Letters from Sweden - a window's tale
categories:
letters from Sweden,
modern house plans,
remodern movement
In our last installment of the Letters from Sweden we looked at the panelization technique used by the Swedes and some of the administrative barriers to its adoption here. Today we'll pick up where we left off and consider some of the products that go into the Swedish panels and how they support the panel building technique. We'll look at windows, how Swedish window units are different than US window units, and how this plays out in the construction.
There are a few more photos of this stage of the work also posted at the 
click through the link below for more photos.
Remember you can see photos of the entire build on the Flickr 
First off we have issues with construction inspection conventions in the US. Construction must be inspected before it is insulated, closed in, and the underlying work is obscured. Framing, plumbing, and electrical work are all inspected at this point. The modular industry has established a practice of third party certification to work around this, but this method would require a different routine as the proportion of site and factory work is not the same. Modular is more or less done with the set of the modules. Panelization requires the field inspector to pickup more of the inspection work again in the field, and I predict the blurring of lines of responsibility to elicit resistance. This is essentially an administrative obstacle, but real enough. This obstacle does not exist in Sweden.
Second are issues of products and standard construction practices. In Sweden products are designed to facilitate this panelization. In the US they are designed to be installed in the field. This purposeful design of construction products allows the Swedes to optimize their process. They are not fighting with the construction to break it into panels, like we would here. Next we'll look at some of these products in more detail.
Previously:
Across their courtyard you can see the 
Here you can see the interesting pattern of siding they have chosen. It appears to be a smooth faced cement board siding panel, but laid up in varying exposures. This is a treatment you might often see on a traditional cedar shingle siding and its really great to see this reinterpreted in a contemporary material like cement siding and used here.
Check out the Flickr set for this house where you can see 
Some of the adaptations the Owner is making are obvious in these photos. You'll see an additional wall of windows on the side of the living room which greatly expands their view. And the roof slope which they have added to simplify collecting their rainwater is also easy to spot as well. You'll also see that the Owner has been welding up his own framing connectors for the Porch level posts and beams. This is an awesome hands on effort by the owner.
Follow the link below to continue reading and more photos.
A few more photos of this stage of the work were included and can be seen at the 
see more images, follow the link below
The site slopes quickly away from the level where you arrive and they have taken advantage of that to expand the area of the house with a daylight basement on the down-slope side. The second bedroom has been enlarged to make both bedrooms similar in size, gaining space from the utility room moved to the basement level. The stair down is located in an extension of the floor plan on the entry side of the house. This mod is similar to the PEI version where this added space allowed them to gain a third bedroom.
I like the way the porch roof has shifted to one side in order to connect to the small out structure (sauna?). They have just begun the construction drawings so we won't see construction start for a little while, but stay tuned. Its going to be a great project.
A few more photos are posted after the jump below, and of course all of the photos we have received can be seen at the 
Click through below to continue reading..
But the majority of prefab in the USA is in the form of modular construction. Modular construction reduces the field connections to a a few major utility connections when the boxes are placed on the foundation, but otherwise are much more complete when they arrive at the site. Granted, this is not the reason why modular is more popular in the US. Modular housing here grew out of motor-home construction, which was a more permanent version of a trailer. When the flimsy construction of motor-homes became an obvious problem in the US it was put under a nation wide spec known as a HUD Code. At that point the industry split into factories that continued to build motor homes under the new rules, and factories that adapted to building to local site built construction codes which became the modular industry. That has dominated the US prefab business ever since. Its popularity here is due to administration - not because it makes construction sense. And how could it make construction sense? Shipping a house in big pieces is tantamount to shipping air. There is a reason why Ikea ships furniture in a flat-pack. The shipping is so much more efficient for flat goods, than big boxy hollow goods. The challenge becomes how to complete as much of the house as possible while still being able to ship it flat. Whole houses arrive on two trucks rather than 4 or 5.
Next we'll get into more detail about how these houses go together.
Previously:
images from the 
