The North Bay Business Journal had an article on Sonoma’s 52-home Las Palmas project a couple weeks ago that caught my eye. Why? Because Las Palmas is using pre-built kitchen and bathroom modules from a Hayward company called BuildPods. (Site is temporarily down. Bummer.)
Here is an article excerpt on the pre-built modules:
BuildPods uses an assembly-line approach to construct fully plumbed, wired, ducted and finished bathrooms and kitchens in modules up to 10 feet wide so they can be delivered by truck. At the job site, the modules can be lifted off the truck and placed on a given floor of the project with a telehandler-style forklift.
Modules designed for Las Palmas would be 9-foot-by-20-foot kitchen and 10-foot-by-17-foot bathroom-and-laundry units.
“We’re eliminating waste and all the trades having to go to the job site,” said Bill Rollinson, senior vice president of business development and marketing.
Modular construction can limit scheduling problems for subcontractors, such as materials not being delivered by the time they arrive, but the structure still needs to have all the infrastructure installed to match up with what’s installed in the modules.
For the right project, this seems like it could work quite well. I’m going to follow the Las Palmas project and see how the modules look when the houses are completed. The project plans to start construction in spring 2010, according to the North Bay Biz Journal.
I have an email in to Las Palmas developer Scott Johnson if he knows any other home developments in Sonoma County that have used pre-built modules.
Find Las Palmas project on Google Maps: