Returning to that era, Jimmy Carter was president, Rocky was all the rage in the movies, and 14-year old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored seven perfect tens as she racked up three Gold Medals in the Olympics. Passages that year include businessman Howard Hughes, writer Agatha Christie, and yes, the mobile home on June 15, 1976.
On that day, according to freestonecountytimesonline, The Outlaw Josey Wales premiered in the theaters, people were listening to Silly Love Songs by Wings, and the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (HUD Code) became law, transforming the mobile home into the modern manufactured home, placing the production of manufactured homes under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
As MHProNews understands, those 39 years have made a huge difference in how automobiles are produced, how we communicate with each other, how we shop, what we eat, where we travel, how we spend our leisure time, how we work, etc., as well as the quality that goes into the production of manufactured homes.
“The HUD Code is the most strict building standards in the nation, and local builders don’t have to abide by this code like manufactured home builders are required to, which is decades away from where mobile homes or trailer houses were when they died in 1976.”
Features you might find in the modern manufactured home include engineered roof trusses, R21 blown in fiberglass insulation (or R30 or R40), R11 wall insulation, 30-year roof shingles, 2X4 exterior wall studs on 16” centers, full double marriage line walls with 2X4s, 2X6 floor joists on 16” centers, fiberglass floor insulation, OSB tongue and groove floor, 50-year outside siding and single-hung thermal pane windows.
The National Fire Prevention Association states the modern manufactured home is up to 143 percent safer than a stick-built home providing safety equipment is properly maintained. Additionally, demonstrations on national TV have shown that modern manufactured homes, when correctly secured to the ground, can withstand tornadic winds better than comparable site-built homes.
As Fairfield Homes and Land of Texas says, “We have certainly come a long way since the death of the mobile home. Once the public understands the road we have traveled, and where we are today in comparison, the idea of living in a modern manufactured home is much more appealing.”
Pricing? The average national price of a new site-built three-bedroom home runs around $270,000. A new three bedroom manufactured home costs around $64,000. ##
(Photo credit: Fairfield Homes and Land-The Manhattan manufactured home)
