How One Modular Home Builder Has Cracked the Code for Hassle-Free Assembly

Cover, a seven-year-old, Los Angeles-based company, offers modular home design with quick and easy on-site assembly using lightweight materials in a process being adopted by a growing number of modular home builders, says TechCrunch. Cover fully manufactures wall, floor, and roof panels in its factory, then transports them to building sites on a standard truck. 

The company’s building process takes 30 days to complete from the foundation up and maximizes energy efficiency with LEED-certified products. Cover’s modular home installation also requires less help from craftspeople such as electricians and plumbers to avoid placing added stress on a short supply of industry workers.

According to Alexis Rivas [Cover’s founder and CEO], the process works as follows: A customer works with the company to create a design. Right now, that design is limited to single-story units that are 1,200-square-feet or smaller but which take into account factors such as where windows should be placed to minimize energy waste. (Rivas also notes here that the windows, made by Cover, are LEED-certified, and that its homes are airtight, vastly improving their energy efficiency.)

Cover then takes the agreed-upon design, at a price that’s established up front and includes permitting fees, city fees, foundation fees and the home itself — think $200,000 for 400-square-foot studio; $250,000 for a 600-square-foot, one-bedroom unit; and up to $500,000 for a 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom dwelling — and it gets to work engineering the pieces.

Somewhat amazingly, it says that after the foundation is complete, it can have the building built and installed within 30 days, down from the 120-window that it used to promise customers.

It also offers a 100% money-back guarantee if it can’t obtain the necessary permits, along with a lifetime structural warranty and a one-year warranty for everything else.

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