Factory built homes

Ritz Craft Factory
Originally uploaded by bredto

It's a bizarre concept for most, but why not build home in a factory? Everything is built in a jig so every angle is perfectly square. The factory workers are assigned a single job which they do all the time so they get pretty damn good at it. All the wood is stored inside unlike a traditional work site where everything is exposed to the elements. Work is done from 9-5 rain or shine so a home can be built in a week, unlike months and months it takes with a traditional on site job. Sounds good to me.

We ended up going with Ritz Craft to build our modular, which is based out of Pennsylvania. In a month or so you might pass our house heading down the highway as it's being delivered! We visited the factory in the fall and I was blown away. Henry Ford would be proud. The line starts with assembling the floor segments out of 2"x12"s in a jig. The tongue and groove plywood in glued and nail down on top. A huge crane grabs the floor segment (in the case of the posted pic about 48'x14') and moves it to the next station. Walls, drywall, electric, plumbing, windows,roof, siding and fixtures are all done in the factory. Some things are shipped "loose" and assembled/installed on site.

We put our down payment down and our house should be starting through this line this month. Pretty exciting. I guess technically we could make another trip down and see our house being built.