THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503230178
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Editor's note: This is the first in a series of eight articles
following the construction of a modular house, from its beginning on
an assembly line at Nationwide Homes in Martinsville, Va., to its
completion by Rhodes & Son General Contractors on the Nags Head
oceanfront.
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Like the biblical world, Lois Shedlock's house was created in six days. Unlike its historical antecedent, this 3,300-square-foot vacation home was built on an assembly line. In Martinsville, Va. By 140 pairs of human hands.
Six days from subfloor to roof - complete with floor coverings, plumbing and wiring, wall paint, windows and doors - may sound like a miracle. But it's business as usual for Nationwide Homes where 17 houses come off the line each week.
You might expect that factory building requires high-tech tools and methods. Or, that looking into the walls and crawl spaces of this assembly-line product would reveal flimsy underpinnings, skimpy components, shoddy workmanship.
If you follow this series for the next seven weeks, we'll lay some of those misconceptions to rest.
Lois and Thomas Shedlock and their daughter Marlo moved to the Outer Banks 12 years ago from Pennsylvania after vacationing at the beach for nearly 20 years.
They understood the appeal - and profit potential - of owning resort real estate, says Lois. Deciding to own a vacation cottage ``strictly as an investment'' after watching the market all these years made sense, says Lois.
The Shedlocks joined with a family friend, Scott Noble, and began planning. They found property they liked in February, 1994, but didn't get the deal closed until November.
Over the summer, while negotiations dragged on, the four investors worked on floor plans and ``played with the numbers'' says Lois, the group's designated project manager.
The original plan was to build a seven-bedroom, 5 1/2-bath, three-level, stick-built home. To maximize income, a private swimming pool and hot tub were added to the plans.
Sun Realty agent Betsy Taylor, who is handling rentals for the house, says the pool increases in-season rents by $500 a week. ``The hot tub is the real factor off-season,'' says Taylor. It means increased bookings of ``at least'' 25 percent.
The plans made good sense but the house was over-budget. That's when Lois began looking at modular construction.
Lois had a headstart on understanding the product: She works for general contractor Joe Rhodes and he'd been building modular houses since May. But Rhodes' specialty was stick-built vacation homes and that was what the investors wanted.
``We were strictly on a stick-built path,'' says Rhodes, ``but because the numbers were so tight, modular worked better.''
When Rhodes asked Lois to consider a factory-built house, she agreed to take a look at the modular houses he'd already built. She compared the costs. The estimate for the modular house was running $10 to $15 per square foot less than the stick-built.
She looked at the quality of the windows, cabinets and other features installed by the factory. ``I do my homework,'' she says, so the group left the decision to her.
Lois decided to go modular. ``It worked out better. We didn't have to make any major changes to the plans. And I feel I'm getting a better quality house for my money,'' she says.
One misconception about factory-built housing is that it can't be customized. But each house must be broken down into modular units of roughly the same size for shipping. Units can be easily assembled from different floor plans.
Each unit is limited by size restrictions on trucking loads (14 feet wide by 60 or 70 feet long is the general rule), but there are no restrictions on how many units can be put together or on how the units are laid out and finished inside.
Rhodes' layout, drawn for a stick-built house, included a cathedral ceiling in the great room and a cantilevered fireplace inset.
Nationwide converted the floor plan to a modular design, using a computer-aided design (CAD) system. An inventory of dozens of pre-engineered floor plans broken down into modular units allows the company to produce drawings in-house for more than 95 percent of the houses it builds.
Once a house is ordered, the factory turnaround time is about two months. Rhodes ordered Lois' house at the end of November. It was scheduled to go on line in Martinsville in mid-February. A winter storm delayed the start date. The first unit of four started down the assembly line on Feb. 24.
Normal construction time is eight working days. Lois' house was ready to ship in seven.
On that seventh morning, Monday, March 6, the first unit rolled out of the factory before 10; the other three units were close behind. But on that seventh day, the workers at Nationwide Homes didn't rest: They built three more houses. MEMO: Next week, we'll start watching Lois Shedlock's modular house move down
the assembly line and see how building a house in a factory differs from
building on-site.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by DREW C. WILSON
Lois Shedlock's modular vacation home is assembled after being
delivered from the factory
Workers piece together the 3,300-square-foot, two-story vacation
home at Nags Head.
by CNB