Hiring family or friends to act as your modular home contractor or one of your subcontractors can create problems unless you spell out their responsibilities clearly in advance. Make sure you have a written agreement that explains the scope of work, specifications, and price in detail. Also, ensure that they will schedule their work in a time fashion.
Hiring Family as Your Modular Home Contractor – Part 1
One of my customers, who acted quite competently as his own modular home contractor, hired his brother to complete the electrical work on his Two-Story home. My customer did a commendable job getting all of the subcontractors to show up on time, and except for one subcontractor, would likely have finished the work ahead of schedule. But this one subcontractor (yes, his brother the electrician) did not complete his work until many weeks after the others had completed theirs. The electrician told his brother that since he was doing him a favor by taking the job, he should understand that he needed to finish his other, “real” work first. He figured that his brother would understand the significant delay, since “after all, we’re family.”
Hiring Friends as Your Modular Home Contractor
Another of my customers, a single man, hired two friends to complete all of the interior and exterior carpentry button-up on his Cape Cod modular home. Although the friends were professional carpenters, they had no experience with modular construction and did not know all that needed to be done. My customer told his friends what he thought needed to be done, but somehow the friends got it wrong. Maybe my customer, who was also new to modular construction, did not understand the scope of work, or maybe he explained it poorly, or maybe the friends thought they knew what was needed and so did not really listen. Since the three of them were friends, they did not think it was necessary to put their agreement in writing. Once the friends discovered that they had more to do than they anticipated, they told my customer that they would not be able to complete all of the work they originally planned to do for the price they quoted. They had not budgeted the extra time or materials, and they already had given my customer a great price. My customer felt this was unfair. He had taken his friends’ word that the job would be complete and had not included additional money in his budget. The friends, however, felt that their original agreement was based on a misrepresentation by my customer of what was required. In the end, my customer borrowed money from his parents and paid his friends to complete the work. I have no idea how their personal relationships faired after the house was built.
Hiring Family as Your Modular Home Contractor – Part 2
Yet another customer, who used my company to serve as the modular home contractor to build her T-Ranch home, hired her brother-in-law to complete the plumbing and heating systems. In hopes of saving money, she hired him on an hourly basis (“time plus materials”). Her brother-in-law did a fine job, from everything I could see. I later found out that she paid more than I would have charged her. I suspect her brother-in-law’s inexperience with modular homes caused him to be less proficient with the work, which caused him to take longer than would a subcontractor with modular experience. The brother-in-law then charged my customer for his “extra” hours.
For more information about hiring family or friends as your modular home contractors, see Selecting a General Contractor in my book The Modular Home.
You’ve probably heard that special modular construction techniques are used to make homes strong enough to be transported down the highway, lifted by a crane, and set on a foundation. What you may not have heard is that the same techniques that are responsible for the unique durability of modular homes also give modular homes a lot more protection against any violent force – “manmade” or natural.
The Structural Durability of Modular Homes
Some of the best stories about the structural durability of modular homes are ones the industry is most ambivalent about telling. These are the tales about homes that fell to the ground during the delivery or set. Industry professionals fear that customers will think these accidents happen frequently or that customers might be expected to accept a damaged module, neither of which is true. Not to tell these stories does a disservice to the industry. I can’t think of anything that offers a more vivid testament than the image of a module sliding off of a carrier as it exits an interstate at 30 miles per hour and rolls down a hill, turning over six times, surviving with only a few drywall cracks and a broken window.
Fortunately, my company has had only one such experience in 26 years. The house was a two-story colonial with an attached in-law apartment. The two small modules for the apartment were shipped on the same carrier as two of the modules for the home. When my set crew lifted one of the two-story modules from the carrier, the carrier tipped over and the small module fell off the carrier and rolled over on its side. As shocked as I was by the accident, I was even more shocked by the condition of the module and my customer’s response. The module survived with only a few cosmetic cracks in the drywall, a broken pane of glass in a window, and an exterior door out of alignment. I apologized to my customer and said that I would build them a new module as soon as possible. They said that was not necessary, since the module was still in very good shape. I explained that I did not feel right having them take a damaged module, but they insisted. After the general-contracting work was completed on the home, none of us could tell that anything unusual had happened. Even after several years, we’ve never had a problem with the module.
The Durability of Modular Homes Can Help them Survive Natural Disasters
The unique durability of modular homes accounts for the many stories of these homes surviving without serious structural damage after being subjected to hurricanes and tornadoes, something no stick-built house could withstand. It explains why a modular motel was found to be the only thing standing after Hurricane Hugo hit a North Carolina town, and why the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave the following report on Hurricane Andrew in Florida: “Overall, relatively minimal structural damage was noted in modular housing developments. The module-to-module combination of units appears to have provided an inherently rigid system that performed much better than conventional residential framing. This was evident in both the transverse and longitudinal directions of the modular buildings” (Publication number FIA-22, February 1993, page 29).
Our Recent Experience with the Unique Durability of Modular Homes
This past year two of our homes – both built several years ago – were hit directly by a rare tornado in Western Massachusetts. The tornado was reported to have winds of 160 mph. Here are two videos about how our homes fared compared to conventionally built homes. Don’t forget to watch the second one, since it includes interviews with the homeowners.
For more information about the unique durability of modular homes, see Why Build Modular in my book The Modular Home.
Building a home for the first time has one thing in common with having your first child. You’re never really prepared. It doesn’t matter how many times family, friends, and know-it-all strangers share their experience and advice. Just as you have to live through parenting to understand the difficulties of meeting your baby’s needs, you have to experience the challenges of building a home to understand its demands and stresses.
I made this point in the Introduction to my book, The Modular Home. My goal for the book was to draw on my 26 years of experience in the industry (as President of The Home Store) to educate anyone building a modular home for the first time. As it’s turned out, this has included modular industry folk new to the business in addition to those building their own modular home. To make this more interesting and personal, I included several short stories about my customers. I called these, “Speaking from Experience”.
This blog will begin with these stories, but will add many, many more – at least one or two a week. Most of the stories will be about the challenges, mistakes, and surprises experienced by my customers, their general contractors, our modular factories, and (yes) my company in general and me personally. Almost every tale was endured by more customers than the ones I mention. In fact, some of the stories are composites of several customers’ experiences. Needless to say, I disguise my customers’ identities.
I will also mix in many straightforward advice posts. They will tell you what to do and why you should do it. Some will focus on what you shouldn’t do.
I’d like to mention a point acknowledged by conventional builders who’ve read my book. The number of challenges, mistakes, and surprises experienced by builders of stick, panelized, and log homes is even greater than those facing builders of modular homes. The reason is that there is much more work to be done on site with these types of homes. That’s of course why more and more people, including conventional builders, are considering modular homes over other forms of construction.
As I said in my book, if you’re wondering why I’m being so candid, it’s because I want your experience to be as free of surprises as possible. If my blog does its job and prepares you for what lies ahead, you will be very glad when you’ve built your own modular home.
So please join me each week for my Tales from a Modular Home Builder.
