PREFAB
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Small cabin kits—the sort designed to install in a backyard or on a wooded lot—serve multiple purposes: pool houses, ...
For those who've always wanted to build their own tiny home or garden room, the prospect may now be more realistic than ever! Find the perfect kit that suits your...
Some happy homeowners are perplexed by the tiny house craze, while others are ready to trade in their full-size homes for a taste of the tiny life. Regardless of ...
In the early 20th century, a handful of companies, including Sears, Roebuck and Co., sold tens of thousands of mail-order homes. Available in a variety of styles ...
Bored of your surroundings? If you're willing to trade your stationary stick-built home for a permanently impermanent address in the great outdoors, snag the keys...
Bigger isn’t always better. For proof, look no further than these 23 tiny homes, situated all around the country, that serve as evidence that sometimes the most m...
The tiny-house movement has much to teach us about living simply and with minimal environmental impact—and about how to stow stuff when space is extremely tight. ...
The average American spends a third to half of his or her income just putting a roof overhead, so it’s no surprise th...
The picture-perfect 4-bedroom house with the white picket fence is not everyone's ideal. If you’ve got a hankering to cut loose and see the country from the comfo...
Having guests home to visit is often a reason to celebrate. But after a day or two, we might wish for a little more—well—personal space. It turns out that the ans...
Early American homes were rugged and rustic—the ultimate DIY project. Today, modern homesteaders can build a new house with the same frontier appeal by starting f...
Over the past several years, the tiny house movement has only gained momentum, with increasing numbers of homeowners ...
If you know someone who's been especially good this year—and you're feeling very generous—you need to check out our roundup of prefab and DIY housing structures t...
Flash floods are a reality in Texas, at least near the Nueces River, which runs through the 10,000-acre ranch owned b...
Jeffrey Sommers's C3 Prefab modular house is a landmark of new urban architecture—and the first of its kind in Chicago. Although the structure was quick to constr...
Prefabricated homes are increasingly popular for a variety of reasons, among them the relatively quick build time, the ecological advantages, and the flexibility ...
Manufactured housing has always been an affordable alternative to site-built homes. Older models especially can be scooped up at a reasonable price, providing pro...
In Elkhart, IN, at the Recreational Vehicle/Manufactured Housing (RV/MH) Hall of Fame, resident historian Al Hesselba...
On the day that Mary Jane McCarty’s prefab shed was delivered, it was raining cats and dogs. But the Bucks County, PA...
Drive past any port in America today and you’re bound to see row upon row of empty shipping containers stacked, like ...
Modular homes are constructed in a factory and assembled on site. Since modular homes are factory-built to exacting s...
Modular homes are built to the same local and state codes as traditional stick-built homes. The way they differ is ho...
Whether it’s called a modular home, a systems-built home, or a factory-built home, the modular home is a misunderstoo...
If you are looking for a good quality, super-insulated and super-strong house, a modular home using structural insul...
When is a trailer park not a trailer park? When it’s being designed and developed by nationally recognized small-spac...
Innovative shipping container homes show just how good sustainable architecture can look.
Eschewing excess space and making the most of every inch, these functional but tiny houses prove that bigger is not always better.
A small space can house some very big design ideas—witness the new aktiv line of houses designed by ideabox, a six-ye...
They've come a long way from the catalog kit homes that were delivered by railroad across the nation a century ago, b...
If you're thinking of building new, you can streamline construction and save costs by going modular. Modular construc...
The factory-built home has come a long way from its humble trailer origins to its growing popularity today.
The House Arc, designed by Joseph Bellomo of Bellomo Architects in Palo Alto, California, is a kit home that represen...
Roughly half of the shipping containers that enter our ports never make it back to their points of origin. Not surprisingly, this growing glut of steel cargo cont...
Looking for an inexpensive backyard office or a tiny house in the woods? Check out the growing field of container arc...
With rising energy costs and the lingering effects of the mortgage crisis, demand for smaller houses has never been g...
For many city apartment dwellers, living in a small, confined space is hardly cause for celebration. But this year, t...
When Ned and Anne Hammond began to consider what type of home they wanted to build, they did what most of us might do...
Bob meets with Pat Fricchione from Simplex Industries to discuss the process of constructing a modular home and the reasons why prefab is an attractive building m...
Bob teams up with Michael Shiels, the project's general contractor, to discuss the foundation prep work that is underway.
Bob meets with Jim Costello from Superior Walls of America to discuss the difference between a pre-cast and a traditional poured-concrete foundation.
Bob tours the Simplex Industries modular home plant and learns how the different pre-fab parts are made.
Bob tours the Simplex Industries manufacturing facility where workers are precutting the plywood as they construct the interior and exterior walls.
Bob witnesses high-speed drywall finishing taking place in the Simplex modular home building plant.
Bob meets with Thomas "Doc" Dougherty, the stair builder at Simplex Industries, to confer about the custom staircase Doc is building for the modular home.
Bob continues his tour of the Simplex Industries factory and observes the installation of prefinished Bellawood floors in the project home.
As workers join together the different sections of the modular home, Bob walks through the basement and first floor, discussing the marriage wall and how the piec...
Installation of the second floor sections begins as Bob points out the complexity of the pre-fabricated pieces.
Bob reviews the site preparation process with the on-site contractor, Michael Sheils.
The first day of assembling the modular home ends on a high note-- the addition of a roof.
Bob talks with Mark Murphy (Owens-Corning) about a new man-made stone product for the exterior of the modular home.
Bob and contractor Michael Sheils discuss the use of gusset plates to tie in the walls. They then tour through the master bedroom and bathroom.
Bob surveys the modular home project in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, paying special attention to the products used on the exterior of the house.
Bob tours a home that was designed to affordable, flexible, and easy to build with a do-it-yourself, low-cost construction system.
Bob meets with Askia Aquil of the St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services to talk about the upcoming project, taking place in a revitalizing area. Next, Bob ...
Bob meets with David Cross of Tampa Armature Works (TAW), a company that converts shipping containers into intermodal steel building units (ISBUs).
Once stripped down, an ISBU's exterior is finished with heavy-gauge steel, then faced in sheet-metal wrap and covered with SuperTherm insulating ceramic coating. ...
Window installation is underway. Bob talks with Stephen Hugh of Clearwater Window to learn more about the installation process, and Dave Olmstead of PGT Industrie...
Bob talks to Derek Mercer and Delwin Carter of Tampa Armature Works about how to treat the steel exterior to make it look more like a conventional house. Bob then...
Bob joins Steve Armstrong, the project architect and engineer, to discuss the project. The challenge of building a home like this is marrying new methods of const...
Bob talks with David Cross from Tampa Armature Works. Cross reviews the versatility of designing houses with shipping containers. Both traditional and contemporar...
General contractor Buba Barrow joins Bob for a tour of the finish work and interior layout, starting on the tiled front porch, moving through the open-plan family...
Bob talks with David Cross (formerly of Tampa Armature Works) about the future of home construction with steel shipping containers.
