Before the Road to Housing Act was passed, several of the nation’s largest manufactured home companies were already exploring a significant change beneath their homes.
They were looking at whether the permanent steel chassis traditionally required under a HUD-code manufactured home could be removed and replaced with wood rim joists. If approved, the change would allow manufactured homes to use essentially the same type of perimeter floor system commonly found in modular homes built to state and local building codes.
That possibility could reduce material costs, eliminate some of the visual and structural distinctions between manufactured and modular construction, and give HUD-code producers greater flexibility when designing homes for subdivisions and residential developments.
Then another question began to emerge.
Instead of removing steel from HUD-code homes so they can resemble modular homes, what if both HUD-code and modular factories could use a better steel perimeter frame that becomes a permanent part of the home?
That is the idea behind Uni-Frame.
Two Industries Looking at the Same Problem
Manufactured and modular homes may travel down similar factory production lines, but they leave those factories under different regulatory systems.
HUD-code manufactured homes are constructed on permanent steel chassis designed to remain with the home. Modular homes are typically built with wood or light-gauge steel floor systems and transported on reusable carriers that must be returned to the factory.
Each system presents its own problems.
The permanent chassis adds steel, weight and cost to manufactured homes, even when the house will eventually be placed on a permanent foundation. Traditional modular construction avoids that permanent chassis, but it requires factories to own, maintain, store and retrieve large fleets of carriers.
Those carriers must be available when a module is ready to leave the production line. They must also survive long trips, rough jobsites, worn tires, damaged axles and the occasional driver who treats a pothole like a personal challenge.
When carriers are not returned quickly enough, completed modules can begin accumulating in factory yards. Production may slow simply because the factory has run out of equipment on which to ship its homes.
Neither system is perfect.
What Uni-Frame Changes
Uni-Frame proposes replacing conventional wood or light-gauge steel rim joists with an engineered steel perimeter frame that becomes part of the completed home.
Temporary front and rear transportation assemblies can be attached to that frame when the module leaves the factory. After the module reaches the jobsite, those components can be removed, leaving the structural steel perimeter as part of the building.
The factory would no longer need to send a full-length carrier beneath every modular box. More importantly, it would not have to wait for that carrier to return before shipping another module.
For HUD-code producers, the concept raises an equally interesting possibility. If federal regulations eventually allow alternatives to the conventional permanent chassis, an integrated perimeter frame could provide the transportation strength required during delivery without leaving a traditional chassis beneath the house.
Instead of manufactured homes moving toward wood modular construction, both industries could potentially move toward a shared engineered-steel solution.
The Road to Housing Act Could Open the Conversation
The Road to Housing Act will not automatically make every new frame system acceptable. HUD-code construction and modular construction still operate under different approval, engineering, and inspection processes.
Any new framing and transportation system must prove it can withstand factory handling, highway transportation, lifting, setting, and decades of service after installation. Regulators, engineers, manufacturers, transporters, builders and inspectors will all want answers.
Factories will also want to know whether the system works with their existing production lines, fastening methods, floor assemblies and transportation equipment. Builders will ask how modules are set and connected. Developers will want to know whether the finished cost is lower, higher or simply shifted from one part of the process to another.
Those are legitimate questions, and Uni-Frame will have to answer them with engineering, testing, field experience and measurable savings.
But this may be the right moment to start asking them.
A Shared Platform Could Change the Industry
The most interesting part of Uni-Frame may not be the steel itself. It may be the potential to create a common structural and transportation platform that can serve more than one segment of factory-built housing.
Manufactured housing companies are examining ways to make their homes more acceptable in conventional residential developments. Modular factories are looking for ways to reduce carrier costs, transportation delays, and the capital tied up in equipment sitting hundreds of miles from the plant.
Both are trying to build more homes while controlling costs and eliminating bottlenecks.
Perhaps the answer isn't forcing HUD-code homes to become more like modular homes, or modular homes to become more like manufactured homes. Perhaps the better answer is to let both industries adopt a system designed around how homes need to be produced, transported, and installed today.
Gary’s Observation
For decades, manufactured and modular housing have been separated by codes, terminology and the type of frame beneath the floor. Uni-Frame challenges us to consider whether that dividing line still makes sense.
The Road to Housing Act may have created an opportunity to reconsider some long-standing requirements. If it did, the industry should not limit the discussion to removing steel and returning to wood.
We should also ask whether a different kind of steel frame could help both industries build, transport, and install homes more efficiently. Sometimes innovation is not about choosing between two existing systems. It is about recognizing that both may be ready for something new.
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