[AT] Crazy pricing on construction job

[Steve W.]

Stephen Offiler wrote:
> My rental property is a prefab built in 1989.  I purchased the property 
> in 2015 so obviously I had nothing to do with selecting who made it.  
> What I have done is renovation work that has shown me they really, 
> really like their construction adhesive!  No matter who the manufacturer 
> is, they all have to be built to handle the transportation from factory 
> to job site.
> 
> SO
> 

Transport is part of it but most of it comes from the regulations on 
them. The standards on a prefab are really interesting to see. I worked 
in the cabinet shop at a local plant for a year before getting fed up 
with it. There are different specs for the various parts of the country 
and even different ones when you shipped to Canada. They actually have 
crash test standards for them!
It was a real blast watching them being built though. We started with a 
set of axles and bulk frame steel and built from there. My boss at the 
time was also my fire chief and he ordered a new place while I was 
there. He spec'd it out as a Canadian unit (that gets you a larger 
breaker panel with breakers for each room instead of the common US 
designs where the front bedroom, bathroom and outdoor lights are all on 
one breaker style) It also has increased snow loading, better insulation 
and closer spacings on studs and joists.

We also had different materials for items, from real solid 
oak/cherry/maple to pressboard with paper facing. His was built with all 
the top line materials. From start to finish it took us one week on the 
line. That was for a double wide 62X32. The weigh them as they go out 
the door to be sure the permits are just legal and his was a bit on the 
heavy side, roughly an extra ton of weight in better materials and 
insulation over the normal version.

-- 
Steve W.