Bob meets with Pat Fricchione from Simplex Industries of Scranton, Penn. to discuss the modular home industry and specifically the home being built in western Massachusetts� Berkshire Hills. Simplex delivers homes all over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Today�s modular homes are designed to meet the needs of the modern discriminating homebuyer. The materials used in a modular home are essentially the same as those used in a site built one. They can be customized or built from existing floor plans. The homeowner gets the advantage of buying in bulk for all the materials in the home. And its always perfect weather in the factory, so there are no delays due to rain or snow. A typical home can be built in a week at the factory and delivered to the home site in ready-to-assemble pieces.

In this segment, Bob continues his tour of the Simplex Industries manufacturing facility. The plant workers are precutting all the plywood for the project house, as well as other homes currently in production. The efficiencies created by using large industrial saws to make precision cuts save the homeowner time and money and insures a well-fit house. Dave Boniello from Simplex guides Bob through the cutting area of the plant. Unlike most site-built homes, all of the scraps of wood are sent back to the manufacturers for recycling. Continuing the tour, Boniello and Bob overlook the construction of the interior and exterior walls, which are built in sheets of varying heights (up to 10 feet) and up to 64 feet long. Modular homes are built from the inside out, meaning that instead of starting with the exterior framing, roof and sheathing, the modular home starts with interior walls and drywall. The wallboard is glued and screwed to the stud walls, which have additional steel plates to maintain rigidity during transport. Bob points out the inspection process for a modular home is different than for a site built home as local inspectors would be hard pressed to visit the Simplex plant in Pennsylvania. Simplex hires independent inspectors that are certified in multiple states and they correspond with local building inspectors to insure that all building codes are met or exceeded.

Bob Vila oversees the delivery and installation of the first section of the second floor of the home. Bob points out the complexity of this piece with its dormers and gable roof. The modern modular home can be conformed to the homeowner�s desires. The second floor in this example has an exterior egress, which will eventual permit the owner to walk out onto a small terrace over the first floor dining room. In Simplex modular homes, the ceilings of the first floor are manufactured separately from the floors of the second story. This separation of shared framing timbers reduces the noise transfer from one floor to the next. This is especially advantageous in multi-family dwellings and business structures.

In this segment, Bob Vila visits the Simplex Industries modular home plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the Home Again project house is being constructed. Dave Boniello, the Vice President of Marketing for Simplex, gives Bob a plant tour during the construction of the Modular Mountain Retreat project house. Building the majority of a home in a factory and delivering it to the home site to be assembled presents unique challenges. Simplex Industries, a privately owned company that ships over 400 homes a year, utilizes a mix of traditional framing techniques and modular home construction-specific practices to ensure that the transportation of the home from factory to building site can be accomplished without structural or cosmetic damage to the house. Examples include eaves that can be folded up for transportation, extra bracing between walls and floors, metal shielding to protect rough electrical work, and drywall that is glued, not screwed, into place.

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