Finally, from top to bottom, the building industry is moving to panelize. National builders, like Pulte, are mandating it. Local building supply yards, like 84 Lumber’s, are building them in backyard sheds. And in between, BMC and BFS are shipping knocked-down versions. We laid the groundwork for this trend 25 years ago. Why is it just taking hold?
In 1993, though we proved wall panels worked at the National Builders Show (now IBS) (https://www.sbcindustry.com/fad2), most CMs couldn’t deliver. Imagine the hassle most builders got when they requested panels from their local lumber supplier. Since 99% of lumber yards didn’t build them, most would discourage their use, or risk losing the lumber sale. Even if that same builder asked a CM, he would probably be turned down, especially if the job was a “one off” custom home. Designers already had too much work coping with the doubling of housing starts in the Nineties. CMs were also handicapped by primitive, standalone wall panel software that was far behind its truss counterpart.
Here’s what’s different in 2019. Lumberyards are taking the lead, but with a totally new tact, borrowing from the Sears Catalog of the 1930’s (excerpt shown here) selling “…labor saving ready-cut method of construction.” Sears offered kits that included well marked pieces “Already Cut” (www.searsarchives.com/homes). These could be, per advertising, assembled by a homebuyer and his wife. Some 70,000 packages were cut, marked, and shipped, often by rail, from Norwood Sash & Door in Cincinnati.
Today’s national lumberyards are aggressively promoting panelization via kits, but these are Sears kits on steroids. Though these include unassembled parts, they are marked inventively to lessen jobsite labor and to hasten construction. Special impetus is being given by BMC Stock Holdings, Inc., with its Ready Frame (www.buildwithbmc.com/smoot/s/ready-frame) nationwide marketing. With today’s whole house MiTek Sapphire software, outsourced design by Platinum Global, and modern marking like IN4’s Hornet, CMs and lumberyards are ready to provide panelization.