Modular design for Little House

[youngins]

Hello,

740 miles separates us from our property in South central Colorado. We are looking at the best way to build the 14x24 Little House without spending a good deal of the budget on hotel.

One idea we had is to "modularize" the construction where we pre-built as much as we could at our house and then transport the modules to the property for assembly.

Has anyone tried this modular idea?
How much could we realistically get done away from the property?

Thank you in advance for you thoughts

[jraabe]

Check out this project in the Owner-Builder Gallery. It's a 20' wide house that was panelized and trucked to the site.

http://www.countryplans.com/cody.html

[youngins]

That is a great idea to modularize the walls.

How about the floor deck?

The idea would be something this:

1. Build a "modular" floor deck and panel walls at home
2. Take modules/panels to build site
3. Temporarily assemble floor deck modules
4. Raise assembled floor deck with jacks and mark ground where piers should be
5. Disassemble floor deck modules / dig pier holes / place piers & posts
6. Permanently assemble floor deck modules together
7. Assemble wall panels
8. build roof
9. etc..

Is there a way this could be done with the Little House or even the Builder's Cabin?

Thanks

Chris

[glenn-k]

I think the wall panels make sense, but the floor deck is best to have the footings carefully laid out then just assembled in place and be done with it-- I don't see a gain to be made there. - Just my opinion.

[MountainDon]

That's a big distance away! I'm only 75 minutes away from my mountain site and think that's far enough! I've just started thinking about panelizing some of the walls, since I read the piece on    http://www.countryplans.com/cody.html    It seems to make sense to use some of the free time at home to make up wall sections and then assemble them on site. Good use of at home time.

I agree with Glenn on the floor tho'. I think time taken to carefully site build an accurately square and level solid floor is well spent time on site. This forms the real base for everything else. I don't see how floor panels would work because under it all you need the joists and all to be rock solid. Maybe I'm not understanding your floor idea.

I don't like stairs or lofts with ladders! My knee's going to give me enough hell, with just the building, let alone purposely build in an upstairs!  :-?  So call me crazy but I'm also planning on building my own roof trusses, instead of rafters, with glued and nailed plywood plates, here at home and hauling them up. So I think the wall panels are a logical acompaniment (real word?) of this. Have months on my hands before spring ends. What else can we prefab? I'm doing the cabinets in my own non conventional way.

[MountainDon]

I've been thinkinmg about this panelized construction. My conclusion is that  think this is great for a larger project like the 20 x 30   http://www.countryplans.com/cody.html    . However looking at my plan and trying to panelize it I run into things like having to move a window or door to fit into the constraints of fitting those items within the bounds of a 4 ft x 8 ft panel section. In a larger building having to shift a window a foot one way or the other does chnage the interior layout as much.

However, what I will do is precut and mark things like the jack and cripple studs, window and door headers, even the bottom and top sills. This would require a little organization with legible marking of the precuts, but I'm used to that having been a designer, builder of wooden playground equipment. They were all precut in the shop and assembled on site. Same thing here... just have to be accurate in everything from the drawings to the cutting. Save time in the field tho'.     Just an idea?

[youngins]

MountainDon,

Good point about pre-cut and marking. Please let us know how it works out.

Chris

[Santa]

I recently purchased the Big Enchilada plans and intend to start with the 14X24. I also am pretty far from my property (8 Hrs) and the modular approach makes sense to me. In the Gallery, Cody (the lady who did this before) offered more information on her process. Is this available anywhere?

I want to use the modular process with 12' high walls. Any thoughts?

[glenn kangiser]

Welcome to the forum.  I'm not sure about the more info.  You could use the search function for Cody and possibly find it.

http://www.countryplans.com/search.html

My thoughts on the 12 ft high walls are that you would need to restrict them to 8 feet wide for hauling to the site and standing them would be rough without equipment.  For the 12' walls the semi-balloon framing is best so that limits you a bit.

My thought would be to make a good cut list - make the parts - stack them compactly on the truck or trailer then with power tools, assemble them quickly on the site.  Many parts could be pre-made and shipping and handling would be much easier.  Just layout and check about 3 times before you cut it once.

[Santa]

Thanks for the welcome. I like the idea of pre-cutting for ease of transportation. I had planned on 4' sections. Do you think that a couple of people could handle that in a 12' panel without special equipment?

[youngins]

http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1161883724;start=all

PM me your email addy - i will send more pics of her steup.

[glenn kangiser]

I  think you could handle it, but with such a long distance to go it will really affect the packing when loading it on a truck or trailer-- They will take a whole bunch more room pre-assembled, than they would in a tight stack of pre-cut boards - plywood etc.  The individual items will nest together tightly.  Each wall section will take about 4" or better for a couple boards and plywood.

I work with large loads of steel shipped long distances - much of the pre-assembled stuff takes quite a bit of room.

[Santa]

I think I like your idea of transporting cut pieces then assembling on site. I was just wondering if you thought a 4' section (12' high) could be erected without anything special.

[Santa]

Youngins

Thanks for the additional info & pics. She used a jig. Good idea.

[MountainDon]

.... make a good cut list - make the parts - stack them compactly on the truck or trailer then with power tools, assemble them quickly on the site.  Many parts could be pre-made and shipping and handling would be much easier.  Just layout and check about 3 times before you cut it once.

This is exactly what I plan to do with my small cabin. It really works well with the proper pre-planning. Back when I ran a small playground mfg/install company everything was pre-cut and pre-drilled for posts, beams, deck boards. It also makes the transportation simpler than having to deal with large heavy panels.

As for smaller 4 foot sections, my personal thoughts are that at that level too much effort and special cutting would be spent to make it worthwhile. And a sheathed 4 foot panel is probably still heavy, and may make the door/window cutouts more problematic. Just my thoughts.

[builderboy]

Not to discourage panelizing your cabin - I thought about it long and hard. In the end I bought an old travel trailer so I could stay and build on site. Didn't want double studs every 4 ft. Trailer should be for sale in 2-3 months. (x fingers)

[MountainDon]

If you thought it all out right beforehand you might not to need double studs every 4 feet. With jigs you could panel on one side and leave out one end stud, say the left on each finished panel. Then in assembling you would insert the nailed stud overlap with the next panel..... but that's where I figured it was more trouble than it was worth.

I'm going to live in the RV on site, but will probably have to drag it up the last hill with my neighbor's cat.  :-?

[builderboy]

The other thing I didn't like was transporting the panels. A 1/2 sheet of plywood is 6" with the studs attached. It would have made way too may trips hauling to my build site. (couldn't afford a freightliner so I bought an $800 travel trailer).

[glenn-k]

I'm going to live in the RV on site, but will probably have to drag it up the last hill with my neighbor's cat.   :-?

I think I've seen your neighbors cat, Don.  If anything should do it, you and that cat should be able to -- he's one mean looking
cat.


This is him isn't it? :-?

[MountainDon]

At first glance I thought that resembled the neighbor himself more than the cat. Now I'm not sure, the mischievous grin reminds me of what Glenn, should look like tho'