There is an article on Mashable.com that stopped me in my tracks and had me questioning if maybe they are right when they say that modular’s time has come and gone.
They have a series of articles sponsored by BMWi. This particular one is about 5 companies impacting green housing. Funny how they are all West Coast Lego styled boxes and instead of being called modular, they are prefab.
What really struck me as odd was this statement. “The mobile home revolutionized functional, affordable
housing. For its time, modular housing was incredibly waste-efficient, too,
compared to the on-site building processes of today, which can exhaust more
than 30% of building materials.” Just what does “For its time” mean? CLICK HERE to read the article.
The article goes on to say that the new prefab homes will virtually eliminate waste and be the most energy efficient homes anyone has ever seen. Even MK would be impressed with that. It also said that some of them can even be built for $200,000!
I talked with one of my industry friends about this and he suggested the reason these types of homes may actually be the future is that young people today don’t want to take the time to learn the trades or work in factories like we did. Everything with them is instant gratification and electronics. He went on to say that his nephew was offered a job on the production of his factory for over $20 an hour but turned it down because he wouldn’t be allowed to have his iPhone while he worked. He took a $13 job as a flagman for a road construction company with no benefits just because he would be allowed to text and talk on his phone.
He went on to say that with the increasing lack of skilled laborers, the only type of homes that would be available in 20 years would be converted shipping containers and modular home components made overseas and shipped into the US.
For those that want to call modular housing “prefab“, here are some pictures of your future homes:
