Modular or prefab housing is the latest thought bubble from the federal government to help solve the housing crisis. It’s a beautiful idea, to make a whole house or apartment in a factory, and yet it’s failed to take off for 75 years. Why?
First, the upside.
It’s quicker. Prefab speeds up construction time; while the house is being built in a factory, the footings and infrastructure are built on-site. Time is big money in construction – lessening it can lower the overheads, making a house a bit cheaper.
Prefab speeds up construction time. Credit: CONNECT HOMES
It’s better built. The quality of workmanship is always better inside a factory, with its constant conditions, than on a site open to vagaries of the weather. The tools are better maintained, being secure in one place, not driven all over the city in vans and utes.
It’s safer. Working off a solid floor in a factory, with hoists and properly tagged tools is far better for the workers, with better lunchrooms, toilets and first aid than on a muddy site.
And it’s greener. Material is better controlled, less transport, less waste as the offcuts can be more efficiently recycled. Workers can catch public transport to a central factory, rather than driving all over the city to far-flung sites every day.
So, the big question is, if a factory-made house or apartment is better in so many ways than traditional building on muddy sites with variable weather, why the low take-up?
The downside with prefab is not the product itself, it’s everything else in the process. Australians might like the idea of prefab, but they don’t want a bar of it for their own house. And the financial system is stacked against it.
Prefab or pre-drab? The pros and cons of factory-made houses
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01.04.2024
Modular or prefab housing is the latest thought bubble from the federal government to help solve the housing crisis. It’s a beautiful idea, to make a whole house or apartment in a factory, and yet it’s failed to take off for 75 years. Why?
First, the upside.
It’s quicker. Prefab speeds up construction time; while the house is being built in a factory, the footings and infrastructure are built on-site. Time is big........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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