So, you bought yourself a piece of property and want to put a house on it.

Take pictures of it now, because once we get going it is going to be transformed from a beautiful green pasture into a construction site full of mud and piles of dirt. Don't worry, when we're done we will clean up after ourselves.

Let me take you through some of the typical steps in doing a modular home setup.

The first thing you should do is call us. We will come out and walk the property with you. Help you decide where to place things like the driveway, septic system, electrical service, house, etc...

We also can help you work on your floor plan and choose building materials and methods.

We know who to call, and how to fill out all the paperwork, for permits, perk tests, etc...

This installation opted for a pole to be installed down by the road and have the electric service be delivered from the pole to the house underground.

That meant a ditch had to be dug, PVC conduit laid in it, then filled back in with the appropriate sized holes at the ends for transformer housing and pole placement. All to specifications provided by the electric company.

The big green box you see is the transformer to take the electricity from the primary run to the secondary run that the house can use.

So, now that we have a driveway. Let's take the excavator and dig out a spot to put us a foundation. We are going to use a "pre-fab" foundation system, so it needs to be built to the specifications of that manufacturer.

We are a dealer for Superior Walls Advanced Concrete Systems and have setup many of them.

Once the site is prepared to their specifications, the foundation walls arrive.

With a modular home system it is all about timing and coordination between the different suppliers.

As you can see by this picture, this foundation arrived on two trucks with a crane.

This house is having a steel I beam running down the middle of it. This was all thought of in the original design and Superior Walls made reinforced pockets in the appropriate spots for the beams placement. This allows for the elimination of all the "lolly columns" that are usually in the basement of a modular home. We are going to end up with one big room that is about 26 by 50 feet with only the steps going to the main floor in it.

Lot's of room to do whatever you want to in it.

They drop it down and everything fits together nicely.

Remember, this is a foundation system made by one company and a house made by a different one. This is the first time they have ever seen each other. They fit together almost perfectly, there was less than 1/2 inch difference in the overall square ness of the two.

In a site-built house you can adapt the house to the foundation as you go. With a modular you drop it on and off you go.

This homeowner chose to not get doors from the modular house company but instead had matching oak doors made for both the front and back entries.

This just shows how much customization is available with a modular home. You order what you want, we get it put together for you.

Here we are a couple of days after the house setting. We are pouring the concrete pad in the basement

Usually this would be done before the house was put on the foundation, but being as it was winter, we wanted to use the house to protect the concrete and help us maintain the temperature for a better cure.

We have enough people on staff to be able to handle large projects. Here we have two masons working the concrete pour with three helpers using wheelbarrows to get the concrete from the door to the spot it needs to be.

Note the radiant tubing on the floor. This house is having in floor radiant heating on all three floors.

While the masons were pouring concrete we had framers upstairs framing in knee walls, putting on the roof ties and making two new walls.

We ended up with three rooms for a total of just under 900 sq ft of usable space.

So, that is 1,450 for the ground floor plus 1,450 for the main floor plus 900 for the top floor for a total of about 3,800.

Now it was time to insulate and drywall.

Note that there is a combination of insulation types being used here. On the vertical walls fiberglass is being used, on the ceiling we used 1 inch P2000 insulation and on the kneewalls we used 5/8 inch P2000. You get over R40 in one inch versus R38 with 12 inches of fiberglass insulation.

Building technology is constantly changing and we keep up with it.

Another view of the top floor after dry walling but before mudding.

Note that because this house is a Cape Cod design, and this is the top floor, the walls are vertical for only the first 6 ft then they match the roof pitch.

The home manufacturer left a square opening between the front room and main entry foyer.

We rounded off the top.

Like I said in the beginning. Don't worry we will clean up after ourselves.

Once the septic system is in, and we don't need to drive on the yard area anymore, we'll use a bulldozer to shape the property into manageable hills and hide the sand mound, as best as we can, so that it can be maintained with a normal lawn tractor.

Once that is done, we plant grass and mulch hay on top of it. This house took 400 pounds of grass seed and 120 bales of hay.