Prefabricated Structures-Good For Our Environment

There are a few ways that prefabricated structures and prefab building techniques benefit our environment. Between using less in the way of raw materials and less energy for construction and for living after the occupants move in, prefabricated buildings and homes are certainly worth a second look nowadays.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that prefabricated construction techniques and principles can be instrumental in reducing the overall amount of raw materials, energy and water that we use collectively as a society to house the populace. Using mass production to create major components of houses and prefabricated structures like walls, flooring and roofs, companies can leverage bulk purchases of every single component that goes into a structure. When compared to the work that occurs at a construction site, the controlled nature of building in a factory, with the benefits of the heightened degree of organization inherent in such activity, is easy to see. Material waste is greatly reduced overall.

When it comes to energy and water savings, prefabricated structures have a twofold benefit: savings in the actual construction and also the energy and water savings for occupants that is actually facilitated by the nature of prefab design. Specifically with the latter, most architects who are incorporating prefabricated techniques into their projects are choosing to also include water and energy saving features such as pre-installed solar panels and methods of capturing rainwater runoff to reduce water bills as well.

It’s easy to see how much more efficient including something in the original design is, compared to a homeowner having to choose after-the-fact to add solar panels, better insulation (or even initial installation!), or a rainwater catchment system (“rainwater harvesting” as it is sometimes known). Naturally there are huge cost savings achieved in including features such as these in the initial design and construction as well.

As a final note one can point to ways that energy is saved on every level when comparing construction of standard prefabricated homes in a factory to creating a subdivision of the same size. Factors such as duplication of effort, forgetting or losing a small percentage of items necessary for 100% completion of a project, and theft from the site, all increase the overall energy consumed on a standard construction project, often substantially, to say nothing of increasing costs.

All of these headaches can be reduced or eliminated in the course of building prefabricated structures or at least employing some of the methods being developed and refined today to be used in creating prefab buildings.