What is a Site Built Homes?
A site built homes is exactly what it sounds like: a house built on your site. Houses built on the site are being built entirely on your property board one by one.
First, the foundation is built on your land, then the house is built from the outside to the inside on top of the foundation.
This is the construction method that most people are familiar with. You’ve definitely seen the site creation process if you’ve watched any shows on HGTV or DIY Network. This is a tried-and-true method, and it’s the way homes have been built for the hundreds of years.
How are these homes built? Does it affect the quality?
The entire site is created on your site. The foundation is laid first, and then the house is built on top of this foundation. You can watch the whole process in person from start to finish.
While this sounds attractive, there are the several drawbacks.
Firstly, due to the construction process, it can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to build a house built on the site.
There are several reasons for this.
First, because your home is built entirely outside, bad weather can slow down the project. Furthermore, house materials are kept outdoors during all construction work, so they are more likely to form, warp, be out of the box, and more.
Secondly, the foundation of the house built on the site must be laid before the house can be built. This single factor alone can add two months or more to your project schedule.
Site construction inflates home prices
Although site building is the traditional way of building a house, houses built in this way are more expensive than houses constructed using other building methods (such as modular construction).
This method causes home price inflation in several ways.
First, website builders don’t buy their materials at the best prices. Site builders purchase the materials from local hardware stores as needed for each project. Since they do not buy the materials in bulk directly from the distributor, the site builders pay high prices for their building materials, which are then passed on to the customer at the final price of the house.
Long project schedules increase the price of a home, too. Remember that it takes 6 months – 2 years or more to build a house built on the site. The builder needs to pay its employees no matter how long the project takes, and the project can be delayed by weather delays and unexpected outages. These things are taken into account in the price of your home.
Furthermore, the site builders need to account for each employee’s daily travel costs to the job site. All this makes labor costs about half the total cost of the house.
Site built homes, manufactured or the modular: what’s the difference and what does it mean?
Site built homes
As the name implies, this method of construction assembles the house on the site where it will stand permanently upon completion. All materials that go into the house—from wood for the frame to plumbing pipes and roof panels—are transported to the site to assemble the house, which can take several months. Transfer and purchase of exact measurements of building materials to be used (as opposed to buying in bulk) contributes to the final cost of the home.
Site construction is a time-tested, traditional method of building houses, and is the most popular method of construction. Construction times vary, but can range from as little as three months to a year, according to data from the US Census Bureau’s Building Survey (SOC). SOC data showed that the average price per square foot for a home built on a single-family site was just over $100 in 2015.
Manufactured homes
Rather than being built on site, manufactured homes are built in a controlled factory environment using many of the same building materials as site-built homes. The entire house is assembled at the factory in sections and then trucked to the site of the house for final installation.
Manufactured homes are subject to internal inspections and must meet building standards set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (or HUD) for final certification. Because the house is built indoors, the construction schedule is not subject to weather delays, so a manufactured home can be completed and outfitted on site in a matter of weeks, rather than months.
Manufactured home builders purchase building materials and hardware by volume, which helps keep the cost of manufactured homes lower than what you would pay for a home built on the site. In 2015, the median cost of a manufactured home was $47.55 per square foot, according to SoC data. Overall, a manufactured home can be an affordable option and can be customized from the ground up, just like traditional housing.
Modular homes
Modular home construction combines fabricated and on-site home construction elements. In modular home construction, the home may be either 100 percent factory built or a combination of factory built and site built. Modular homes can be shipped to the entire home site or with work still to be done. This allows modular homes to be fully customizable and unique as their site-built counterparts. Often in modular construction, the house is shipped in sections that are assembled on site using a crane. The house is usually placed on a permanent foundation and can be several stories high.
All building codes that apply to homes built on the site also govern modular homes. Since much of the construction work takes place within a factory setting with a constant supply of building materials in stock, modular homes can also be completed faster than on-site built homes. They also benefit from similar significant cost savings as manufactured homes.
Source: Site Built Homes
