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Floor Plans I Pricing & Cost I Design I Construction I Builders I Financing I FAQs I Modular Articles I Privacy Statement
Selecting Your Modular Home's Foundation Type
When you are designing and building a modular home, the foundation space is often an after thought. Your foundation will influences your modular home's price, comfort, energy efficiency, usable space and resale value. The type of foundation your use for your prefab home will be determined by soil conditions, frost levels and water tables.
Pricing
Modular homes can be set on three types of foundations: crawl space, pilings or columns and full basement foundations. The least expensive foundation type depending on soil conditions is typically pilings or columns. The most expensive foundation for a modular home is a full basement. Falling in between the two in price is a crawl space foundation.
Usable Space
A modular home with a full foundation offers additional living and storage space compared to a crawl space which is unusable space. Prefab homes built on eight foot tall pilings or columns have unprotected, but usable space below. When designing your modular home, you should take into consideration the benefits of additional space at a fraction above ground building costs.
Energy Efficiency
The type of foundation you install will also influence the energy efficiency and comfort of your modular home. Installing your heating and cooling equipment in a conditioned foundation space is recommended for optimum operating conditions.
Resale Value
When it comes time to sell your modular home, a home with a finished basement is much more attractive than an unusable crawl space.
Soil Conditions
Your modular home's building site soil conditions will influences your foundation type. Soil conditions such as rocks or high water content will increase the cost or the improbability of building a full foundation with a basement. The cost to remove or blast rock away could be transferred to building a larger modular home with a crawl space for less money than blasting.
High water tables will require you either build on piles of a crawl space. Modular homes with full foundations and a high water table often have unwanted in ground swimming pools in their basements.
Frost Protections
Modular homes built in colder climates will require deeper footings and foundation walls. If you live in a cold climate, building your prefab home on a full foundation is more cost affective than where the frost level is less than a foot. For the cost of five coursed of block, you can have a usable foundation space. In southern climates you would need to add to ten course of block to the price of your modular home's foundation.
