Avalon Building Systems Blog

You have decided that you want to build a new modular home. Now you are shopping for land, or perhaps you own the land already, your existing house is on it. Perhaps you’ve never liked where on the property your house sits, or you just want to change it up. Where should you build your new modular home on the property that you own?

When you first start thinking about this, you will most likely think about how you want your new home to look from the street, and how close you want to be to the neighbors. Your lot's location compared to the surrounding properties will affect your decision. If you have a corner lot, you may need to consider which street you want as your address, or where you would like the driveway.

You also should consider where the sun comes up and goes down in relation to the lot. In New England, taking advantage of natural sunlight in the winter can greatly reduce your heating bills. What you want to do with the yard once your modular home built is also important.

The shape, size, and slope, or grade, will play a big part in where you put your new home. Consider if you’ll need to use stairs to enter your home if you face the front door to the east? If you put the house in below the hill, what do you do when it rains?

Other factors include trees and open spaces, and existing stone walls and driveways.

At Avalon Building Systems we can help you consider your lot and where to build. Building a new home is exciting; we don’t want you to get stressed trying to make all the decisions alone. We are experienced at building homes and at looking at land. Let us help, there may be interesting facets to your property that can be accentuated in the construction process.

One of the most common questions asked to bankers, builders and realtors regarding modular homes pertains to their resale value. “When I sell my modular home, will it sell for the same price as a stick built home that is comparable?”

Many people wonder about the resale value of a modular home. Oftentimes however, your profit will be higher, provided you have maintained and cared for your home, because modular homes cost about 10-15% less to build. Modular homes are appraised to the same standards as a site built home, so both types of homes are assessed at the same amount.

So now that this question has been answered, let’s point out some of the other benefits of modular homes. They are built much faster; in approximately 10 to 12 weeks from the day you decide to build a modular home is when you will get the keys to move in. The modules are built in a factory and delivered to your building site. From that day the process takes about 3-6 weeks to complete.

However, these benefits above are not the best part of building a modular home. Talk to anyone who has built a traditionally constructed home and they will tell you that it cost far more than they had initially planned. When building a modular home, your budget is solid. The pricing is guaranteed, unless you make a change in the building process. When you decide on a floor plan, the cost of building that home can be priced to the dollar. At Avalon there are no surprising material costs or labor costs. That is the biggest advantage to building a modular home.

New England and Upstate New York speak of log homes. They are the perfect place to live and fit in so nicely with our mountainous vistas and hearty living.

At some time or another, most of us have day dreamed of living in a log home. But log homes are expensive and very time consuming to build. But modular log homes are fast, cost effective, and authentic.

Avalon Building Systems combines craftsmanship and aesthetics with modern product ion technology to produce Modular Log Homes and Cabins that you will be proud to call home. Building a log home with modular construction combines quality with affordability in  a much shorter time frame.

Modular log homes are built in the regular modular style. Each section of the house is built as a box in a factory, and transported to the site of your new home. The home is built with the same strenuous standards and high quality of all of our modular homes. These modules are assembled using cranes and are superior in quality to regularly built homes.

The difference is in the siding. We use real log siding to complete the look of your modular log home. Log siding gives you an authentic log look with less maintenance than full log homes with no caulking in between joints, no waste, and no cracking or splitting.  Log siding is available in various woods.

Contact Avalon Building Systems for more information on Modular Log Homes.

Everyone wants to go green. Even, the home builders are coming up with new home designs that are more energy efficient. The new Energy Star homes are designed in such a way that the energy consumption per house will be 20-30% less than a regular home.

A wide variety of homes can earn the Energy Star label if they are verified and confirmed that they meet the EPA’s guidelines. Energy Star homes include but are not restricted to systems-built homes such as the ICF, SIP, or modular construction homes. Energy Star qualified homes also include an array of advanced energy-efficient features in order to improve the home quality and also to lower the overall energy consumption and air pollution.

With the increasingly high demand of homebuyers for green building and energy efficient houses, there are builders, such as Avalon Building Systems, meeting the needs to build better energy efficient homes. These energy efficient homes save energy and help in the improvement of the environment by avoiding the excess usage of the non-renewable energy and the burning of fossil fuels. Of course, by choosing modular homes, you use less energy during the construction and building process.

These tightly-sealed homes not only improve comfort but also reduce the utility and maintenance expenses. Additionally, modular home factories produce less waste, 2%, than on-site construction which produces 30-40% waste.

In general, modular homes are a great option for those looking forward to buying or building a new home. These homes meet strict regulations and help you in protecting the environment by saving more energy. With so many energy efficient systems, there is no doubt that these homes really do consume 20-30 % less energy than regular homes.

Original Article may be seen on CleanTechnica.com

In order to ensure your modular home construction project flows smoothly, here is a brief checklist to make ensure you have considered everything and there are no work stoppages in the process.

Modular Homes Checklist

• Determine your entire budget for land, home, labor, transportation and ensure that all these items are covered
• Arrange financing - interest rate, length of loan, closing costs
• Determine your needs for your new home– size/ sq. ft, bedrooms, bathrooms,
• Pick floor plan and home style - colonial, ranch, split level, cape cod
• Select your customizations, flooring, cabinets, etc
• Select home extras or additions such as decks, garages
• Choose foundation type - basement, slab-on-grade, crawlspace
• Check references on the modular manufacturer and their local builder
• Site preparation work (clearing, grading, etc.)
• Shop for insurance