🔒Modular structures are another option to speed construction

KBS Builders manufactures single-family and multi-family residential and commercial modular buildings, and panels, in factories in South Paris and Oxford. Since its founding in 2014, the company has supplied complete structures to customers across New England. It is now expanding into Connecticut and New York. “We’re seeing a clear increase in demand,” says KBS President Thatcher Butcher. “Since COVID, many builders have struggled to secure sufficient labor to complete projects on schedule using traditional site-built methods. They’ve increasingly turned to off-site construction to address these challenges.” Advances in technologies have enabled modular manufacturers like KBS to offer mass customization, making it possible to efficiently produce a broader range of work.

Developer Kara Wilbur, who owns Rumford-based catalog home company Dooryard, offers both modular and traditionally-built structures. She’s worked with KBS for all of the company’s modular multi-unit projects. “They’ve been able to deliver a high-quality product that meets our objective of building high- quality and enduring places,” she says. “Using modular, we’ve also been able to cut our construction timeline from 10 or 12 months to seven months for our 18-unit projects, which saves over $25,000 in interest costs. “With modular and our pre-designed catalog buildings, we’re also able to save more than $50,000 on architecture and engineering costs,” she adds. The interiors of the “boxes” are delivered essentially complete — insulation, sheetrock, wiring, plumbing, doors, door handles, cabinets — with roofing put in place on site, along with mechanical connections needing to be made. “Panelized,” Wilbur says, “leaves much more work on-site, more coordinating between subs, and a longer timeline to get weather-tight. Modular factories are very efficient at getting the boxes built because all the trades work in the factory, and all their materials are right there. “On the flip side,” she adds, “there can be real challenges with balancing financing schedules and modular factory schedules, getting production drawings done quickly enough, finding subcontractors who understand the reduced scope of on-site work, as well as recent issues related to who has authority to inspect multifamily projects in Maine.” Wilbur is referring to the recent defeat in the Maine legislature of a bill that would have simplified the inspection process for multifamily modular construction, LD 2229. “Because of these challenges, Dooryard is site-building our next two projects, while some of these issues get worked out,” Wilbur says. “We’re hopeful that at some point, we can once again get modular costs back to under $260,000 per unit, instead of the over $300,000 per unit we’re seeing on more recent modular projects.”