Panelized "kit" houses.(Lots of photos)

[peg_688]

 Hi all.   The company I work for is currently assembling a kit house , (panelized) built in B.C. ,Ca. So far so good as far as quality of material nice #1 and better Hem /Fir. Most everthing has fit , one discrepency in a bay window , foundation plan said one thing , floor plan another , 2" off coming out of the bay , added one stud to the end of a wall and that little mistake , they did all the plans drawings so it's thier bad , and we had to trim 3/16th off one interior partion for it to fit . Not bad for a 2500 SQ.' house.  

 We start the roof this week.

 Things to consider #1 you get alot of materials at one time , semi truck load.

 



Backing into the site can be a issue,  


 

 

 The second truck , this one was able to get up the hill on the small access road to this little community. The first truck ten feet longer and a bit heavier couldn't make it up the hill, so we had to off load all the exterior and interior partions about 1/4 mile from the site and one ton flatbed truck the walls up to the site . So we handled each part at least two more times than we needed to had the truck been able to get to the site .

  #2 Every thing is big and heavy , these walls are 9' in height , and they use plenty of wood , in the framing process which IMO is good , I'm not a fan or do I build super light weight / super insulated homes . Remember that is just MO, the way I/ we do it . I'm not saying the other way is wrong / I , IMO , think wood is good .

 So back to point #2 heavy / large , we couldn't find 9' forklift extentions and the owner of my company didn't have any built , that part you could fix at a cost of about $400.00 fork extentions could be made , we didn't   at times about that .   So I had to improvise a way to use the fork lift , this worked , it was slower and in the end the $400.00 was chump change , apposed to the labor cost.

 

 


 #3  Big and heavy not so bad when you have the equip. and space ,



 


  #4 Truss's and a crane / boom truck this week,

 

39' long , wierd roof and lots of it ,

 

     Also make sure if you do one of these and you need to delay delievery for a week that [highlight]you call them before the dead line your given , the boss/ owner called the day after [/highlight]so we got to put the roof truss's on the ground , as the crew didn't get the walls up in time .
 

 Some walls up ,

 All things to ponder if your thinking panelized small house .
 This one's not very small ,

 3/4" T&G OSB , over 11 7/8 " I-joist 16" OC, glued and  nailed with 8d ring shank full round headed gun nails , It will get wet and it will be fine , we'll be in the dry in about three more weeks give or take a few days.

 Plywood today just doesn't hold up for floor sheathing , IMO . If you use it , good luck, patch the "blows" once your in the dry.

PEG  

[Daddymem]

Looks nice PEG, who makes it?  We looked into panelized at one time and it seemed a viable option over modular...better construction anyways.
The ones we looked into:
Modulex Quebec, Canada eh
Kinbury North Carolina, USA
Panel Concepts Michigan, USA
Panelized Homes USA

We saw the Modulex guys at a home show and they looked impressive.  Said they could take most any home plan and make it panelized (their "small" homes weren't all that small).  Had a section of wall, if what they brought is what you get, it certainly looked stout and made with lots of wood to PEG's liking.  As PEG said, they asked a lot of questions about where our site was and how accesible it was.  I'm glad our FirstDay stuff will come on boom trucks that will have no problem getting into our site.

[peg_688]

Daddymem these guys , http://www.langecon.com/why_us.asp.

 Be glad they have a boom truck it would be easier and Lange com could bundle stuff in more user freindly ways . The truss's could have been in smaller bite's, our normal truss company will bundle  a big bunk of truss's to load the truck but also band the bunk into small sub bunks , so onsite you can snap the bands and off load smaller bunks . If all that "builder talk" makes any sense to ya all :-?

 They banded all the same type truss's as one bundle , to heavy to off load even with a big crane / boom truck as the bundles are laying flat on the truck . A truss deliverey is normally with the truss's up right so your picking" up all at once ", if they're flat it's a sort of" pick and drag" which drag's the stuff under neath,, which off sets the load . TMI ( To Much Info) sorry. PEG  

[Daddymem]

Oddly enough I got ya.  Instead of strapping a few trusses together and putting them on the truck, they strapped the whole truckload together.  Instead of moving small bundles off the truck, you had to bust the whole bundle apart then move trusses individually?

I wonder if the same deal goes as FirstDay...how do we put this...if your home is delivered to a place with no State Tax, you won't pay State Tax...who is to say where the house goes after the company drops it off...  May or may not make up the cost difference to offload and load back onto another truck, but imagine if you had an open location to unload and load back onto boom trucks in smaller bundles in your instance PEG.

Hey, some nice cottage floorplans LangeCon has, of course some of them stretch the term "cottage" quite a bit.

[glenn-k]

Very nice presentation PEG - at least you know the proper way to post photo's - unlike someone we know-- OK - I should never have doubted my first rule on Yahoo. :-/

I have thought about this home building method for years - you are doing it.  Great.

[peg_688]

 Instead of moving small bundles off the truck, you had to bust the whole bundle apart then move trusses individually?

Not quite one at a time but like photo #9 and 10 , 4 to 7 or so.  To much " hand "  handling , muscling with them PEG

[jraabe]

Here is another Canadian panelized building company we have had some discussions with:

http://www.abshomes.com/ - for homes and larger buidlings

http://www.cabins.ca/ - for cabins and smaller houses

I sent a link to this thread to a contact I have at this company. Maybe they will be able to provide some photos or suggestions about panelized house building.

[Handy(Guest)]

Cabins.ca has some smaller pre-priced cabin packages... 4or5 that are under 500SQ.ft. as well as an assortment of others. AllPro building systems  is a custom panelized company so they can build from any set of plans or modify any of their current plans. They have building facilities in BC; AB and ON Canada and they ship anywhere in Canada and to all the 50 US states. There are lots of photos available on their websites which are constantly being updated.

[Greenbank]

Weird. The photos show up in IE but don't in Firefox. I'll have to see if I have something weird set.

Added: The tinyimg photos show up, but the photobucket ones don't. Anyway, looking good!

[PEG688]

 Truss's . This little crane did a nice job , very good operateor as well smooth as silk , .

 We set  some of the garage with the fork lift . more work / harder than the crane but we had it yesterday , so we used it , the pipe clamps helped keep the truss out at the fork tips while allowing the forks to be tipped back to hold the truss on the forks .

 


   

 

 Not a bad day all in all  PEG

[PEG688]

Today's ,4 Feb. weather

 

 30 MPH steady winds , highest gust about two miles off shore, from this place


   
 
at 05:55 , 68 MPH

    Bracing , bracing , bracing , a builder bestest friend on a day like today
 PEG

[peg_688]

Last big truck siding , roofing , dormer parts , exterior decking and framing materials ,

 

 The corners taking a beating ,

 

 

    Well the last big boy to get up the hill PEG

[Amanda_931]

I guess that means I shouldn't even try for a panelized house.

I used to think that all truck drivers were like the guys from the local gravel place.  One nearly turned his truck over dumping a load (there was fairly fresh fill dirt there), but came back the next time with no problems.  

But the other gravel pit's guy was shaking when he pulled in the driveway.

As was some poor guy in a small (nowhere near 18 wheels--more like 10-- decidedly no sleeper) who dropped off a couple of chairs once.

[glenn-k]

Those big ol' trailers will really walk over.  I am amazed many times by the brain children who will try to pass them on the right.  A buddy of mine ran right over the hood of a car passing on the right in his blind spot one time.  Nailed that front end right to the ground.  I pulled a 45 footer for about 5 years.

[PEG688]

 [size=12]

 Bump to ya Crea-1  



 [/size]

[CREATIVE1]

Well, from not enough information to even more decisions!  But that's okay--more than okay.  I will follow up on everything on panelized homes and post info as I find it.  Already sent John's plans to Double-S Homes for a real cost estimate, so let's cross our fingers that it doesn't come back $$$$$$$$.
But, if it does--I have options!  Thanks, thanks, THANKS!

[CREATIVE1]

I finally got an estimate from Double-S in B.C. for a panelized Victoria Cottage w/o front porch.  No foundation, plumbing, electric, insulation, or interior walls.  $74,000 Canadian!   :'( Comments?

[glenn-k]

Even figuring the exchange rate, it seems to me you could get a lot more if you just stick built it yourself.

[CREATIVE1]

Looks that way to me too.  Onward with estimates!