The House Factory Tour

We toured the factory today and got to see our house.  It was pretty far along in the process - the walls inside had all been rocked, insulation was in, plumbing was in.  They haven't gotten sheathing on the outside yet.  I am told they do that at the same time they are doing all the taping.  They do as much as they can in parallel.  So they have a crew building the floors complete with all electrical and plumbing at the same time other crews are building walls.  All the interior walls go on starting from the center of the house out, they also install water heaters, bathtubs, etc.  After each house section is built and dried in (including siding) they tow it to another building to do all the finish interior work - trim, painting etc. 



The biggest dust collector I've ever seen.

Because precision matters.  cut to 1/8".   I've seen rough framing where 1/4" is good enough.

Here's a floor being built - most of these  pictures are not my house.  It's sitting on a jig.  The decking is glued and nailed after all wiring, plumbing, etc is pulled.  This factory builds the house off-frame.  The jig is perfectly flat, and the dollies can be adjusted for any imperfections in the floor.   You can't do this with a frame. 

Dead center, and a doubled band joist.  Over 30' of house every joist was dead on.

Here's how they lift the floor to set it on dollies:

And here are the dollies.  The house will roll on these until it is lifted onto the frame.

Interior walls being built.

Here's one half of my roof.  At the same time they are doing interior walls, insulating and doing sheathing they are building a roof. The roof is lifted and the house is moved under it. The house section it goes to is off to the left.  Notice the drywall on it already.

Moving a house, this is half of my house.  It's all manpower (lots of it).

Here's a closeup of the roof hinge system.  The house is shipped with the roof down.  After the house section is set on the foundation, the roof is craned up into place.  They will sheath and mostly shingle the roof at the factory.

 

Here's a jack they use to lift the house off the dollies to get the frame under it.  Once it's on the frame they put sheathing and siding on the outside, shingle the roof and then it goes to final finishing.