As part of the 2022 Innovative Housing Showcase hosted by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB ) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Structural Building Components Association (SBCA) and National Framers Council (NFC) collaborated to frame a two-story house on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The project, framed in just under 12 hours, is designed to highlight how cycle times can be improved with manufactured framing products such as floor panels, wall panels, and roof trusses. The 1,400-square-foot structure also highlights how manufactured products can help builders design and construct more resilient, sustainable, energy-efficient, and cost-effective structures while requiring less jobsite labor and material to complete projects, according to the SBCA.
“There are 1,800 manufacturing locations across the country. Most builders are familiar with roof trusses, but, for most builders, that’s as far as they go,” says Sean Shields, the director of communications for the SBCA. “What we want to draw attention to is manufacturers can also develop floor trusses, which are excellent for chase openings and running all your mechanical and plumbing [underneath]. Floor trusses makes it that much quicker on the jobsite. So, when jobsite labor is such an issue, this kind of solves that.”
The SBCA says manufactured components can help address both the ongoing labor shortages and material availability and cost challenges facing builders. Utilizing off-site production means less field labor is required per job. While there are upfront costs—for manufacturing labor, design, and transportation logistics—Shields says builders can realize material savings due to specified components and lower costs for on-site labor. Using manufactured products, the SBCA says builders can produce approximately 2.5 more houses with the same jobsite labor, use 25% less wood product during construction, and generate 30 times less jobsite waste due to precise specifications.
“On the back end, the more expensive the materials get, the closer those two prices get, stick-framing versus components manufacturing,” Shields says. “But then, it’s really about on-site labor availability and cost, because manufacturing labor costs are way lower than they are for field framing labor.”
Shields says the floor panels for the project on the National Mall, provided by Shelter Systems Limited, for the first floor were installed in 35 minutes, with the second story floor installed in 40 minutes. The house also features wall panels provided by Annandale Millwork/Allied Systems.
“There’s a lot that you can do in a manufacturing facility with [wall panels]. You can do standard wall panels, and you can also apply spray foam in the manufacturing facility so you don’t have to worry about bringing it out to the jobsite, you can get that done at the same time as wall panels,” Shields says. “Now that design software has advanced so quickly, you can accomplish some things [with panelization] that you can’t accomplish with site builds.”
While roof trusses have a large market share across the country, wall panels and floor trusses each have market shares below 15%. Floor trusses, in particular, are mostly used in multifamily construction, with little penetration in the single-family home building market. However, several national builders have recently made investments in off-site and components manufacturing, including Pulte through its acquisition of Innovative Construction Group and Lennar through its partnership with panelized building technology company Veev. Shields says in many markets, a hurdle to panelization is hesitancy among home framers.
“The education piece is needed for the framing community, to show you can complete more houses if you let your builders do panels. [Framing] crews are going to be busy, and [framers] can be more of a problem solutions provider to builder customers if they move to panels,” Shields says.
The Innovative Showcase features new building technologies and housing solutions designed to make housing more innovative, resilient, and affordable. The event includes exhibitor demonstrations and full-sized prototype homes.
