As we start 2025, we have surpassed the 125th year of offsite wall technology, so it seems fitting to return to the beginning and describe its early progression. Surprisingly, this includes the Ready-Frame® technology that is currently being marketed by Builders FirstSource, as well as the offsite panelization that is commonplace today around the country. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
In the early 1900s, when all cutting on site was done with hand saws, the savings realized by precutting materials and providing panelization were far greater than they are today. A 1918 Pacific Homes Catalog described the advantage this way, accompanied by an illustration of a man operating a pull saw:
“If a rafter that requires from 5 to 10 minutes of carpenter labor to prepare ready for nailing can be measured, sawed, notched and beveled by machine in 12 seconds, then surely there must be a saving of labor.”
Back then, the only equipment capable of notching and beveling were large woodworking machines. Once such machines were set up, they could produce large volumes of identical pieces very efficiently. Consequently, this same catalog included dozens of uncomplicated model home designs that could yield this kind of work. Moreover, Pacific Homes was just one of the many homebuilding companies that arose at the turn of the century to take on such work, and they grew rapidly with the advent of motorized transport.
Panelization – Pre-built building sections began to be offered around 1900 by Earnest F. Hodgson’s company, which had been building small cottages in New England. When Hodgson was overwhelmed by the demand for automobile stables (garages), he turned his attention to mass producing them. He realized that they could be prebuilt in six-foot sections in his small factory. Over the next several years, Hodgson expanded into home production, following a similar six-foot modular approach, offering house widths of 12 ft., 18 ft., and 24 ft., and add-on porches, dormers, door and window panels, and other customization.
The North American Construction Company in Michigan began similarly to Hodgson, offering the Aladdin knocked-down (panelized) homes in 1906. The name Aladdin implied that their ability to cut twenty feet of lumber from a sixteen-foot board was magical, as shown in this excerpt of their 1915 catalog. Of course, this capability would not have been “magic” to experienced carpenters of that day.
Precut Packages – The Gordon-Van Tine Co. of Davenport, IA had begun selling millwork in the late 1800s and started offering Ready-Cut house packages right after the turn of the century. They advertised a “savings of 18% of the lumber and 30% of the carpenter’s time,” combined with the jobsite savings that would result from their bundling of boards according to their end use. By 1926, they had five large factories churning out the parts of complete homes and they offered nearly 100 standardized house plans.
Chicago-based Harris Homes’ Cut-to-Fit packages were also bundled by their end use, and were advertised in their 1918 catalog as, “35 Bundles or 368 Pieces! Which would you prefer.” They also offered “Sectional Houses” which were prebuilt in Harris’ factory. Lewis Homes and Sterling Homes of Bay City, MI and Bennett Lumber of Towanda, NY were among others providing similar packages. But all of these builders would ultimately face fierce competition from the pages of the ubiquitous Sears Catalog.
From its first publication in 1888, the Sears Catalog continued to expand its offerings, and in 1895 it added a separate building materials catalog. By 1908, when sales of lumber, hardware, and millwork failed to grow as fast as the items in their general merchandise catalog, they offered a “$100 set of building plans free,” and invited customers to write in and ask for a copy of Sears’ new “Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans.” That catalog contained 40 different house designs. Initially, if you ordered one of those homes, like the Chelsea, you’d receive two boxcars containing 30,000 pieces of lumber that were required to construct that plan. And by 1914, you could order an “Already cut and fitted home,” in which all the framing members were precut and marked.
With 50 million catalogs being distributed annually, Sears’ precut homes had a tremendous advantage over competing offerings, and by the early 1920s, they became the dominant vendor. Then, Sears turned their attention to their much more formidable competitor, the journeyman carpenter. Just as Lenny Sylk would do sixty years later, Sears staged a build-off at their Cairo, IL precutting facility. The fact that this location was too remote to attract onlookers enabled them to conduct a couple of practice build-offs prior to reporting results. So, when they included this double-page spread in the front of their catalogs throughout the 1920s, they surely reached more potential buyers than any competitor. Coincidentally, their savings of 231 hours in 1921 is nearly identical to the SBCA’s build-off’s savings of 223 hours in 2015, nearly 100 years later.
Ready-Frame® – The practice of pre-cutting and marking wall framing material was resurrected by BMC in the early 2000s, nearly a century after it was developed by the Gordon-Van Tine Co. and others. BMC had observed one of their customers, a framer in the Pacific Northwest, having success providing precut packages, even while he was using a conventional pull saw and hand marking materials. BMC began marketing what they called “Ready-Frame®” through several of their outlets and installed several Virtek LaserMCs to automatically cut and mark wall parts. Later, BMC’s Jeff Radich, now a partner in ROGworx, recommended that an ink-jet marking system would greatly expedite production, and BMC proceeded to develop their own proprietary saws using that technology. By 2016, BMC had deployed 32 proprietary inking and marking saws. In 2021, when BFS acquired BMC, they expanded the offering of Ready-Frame® technology across the nation.
At the turn of the last century, the invention of the automobile facilitated migration from the cities and greatly stimulated demand for suburban housing. Over the next decades, this increased volume created the opportunity for local entrepreneurs to create cost-effective and easy-to-order house packages. After the end of the First World War, returning veterans added to the housing demand, which enabled these local enterprises to become regional and eventually national providers. Through these first decades of the twentieth century, offsite wall building technology thrived, providing the foundation for the component industry of today.
Next Month:
Mass Production Technology