Melton Engineering and Homebuilders - Indian Creek Homes
 "Homes for the 21st Century"

Environmental Benefits The Modular Home Construction Process

Environmental Benefits of the Modular Home Construction Process are:

The environmental significance of a home built on a production line vs. one built on site can not be understated. The biggest benefits are conservation of construction materials and a decreased environmental burden for transportation.  Conservation of construction materials is relatively easy to understand and it has to do with the assembly line process presented below, but first the more difficult analysis of the environmental efficiency of this product:

Every home has an individual environmental burden whether that home is built at a construction site, or in a manufacturing facility. Transportation plays a significant role in this environmental burden.  When a home is built in 10 days, as in a modular home, the transportation portion of the environmental burden is significantly less than if that home takes 90 days to construct as in a site built home. And there are two enhancements to the lessening of the environmental burden that are attributable to modular built homes.  Ones is that materials can be delivered in larger quantities to the factory than they can be delivered to individual jobsites therefore, the transportation cost per piece of material is less.  The second is that the workers employed at a manufacturing facility tend to live close to that facility, where-as traditional construction workers live where-ever they live and commute to distant jobsites.

Assembly line

The main benefits of the assembly line process, beyond those benefits incurred through the mechanized process involved with assembly line work stations comes from being able to mass produce standard pieces of a home. The home is designed in sub-assemblies, much like an automobile on an assembly line.  The construction sequence of each sub-assembly is carefully designed so material waste is minimized.  Entire walls are constructed, on standard jigs, then installed on the floor.  Entire plumbing systems are fabricated at a plumbing work station and then installed in the home.  Half of the roof for the entire home is constructed, including ceiling texture and paint, and then lifted onto the waiting framed, insulated and painted walls with a track crane inside the assembly facility.

Larger pieces of materials can be used to build these assemblies than can be used when building a home at a site. By using larger pieces of materials, there are fewer cuts to be made, therefore fewer small, odd sized pieces are leftover.  Then, because of the highly controlled assembly line design process, these leftover pieces are collected and re-used in a very organized and systematic manner throughout the rest of the plant, in different sub-assemblies.

Modular home construction facilities also have the resources, and the facilities to support large computerized cutting machines. These machines are programmed by construction process engineers to create pieces of sub-assemblies very efficiently, with very little waste. All cuts are highly accurate, again reducing waste due to mistakes in measuring and cutting by hand.

Materials can be delivered to the plant in bulk, by the tractor trailer load, or even train load.  This significantly minimizes transportation cost and in some cases, packaging costs. By reducing transportation costs, less energy is used.  By reducing packaging, less materials are used, and less materials have to be taken to the landfill.

This product is also significantly stronger than a comparable home built at a construction site.  Modular homes have to be able to withstand the rigor of being transported to the construction site in a nearly complete assembly, then they are lifted off of the transportation frame with a crane and set upon an engineering concrete foundation. Try that with a traditionally built home. 

A stable, local workforce is also a significant environmental attribute of the modular home construction process. Beyond the environmental burden of transportation costs, the stable workforce also has significant positive benefits to society. These include greater insurance coverage, vacations, holidays, weekends off, workers compensation, child care benefits, pensions and retirement programs, safety equipment and job training. These benefits help to create a healthy and responsible industry.  And a healthy and responsible industry is going to be more aware of environmental issues than fragmented group of struggling contractors supporting an industry with an infrastructure.