Many potential home buyers wonder what are the benefits of modular home. From cost efficiency to energy efficiency, there are plenty of practical reasons to modify your dream to include one.
1. Cost Efficiency of Modular Homes
A Modular Home will save most buyers between 20% and 30% of what they would pay for a traditional site built home (When comparing apples to apples). That’s a lot of savings, especially considering the average home build costing around $200,000 dollars today.
This extra 20%-30% can be used to spruce up your land and spice up your property. For example, with that kind of savings, you could consider putting up a pool, getting a privacy fence installed, buying a playset for the kids, or anything else that defines your lifestyle and character.
2. Energy Efficiency of Modular Homes
Modular homes are more energy efficient than site-built homes. Here’s why.
Insulation
Most Modular home builders use a 2 x 6 exterior wall that not only adds strength and safety to your home but also increases insulation from a R-11 rating to a R-21 rating. This decreases the heating and cooling costs when comparing to a site built home with the traditional 2 x 4 wall.
Less Material Waste
Since modular homes are built in factories, they are created to exact specifications. Due to this specificity, there is much less material waste during the building process. There are some prefab factory processes that can actually reduce material waste by even more than 50%.
Light Efficiency
Incandescent bulbs use much more energy than the CFL or LED lighting that is typically present in modular homes. These incandescent bulbs also don’t last nearly as long. With the high-quality insulation work present in the CFL or LED lighting, the amount of heating and cooling needed to keep the home at your preferred temperature is decreased.
3. Same Standards As Homes Built On Site
A true modular home is built to exactly the same standards as a home built on site. So let’s take a look at everything that’s similar.
Wind loads – the load (in pounds per square foot) put on a structure by wind
Snow loads – the downward force on a home’s roof caused by the weight of ice and snow as it accumulates
Plumbing & Electrical Codes – The set of standards all homes (modular or site built) must meet in order to ensure safety of the people living in the home.
Banking – Believe it or not, the banking is also the same for modular and stick-built homes. Both types of homes qualify for conventional financing, FHA, USDA, VA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Let’s take a look at what you as a buyer want to know most: Which is Better?
Ask yourself these questions:
Would you rather live in a home that is subject to rain and snow during the build (site built) or a home built indoors that isn’t subject to potentially damaging weather conditions (modular home)?
Would you rather live in a home where the walls are built on potentially uneven ground or in a home that is laid out on a table jig put together straight and true?
Some studies show that the “module-to-module combination of units” provides a much more rigid system, beating out the performance of traditional home framing. If you would like to learn more, see FEMA’s study that showed Modular Homes out-performed site built homes during a hurricane.
The Cold Hard Truth:
Modular homes are safer and better built than site-built homes. This is mostly due to the method of construction. Modular homes have to withstand the stress of shipping and transportation, therefore, on average, a modular home contains 30% more building materials than a comparable site-built home.
Also, drywall is not only screwed, but glued to the wall studs, and triple-headers are used over window openings and around stairwells.
Choose Century Homes for Your Modular Home Floor Plan
If you’re interested in learning more, here’s everything else you need to know about modular homes.
If you’d like to save lots of time and money, and if you’re interested in working with Century Home Builders to build your next modular home, check out our beautiful modular home floor plans!
