remember it. Site built elements were subject to state building codes. Many times I would see something that wasn't quite right and scratch my head, but these were factory inspected elements and beyond our enforcement capability. I had the same pros and cons internal debate many times. On one hand, they were faster, cheaper, not subject to the environment, and engineered, on the other hand, only a percentage were inspected by the state inspectors, and if a worker was was hung over, or had the flu and the work was sub-par, it could affect dozens of houses in one day. To me, the quality of the home, and the inspection is dependent on the particular workers, supervisors, process, inspectors and philosophies in place, whether it is production site built, custom built, or manufactured. I have seen site built homes, by the same builder, across the street from each other. One was really bad, the other was really good. It was the different super that was the difference, or framer or plumber etc.. I have seen manufactured houses that were really good, others really bad. It was the different company that made the difference.

Hard for me to throw a blanket over either method. Good and bad in both.
 
I started out in modular home construction some 30 years ago now...spent 5 years in state plan reviews (factory assembled structures) and factory building inspections.

On of my roles was to do pre-inspections of any units prior to the state inspector's arrival, to make sure we passed as they would charge for all re-inspections, not to mention the delays as it might be a while before I could them back into our plant. Idle modulars in a factory do not make profit.

All site work-related stuff...things we simply could not perform in-plant...was itemized on an NLEA form (Notice to Local Enforcement) that the inspector had to sign off on and was shipped with the house to be delivered to local inspectors so they could complete the inspection of those items.

State plan reviews were typically very brutal...with 11x17" plan sheets the plans would run into 20+ pages, not counting the engineer's calcs. and it was very common to get plan review notices itemizing 20-30 items...

Man I really do miss those days...
 
Sifu said:
I saw plenty of modulars, "double wides" "triple wides" etc. in other jobs in other parts of the country. It was under a state code, and that state had a separate and comprehensive manufactured housing code, with specific training for enforcement.
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Was it being under a state code conditional on it being on wheels, like "mobile homes" (which seem to disintegrate where they were first parked) and so many of the onslaught of tiny homes?

Don't modular homes - brought to site on a separate trailer and rolled it framed onto a permanent foundation - have to meet the local residential code?
 
bill1952 said:
Don't modular homes - brought to site on a separate trailer and rolled it framed onto a permanent foundation - have to meet the local residential code?
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In Montana the foundation and roof snow loads have to meet the local design minimums. The state regulates and approves modular building manufactures. Do manufactures make mistakes? They sure do just like contractors. About 20 years ago we had two 2 story 12 dwelling unit modular apartment complex come into town. We have no jurisdiction on the building itself just the foundation and access route into the building. about 3 years later we get a call about mold in one of the units. Normally we don't respond to mold issues, but it gave us an opportunity to get inside. The result was the dryer vent in every apartment on both buildings had been covered by the siding when they assembled them onsite. If we could have inspected the assembly we may have found the problem before the units where occupied.
 
bill1952 said:
Was it being under a state code conditional on it being on wheels, like "mobile homes" (which seem to disintegrate where they were first parked) and so many of the onslaught of tiny homes?

Don't modular homes - brought to site on a separate trailer and rolled it framed onto a permanent foundation - have to meet the local residential code?
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So many years ago, but if I recall, if it was on a chassis we didn't look at anything unless it was a site built element like a deck, stoop or stair or MEP tie-in. If they wanted to remove the wheels and put it on a foundation I think we looked at that, but I don't recall many of those.
 
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