Portable cabins, portable classrooms, and other types of modular buildings may play an important role in the recovery efforts from the latest hurricanes in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and, now, Puerto Rico. As parents try to find a way to provide a dry home for their children and schools try to provide safe educational spaces for children within their districts, portable buildings may be the best option as a solution.
Although portable cabins may seem like an option for people who like to hunt and vacation, these structures also serve a valuable purpose in the recovery efforts of many locations that are working to recover from natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. Whether they are used for recovery efforts or enjoyment, modular construction decreases both design and construction time by as much as 50%. Another advantage to modular structures is that they have fewer change orders, which allows for earlier occupancy, and improved cash flow for the builder.
The Nation Continues to Find New Uses for Portable Cabins and Other Modular Buildings
From construction job sites to other kinds of temporary building needs, the modular building industry helps fill the needs that many companies have. Schools, for instance, often need to rely on portable classrooms when they have an unexpected spike in enrollment. Instead of letting class sizes get too big, portables provide extra space for the years that they are needed. When purchased by a district, a portable classroom can even be moved from one building site to another as needed.
Consider some of these facts and figures about the portable building industry and the purposes that it serves in the nation:
- Falling between 36% and 77%, the initial cost of a portable classroom can provide a significant cost savings when compared to a permanent site-built classroom addition.
- Although 20% of Americans only go to religious services a few times a year, many churches are breaking trends and seeing increased attendance. For the churches that are drawing in more people, churches with 10,000 or more members are going multisite to make their locations more accessible, as well as less crowded.
- One of the major advantages to modular construction is production time. In fact, some modular homes can be built in the factory in as little as one to two weeks.
- 99% of the schools have permanent buildings, and 31% of schools also make use of portable, also known as temporary, buildings.
- Produced in 20% of the time and at 50% of the cost of site-built homes, manufactured housing assembled in a controlled, factory environment use fewer materials and generate 35% to 40% less waste than comparable site-built units.
- Transported and assembled at the final building site, permanent modular construction buildings are 60% to 90% completed in a factory-controlled environment. This means that no inside structure parts are exposed to rain or other conditions during the building process.
The decision to purchase a modular building like a portable cabin is a decision to meet the needs that you have, but to save unnecessary building costs. As many parts of the nation continue to look for ways to recover from the hurricane effects or high winds and flood waters, a number of agencies and providers may be looking toward portable buildings as a solution. From communities that are looking for a way to get children back into classrooms and parents who are trying to find a dry location that they can call their own while they wait for a more permanent solution, modular buildings can help areas recover from major problems.
As the nation continues to adjust to once in a lifetime weather events and local governments are looking for ways to recover, permanent buildings may be the more affordable and most logical solution.
