Absolutely prefabulous: can housing conundrum be solved by factories?

What can homebuilders learn from the car manufacturing industry? At first, the link seems obscure. But if you consider the UK’s urgent need for affordable, ‘greener’ housing, and throw in the concept of pre-fabrication, then you may see the connection. Improvements in technology and automation mean that a fully insulated timber-based house shell can be assembled in a factory within a matter of days, with floors and walls being produced simultaneously on different production lines. Within six to eight weeks the shell can be fully plumbed and wired, and because all the major construction is undertaken indoors, it also means that the unpredictable British weather doesn’t put a dampener on the process.

The public’s perception of prefab houses is also changing. Those built after World War II to help families made homeless by the Blitz were typically made of concrete, steel or aluminium and were criticised for being low-quality and unstylish (albeit they were only expected to last around 10 years). Nowadays, the ‘second generation’ of prefab houses, which are typically timber-framed in construction, are not only much more durable, they can be tailored to the individual through computer aided design (CAD), and are reportedly 50% more energy efficient than a traditional house. Insulating foam is injected into the timber, and construction methods improve air tightness, potentially halving the resident’s energy bills. Given the government’s plans to make new-builds ‘zero carbon’ by 2016, prefabs through their innovative materials and construction process may soon be ‘climbing the ladder’ to success. Closed timber-frame houses are currently being produced by UK homebuilder Persimmon, with German companies Huf Haus and Baufritz also active in the UK market.