Misconceptions about Panelized Home Construction — Don’t Listen to the Anti-Hype

Farva Scott
2 min readJan 23, 2021

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Panelized. Prefab. Engineered. Componentization. While the industry has come a long way in terms of leveraging technology and advancing better methods of home building, there are some who may still be hesitant when hearing about other ways of home building outside of “traditional” or “stick-built”.

Panelized or prefab homes are nothing new. After World War II, troops were returning home and the US needed affordable housing for lots of American soldiers, and fast. Enter prefab.

It’s human nature to lean toward familiarity. People like to go with what they know. When thinking about stepping outside of their comfort zone with home building, some have the impression that “panelized” or “prefab” homes may be missing something. However, prefab homes are of higher quality and are less expensive than stick-built homes. Don’t believe us? Read on.

Here are the top 3 misconceptions of panelized home construction.

1) Factory built home construction is of lesser quality.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth! Building products and components that are produced in factories are safe from the elements, variables of weather, weathering, the quality of supervision, varying trade skill sets, and more. Factory based assembly regulates quality assurance, specialization of labor, quality control, waste management, provides robust supervision, a safer work environment, engineering controls, and pre-delivery inspections.

Would you rather have your latest Amazon gadget built on-site, at your home, with zero oversight, or would you rather have thousands of gadgets manufactured in a factory with a quality assurance engineer monitoring the entire process? I’m sure the latter is more appealing to you. The same goes for prefab.

2) Panelized home construction is just another type of mobile or modular home construction.

Panelized home construction is a method that uses advanced technology to build wall panels inside a quality-controlled environment that are then assembled on site. An added benefit is the time saved. Homeowners are able to move in in weeks — if not months — faster than many traditionally-built homes.

3) Panelized home construction eliminates customization.

This is also a common misconception. Panelized homes are exactly that: they’re “panelized”. The walls are constructed from the design. Timber Block panelized homes embody an enormous capacity for customization in the design process.

More about Simply Smart Structures

Simply Smart Structures are constructed using a panelized building process. Our walls are made of EPS cement panels, bonded under thousands of pounds of pressure and thru-bolted every 24 inches. The panels are then stacked and delivered to the building site and erected using a crane. Simply Smart Structures are highly energy-efficient, can be built anywhere, assembled in hours, and come with warranties. Visit us today at www.simplysmartstructures.com.

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Farva Scott
Farva Scott

Written by Farva Scott

I’m not here to save the world, but while I’m here, I might as well say something interesting.