634 



Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



To date, however, the makers of pre- 

 fabricated houses have had difficulty 

 in convincing the buying public of the 

 quality of their product. As these man- 

 ufacturers are well aware, the buyer of 

 a house, like any other buyer, prefers 

 something with a proved record of 

 service. Prefabricated houses are too 

 new to have a long record. 



Prefabrication got its real start dur- 

 ing the 1930's but most prefabricated 

 houses are much younger than that. 

 Moreover, some prefabricated housing 

 that was rushed out during the war to 

 meet suddenly critical needs of defense 

 workers was designed for temporary 

 use, 5 years or less, and sometimes used 

 inferior or substitute materials that 

 somehow performed their emergency 

 job but subsequently developed obvious 

 structural ailments. The fact that some 

 conventionally built war housing suf- 

 fered similar warp, decay, and struc- 

 tural weakness often was not given 

 equal consideration because conven- 

 tionally built housing has a long 

 history of durable value to offset the 

 shortcomings of the wartime structures 

 of its kind. 



About 35,000 or more prefabri- 

 cated houses were produced by some 

 200 companies in 1947. This was about 

 4 percent of the total 1947 output of 

 the housing industry. A notable point 

 is that a builder of conventional houses 

 is considered relatively successful if he 

 puts up 10 houses a year, but a number 

 of prefabricators turn out that many 

 or more a week, and the plant is small 

 indeed that does not assemble the parts 

 for at least one every workweek. 



Prefabricated houses are appearing 

 in many communities of the Nation. 

 As these houses continue to serve their 

 purpose through the years, public con- 

 fidence in the product of house fac- 

 tories will be guided. Perhaps some 

 day soon the house buyer, like the car 

 buyer, will pick out his make and 

 model on the basis of the maker's repu- 

 tation. Meanwhile, however, the po- 

 tential customer needs more specific 

 signposts of quality on which to base 

 his decision to buy or not to buy. 



Two general kinds of prefabricated 

 houses are being offered today. One is 

 the semiconventional house, the parts 

 of which wall, ceiling, floor, and per- 

 haps the roof sections are of conven- 

 tional size and are preassembled in a 

 factory. 



The other is the so-called stressed- 

 cover, or stressed-facing, house, the 

 panels of which usually consist of ply- 

 wood or some other sheet material 

 bonded with glue to a framework of 

 smaller studs, joints, and rafters. This 

 type of construction was first developed 

 at the Forest Products Laboratory in 

 1934. On the Laboratory grounds to- 

 day stand two 1 2-year-old examples of 

 it; they appear as sound as ever. 



The panels of either kind of pre- 

 fabricated house may contain insula- 

 tion, vapor barriers, electrical wiring, 

 and other installations. Between the 

 two basic types are many modifications 

 that result from the adaptation of new 

 materials and production methods to 

 one or the other type. 



Perhaps the first inquiry the pros- 

 pective buyer can make is whether the 

 particular house has been approved for 

 his locality by the Federal Housing 

 Administration, a Government agency 

 that requires minimum standards of 

 construction for loan-insurance pur- 

 poses. The standards are fairly uni- 

 form, but in certain respects they vary 

 somewhat for different parts of the 

 United States. For example, thermal- 

 insulation requirements differ accord- 

 ing to climatic conditions of particular 

 regions; a house needs better insula- 

 tion in Minnesota than in Florida. 



Further, the buyer can avail him- 

 self of certain technical guideposts that 

 indicate the quality of materials, work- 

 manship, and design. 



The quality of a prefabricated house 

 is compounded of good materials as 

 well as technical skill and suitable fac- 

 tory conditions. An example is given 

 by the stressed-cover, or stressed-facing 

 house, which is manufactured by a 

 growing number of prefabricators. 



The maker of stressed-facing houses 

 often uses plywood for his panel covers 



