Prefab pitfalls and perks
It was a hugely rewarding experience, but prefabs don’t come without a few challenges, as Ian Adamson discovered.
As an architect with experience designing commercial buildings and residential dwellings, I set upon my own personal adventure recently – a challenge to design a family bach located in the beautiful area of Lake O¯ hau, Mackenzie Country.
The design concept was to take the form of an oversized tramping hut at 90 square metres. Simple, but a perfect spot for my family to unwind and recharge.
After realising the high cost of construction in a remote location, we considered how we might approach the build in a time-efficient and budgetconscious manner, and we quickly latched on to the idea of a prefabricated build which we would transport to the site.
The bach was built in Cromwell, some 200 kilometres away. Within three months, from the beginning of the build to the end, our new bach – complete with appliances and blinds – was transported over the undulating terrain of the Lindis Pass to its new site.
While the experience was hugely rewarding overall, prefabricated builds don’t come without a few challenges. Doing your research and knowing what to expect is key, so you can go in with your eyes wide open to create the house of your dreams, no matter how remote.
Here are five things you should know about residential prefabrication builds:
Allow extra time in planning for administrative hurdles
Through our experience, we found you can end up working with two consenting authorities at any one time (the build location and the on-site location). This proved to be challenging for us, as both authorities considered risk allocation and consent scope which slowed the process down.
There will always be a lot of paperwork against a project such as this and it’s important to be aware of who you will be dealing with and what they will be expecting from you.
Building prefab means building sustainably
Aside from the benefit of building small, we liked the fact that prefab homes result in lower material waste, as the exact materials are accounted for in the design.
With trade businesses located in close proximity, transport emissions are reduced, and the environment is only disrupted during the transportation stage, rather than throughout the entire process.
If you’re considering building, it’s now more important than ever to consider your carbon footprint and ways you can minimise it.
Make savings on time and budget
Building prefab allowed us to make savings that we wouldn’t have made with a normal build. A normal build has contractors driving back and forth from site, which can result in hours lost on travel time. Also, depending on where you live, if you are planning to build remotely you may have to factor in the cost of accommodation, all elements that should be calculated into your overall budget.
Enjoy a sense of security
With build access limited to support services,
contractors and ourselves, we felt an added sense of security that came with building prefab.
Contractors were also able to store their materials and tools at the build location, saving time and creating efficiencies. Beyond managing the physical restrictions en route from the build location to the site, we found that factors such as how the truck would access the site, manoeuvre and land the building on the foundations, needed to be carefully considered.
We lent on the experts during this time to ensure we avoided making mistakes that could have had a significant impact.