Whether you purchase a modular home or a stick built home in the end competence is what matters. There is no easy short cut method for having a new home built.
I have built new homes with my husband since the mid 1980's and they are all energy efficient. After 20 years of stick building this year we used a modular product. We spent 8 months refining the building plans before placing our order, and we are professional builders. We could have easily spent 8 months on stick construction but we felt in the end the time spent on the modular plans was a good investment. We will use the plans again.
Whatever you decide you will need to educate yourself. Whether it is extensive builder investigation or modular companies, you cannot avoid the learning curve and if you try don't blame someone else if you don't get what you want.
Modular companies only build the product they are not builders that install the product and finish it off. To my knowledge they will not provide additional services. Someone needs to look at the property and where to place the home. How will the foundation fit into the land and the house on the foundation.
In the past 12 months I have seen modular homes put on top of foundations with no forethought about front door entrances. Somehow a foundation got ordered and so did the modular but noone thought about how the two came together. The foundations are 8 feet above ground and the modular sits on top of the foundation and the front door is 8 feet off the ground. The access to the front door become a major engineering nightmare. Not to mention the cost.
There needs to be someone to orchestrate the process. A home is like a body. All the components fit together and need to be integrated. If you break them apart and treat them separately they will not come together and function as one unit.
Take your time. If you own the land that is a good start. Most likely in today's political environment where it seems that all we do is service one another you will have lots and lots of municipal rules and regulations. These "rule and regulations" require extensive paperwork and approvals before you get to break ground.
The entire construction process from thought to move in the furniture takes us a minimum of 3 years and we are professionals.
While you pursue your dream of a new home now is a good time to contemplate making it an energy efficient home.
Check out
www.energyefficienthomearticles.com. It is a great resource directory about energy efficient homes. If you don't make it energy efficient now one day you will have a mortgage payment to the lender and another payment to the utility companies as high if not higher than your mortgage payment.
It is worth the 5-8% upfront costs to make a home energy efficient during the construction phase verses going back and retrofiting a home later on.
If this information has overwhelmed you, good. Hopefully, you will benefit from another person's experience. There are two ways one learns. Learn from one's own mistakes or the mistakes of others. Whatever works for you?
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