Yesterday I received the following email from a NJ modular home builder very politely correcting my article Small Builders Have Advantage After Sandy.
Three things became evident after reading his comments. First, he brought up a point about foundations and infrastructure that I should have known; secondly he survived the storm and is ready to help his neighbors; and lastly, if you’re going to correct Modcoach, please do it as pleasantly as he did. We all wish he and his family the best after his terrible ordeal.
Dear Modcoach;
In regard to your 11/10/12 article, “Small Builders
Have a Huge Advantage After Sandy”, I believe your heart was in the right
place but some of your facts were just not correct.
I live on a
in the town of
Lavallette is the next town north of
was hit pretty hard too – I stayed there for six days after
then we voted ourselves off the
My family has been building homes from the same location for over 64
years, my company 47 years and myself almost 33 years.
To qualify my opinion, Our website: www.SicaHomes.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/SicaModularHomes
please see:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/alfred-j-sica-jr/16/406/832
I agree with you that there is great opportunity for small builders in the
“After Sandy Recovery” – we are one of them and look forward to
helping our community.
In your second paragraph you state that in a lot of cases the existing
foundation may be reused. I disagree with that statement. Many of
the existing foundations were built years before the IRC-2009. Many were
built below the FEMA Base Flood Elevation of today. Many required
foundation pilings but because of lack building codes many years ago, no
pilings were installed. And many were severely damaged due to scouring and the
floating debris field. I know this from first hand inspection. Virtually 99% of
the foundation remains that I have seen will not meet the current FEMA
regulations nor the current IRC-2009 requirements. Many are on
non-confirming lots. Almost every foundation that remains should be
completely removed and reconstructed to the most current building code.
The modular time advantage may be lost to the development of
new zoning and freeboard requirements most every
addressing. A number of the local zoning ordinances are based on average
lot depths and existing conditions that just don’t exist anymore.
At the
problems that need to be addressed before we can even think of building new
homes – it will take months to a year.
Entire municipal buildings have been destroyed with all their records,
computers, desk, chairs, etc. It will take time for them to set up their government
and be able to address issuing building permits for new homes. I can see
emergency repairs for repairable homes but new homes on the Coast will be a
months away at the least.
Fortunately our business location was completely undamaged by Sandy and we’ve
Almost every modular home we’ve built survived
very little or no damage except for some flooding. And then there were
some that were not so lucky. We have a dramatic photo, on our Facebook page, of
a Sica Built modular home that stayed anchored to the concrete block foundation
– when all the homes around it were destroyed – some modular homes built by our
competition. Even though the first floor suffered destructive
sheet flow flooding and debris field damage, this modular home stayed anchored
to the foundation “Jersey Strong”.
had electric back on for a week – now our first thoughts are when are they
going to open up the Barrier Island so we can move back home – we’ve been told
it may be some time yet.
This morning, we spoke to the building department in
which is a small town on LBI. We have a home that was about two weeks away from
Certificate of Occupancy when
hit. Another Sica Built home completely undamaged – 1′ of water in the
crawl space but due to our flood mitigation techniques – no damage at all.
The building department told us since were one of the very few with an open building permit, we may finish the new home and
apply for C of O. The building department advised us that they will not
be accepting any new home building permit applications anytime soon.
Al Sica
SICA Homes
