Modular Homes - Good/Bad experiences... I am considering this pretty seriously...

[Rustyiron]

Formost builds a very nice house and has been at it for a long time.

 

[MossflowerWoods]

I don't like the Clayton homes, but they own many of the other companies. There is one Oakwood brand 2 story floor plan we like, but the builder would likely be R-Anell in NC.

As to the roads, I just had 100 log trucks enter and lave the property, is that good enough? There one steep spot on the loop driveway by the house...

I'm open to a stick built, very much so, but most of these Norther A guys are either starving, or think they are Mansion builders...

As to the resale, we will not be selling until zoning or economy want to buy my 51 acres for a subdivision, and then the house will not matter...

I just want a MUCH MORE comfortable living space... No looking for a mansion or dream home. Not yet...

Been too busy last 2 weeks to gather more info...

Thanks all for the info!

David

 

[teejk]

Woodchuck, there is a basement (the 40 corners I mentioned above...little jogs everywhere but that was the design of the house). I paid extra for 9' walls but absolutely no regrets there because of the AC ducting. We bought the blue-prints from a company that sells a book full of house designs. We turned those over to the builder and they modified them somewhat to accommodate their methods (trusses vs. rafters, changes to window sizes, etc.) but overall it is basically the same house. We contracted the insulation, drywall hanging, rough plumbing and most of the HVAC work. We taped the drywall, laid the radiant in-floor tubing, did the finish wood trim/interior doors, installed the flooring (tile and laminate wood) and did the majority of the wiring (with a licensed electrician watching over us). I built the kitchen cabinets. I'm not complaining but looking back it was A LOT of work.

 

[dmccarty]

The key thing in having a good looking house AND not have it look like a trailer, is to have a porch and at least a 4/12 roof pitch. Our city house was stick built and had a crappy "porch" which was really a walkway to the front door. Without that walkway/porch the house would have looked like a double wide. In reality, the floor plan was such that it could easily have been a double wide. A porch is very useful and really changes the look of a house.

Our builder had an older modular home and he had trouble selling it not because it was modular per say but because the house had a 3/12 roof pitch, not much of a porch, and the ceilings were a tad under 8 feet. The modular homes we looked at had options for 9 foot ceilings, higher roof pitches, and porches. One of the first modular homes I every saw was a Cape Cod style home. Really nice. They left the upstairs unfinished when the house was built to save money and the owners eventually finished out the upstairs.

Later,
Dan

 

[Turbys_1700]

I don't like the Clayton homes, but they own many of the other companies. There is one Oakwood brand 2 story floor plan we like, but the builder would likely be R-Anell in NC.

As to the roads, I just had 100 log trucks enter and lave the property, is that good enough? There one steep spot on the loop driveway by the house...

I'm open to a stick built, very much so, but most of these Norther A guys are either starving, or think they are Mansion builders...

As to the resale, we will not be selling until zoning or economy want to buy my 51 acres for a subdivision, and then the house will not matter...

I just want a MUCH MORE comfortable living space... No looking for a mansion or dream home. Not yet...

Been too busy last 2 weeks to gather more info...

Thanks all for the info!

David

R-Anell's plant is located 6 miles from my home. Many of the better units in my area are R-Anell's. They build a good unit. If I was in the market for a modular I would not be hesitant of R-Anell.

 

[dodge man]

I know one person, but not very well, that had one built. Her problem was it seemed like everything was an extra, and I'm talking silly things. She put it on a foundation and there weren't going to be stairs going into the basement, that was extra. I think the quality was just O.K. It looked real plain on the outside but was a pretty good sized two story house.

 

[truckdiagnostics]

When we put ours in I had an excavator on site to help move the house up the road. We just picked the back end up to get around the tight corners. Set in February when the ground was frozen! worked our real well. Strawing the foundation sucked however.

 

[dmccarty]

I know one person, but not very well, that had one built. Her problem was it seemed like everything was an extra, and I'm talking silly things. She put it on a foundation and there weren't going to be stairs going into the basement, that was extra. I think the quality was just O.K. It looked real plain on the outside but was a pretty good sized two story house.

That is what happened to us with one company. They just nickled and dimed us to a point where the price was outrageous. What was funny was the modular sales company had two lots, one for modular homes, and next door, one for mobile homes. There was a sales office between the two lots...

We had a meeting one Saturday with the modular home sales guy, and just because it was the easiest to get into, we parked on the mobile home side of the office. We parked right next to the sales guys very nice, almost brand new, large Mercedes Benz. Hmmm, said I. The sales guy eventually noticed where we parked and mentioned that the car was his wife's who was a real estate agent. Hmmmm. Someone is making an awful lot of money and I think it is the guy charging an arm and a leg to put in extract electrical outlets....

We spent quite a bit of time with this guy working on a deal but he priced himself right out of a sale.

Later,
Dan

 

[flusher]

My double-wide manufactured home was built on my 10-acre ranch in Tehama County, CA in Sep 2005 thru Jan 2006. 1800 sf, 3BR, 2B, 8'ft walls, 5:12 roof pitch, Hardipanel and Hardyplank exterior, triple dormers on a roof bump-up, large front porch. House is on a permanent foundation with 24" crawl space.

Manufacturer was Golden West Homes, a division of Clayton Homes, located in Portland, OR. The on-site work took so long because the top part of the roof trusses were erected after the house was delivered (to get under the overpasses on I5 between Portland, OR and Red Bluff, CA. Same for the dormers and the front porch which were built on-site. Also in 2005 the building boom was in full swing and I could only get the installation crew on-site for 2 or 3 days per week.

No problems with the home in the 10 years I owned it. Sold it in Jan 2015.



Good luck

 

[MossflowerWoods]

R-Anell's plant is located 6 miles from my home. Many of the better units in my area are R-Anell's. They build a good unit. If I was in the market for a modular I would not be hesitant of R-Anell.

Thank You!

That is good to know!

David