Are you looking to invest in your very first home? Maybe you are looking to rent a home. Whatever the situation is you probably have the Internet and started doing a lot of research. You probably quickly discovered that when it comes to affordability and convenience, you would not find anything more suiting than the manufactured home and the pre-fabricated home. There is a lot of confusion surrounding these two types of homes and some individuals even confuse them as being the same thing. This is not the case at all. They are entirely different and it is extremely important to understand the differences. This will give you the ability to decide which best suits your needs.
The Construction Process Of The Manufactured Home
The manufactured home really is nothing more than a trailer or mobile home. They are less expensive than the pre-fabricated home, but they are also smaller. These homes do not need to be assembled on site because that is built in a factory and they are extremely moveable. They are not usually placed on permanent foundations. It is the affordability and the mobility that make the manufactured home stand out.
The Construction Process Of The Pre-Fabricated Home
The first thing that you need to know is that pre-fabricated homes or modular homes are constructed in factories. They will then be transported to a certain location on flatbed trucks where they are assembled on-site. They usually arrive in block section and require the use of cranes and other heavy equipment to be assembled. In many such cases, these home are installed on permanent foundations because it would be extremely hard and expensive to disassemble relocate them. It is important for wind and rain conditions to be taken into account when assembling these homes because you do not want a delay where the materials of the home would be exposed to the harsh elements of the weather.
The Regulations
Another major difference between the two types of home is the regulations that they must adhere to. The laws and regulations surrounding the manufactured homes are much less stringent than compared to the pre-fabricated homes. In fact the manufactured home only needs to conform to the Housing and Urban Development Code (HUD). They are usually inspected but do not have to be structurally certified by the inspector.
This is not the case with the pre-fabricated homes. The pre-fabricated home must conform to every single local, state and regional building code that all homes built on-site have to conform to.
Customizable
Unfortunately, the manufactured home isn’t very customizable. Sure, there are several different sizes and styles available, but the home is virtually already built and you just simply pick it out. Layouts can vary greatly, but you will not be able to design the home.
The pre-fabricated home offers different options, as they are highly customizable. You can actually design the home to your own likening before it is ever even constructed in the factory. The only downside is that these homes usually take anywhere from eight to fourteen weeks to construct, depending on the complexity of the design and layout.
