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" The new house at 310 W. Lake Ave. in Auburndale, Fla., has &amp;quot;custom-built&amp;quot; written all over it. It&amp;#039;s graced by a standing seam-metal roof, wraparound porch, French doors topped by transom windows, and corbels at the eaves. There&amp;#039;s nothing cookie-cutter about it. Want to know a secret? The bulk of the home was picked up off flatbed trailers and plunked into place in one day. Welcome to the world of modular home construction. The building was commissioned by Country Living, a sister magazine to PM, as its 2006 House of the Year. To build the structure, Country Living turned to Genesis Homes, a division of Champion Homebuilders, a national company with 32 facilities around the country. The four-bedroom, 2500-sq.-ft. structure was built in 90 days, far less than the eight months needed for a comparable house built on-site. &amp;quot;We use the same materials, the same engineering, the same codes as conventional builders,&amp;quot; says Genesis vice president of sales and marketing Kevin Flaherty. &amp;quot;We just use a different assembly process.&amp;quot; Hitting The Road Inside the factory where components for the House of the Year were built (in Lake City, Fla.), the construction process is simultaneously familiar and eye-popping. A module springs to life atop a rectangular steel-framed carrier that later will add several axle sets to function as a flatbed hauler. Moving sideways down an assembly line, the module stops at 18 stations manned by teams of specialists. Quality control inspectors double-check work and state-certified inspectors check for compliance with local building codes before the module can roll on. Three days after the process begins, the module emerges at the shipping bay fully plumbed, wired and ready to roll. DROP IN ANYTIME A module&amp;#039;s design and construction is shaped as much by its road trip and crane placement as by its architecture. Each module is built as a rigid box that requires 15 percent more lumber than conventional structures. To comply with highway safety laws, the unit cannot exceed 76 ft. in length, 16 ft. in width or 12 ft. in height. Weeks prior to the factory order being filled, a builder pours footings and readies the foundation. For the House of the Year, three modules of the main structure were set on the foundation, and the two other modules were stacked on those below. The rest of the structure was site built. HOW VERY SQUARE Factory-built walls and floors are framed so that wall surfaces are straight and flat, and corners square. That way, the units can be stacked on top of one another reliably. This provides more than construction efficiency. It also can make for some dramatic interiors. The architect for the Auburndale project, Roberto Kritzer, took advantage of this characteristic to create a living room with an airy, 20-ft. ceiling framed by decorative, nonstructural timbers. The house was designed so that if more living space is needed someday, the upper portion of the living room can be turned into a second floor with full ceiling height. When modules are built for two separate floors, the drywall ceiling rides on the bottom of the second-floor module, held in place by continuous beads of urethane glue. CLEAN DESIGN Waste hasn&amp;#039;t been entirely eliminated from modular homebuilding, but the factory in Lake City, Fla., is working on it. Warped and scrap wood goes to an in-house mill to be refashioned into new parts, such as short pieces of wall framing used above and below windows. Some of it even becomes shims. Bits of copper wire and vinyl siding are collected for recycling. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re looking on a daily basis at cutting waste and speeding the production process,&amp;quot; says Keith Anderson, the plant&amp;#039;s general manager. Most homes Genesis delivers are at least 80 percent complete, which also yields intangible benefits. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s less noise, job sites are cleaner, plus you don&amp;#039;t have the liability of an open building where neighborhood kids can get hurt,&amp;quot; Flaherty says. Most of the small debris pile shown was a result of the site-built portion of the process. CLEAN DESIGN Waste hasn&amp;#039;t been entirely eliminated from modular homebuilding, but the factory in Lake City, Fla., is working on it. Warped and scrap wood goes to an in-house mill to be refashioned into new parts, such as short pieces of wall framing used above and below windows. Some of it even becomes shims.  Bits of copper wire and vinyl siding are collected for recycling. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re looking on a daily basis at cutting waste and speeding the production process,&amp;quot; says Keith Anderson, the plant&amp;#039;s general manager. Most homes Genesis delivers are at least 80 percent complete, which also yields intangible benefits. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s less noise, job sites are cleaner, plus you don&amp;#039;t have the liability of an open building where neighborhood kids can get hurt,&amp;quot; Flaherty says. Most of the small debris pile shown was a result of the site-built portion of the process. WIRING THAT&amp;#039;S A SNAP Builders of modular homes can fully wire modules on the assembly line, going as far as installing fixtures, along with PEX (crosslink polyethylene) piping and ducts. When modules are joined on location, the job of continuing a circuit from one module to the next is as simple as plugging in a lamp. Each cable is fitted with a quick-linking splice connector that mates with its counterpart. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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