Panelized Building Systems: Designs and Benefits

Consumers
Contact: Devin Perry
dperry@nahb.org
(202) 266-8577

What is a Panelized Home?

A panelized building system incorporates construction techniques that use advanced technology, quality materials and a controlled work environment to build energy-efficient homes in less time.

Constructed Indoors, Carefully Delivered

While there are several types of panelized building systems to choose from, each begins by constructing the home’s essential structural components in a climate-controlled facility. Skilled craftsmen guide wall sections from the raw material stage to completed panels before carefully loading them onto a truck for delivery to a home site.

Flexible Home Design

Whether you are looking for a modern or traditional design, contemporary or rustic feel, there is a panelization style to fit your needs and budget, and endless options for customization. With computer-assisted design programs, designers and engineers can turn just about any idea into a working blueprint. The plans for your home can be sent directly from a designer’s computer to the panelization shop floor, ensuring your home is built accurately and efficiently.

Saves Time, Saves Money

Your new home’s panels can be engineered and fabricated in a manufacturing plant in just a few days before being shipped to your home site. Once at the home site, the shell of a panelized home can be erected and made weather-tight in a matter of days. Delays due to weather, material delivery and subcontractor schedules — often unavoidable in stick-built construction — are much less a problem with panelized home construction. These potentially costly hold-ups are reduced or outright eliminated.

Quality Construction

State-of-the-art technology produces panels that are engineered to the highest quality, ensuring your home is built precisely square and dimensionally correct. Additionally, each worker in a panelized facility has been trained to do a particular job and is an expert in that specialized aspect of home construction. Plus, your home’s panels are built to meet your local building code before they even leave the facility, even if your area requires special features for high winds, floods, or other considerations.

Environmentally Friendly

Panelized building is an inherently green way to build, and is recognized in several green building certifications, including the ICC 700 National Green Building Standard. Factory assembly means reduced construction material waste, less jobsite disturbance, and easier cleanup.

The precision construction of panelized homes makes them known for increased energy efficiency and lower heating and cooling costs. And since most panelized homes are weather-tight in a matter of days, your new home is kept safer and dryer, reducing the probability of warping, mold, mildew, and squeaking that adverse weather may cause in traditionally built homes.

Free E-Brochures

Click here for more information about panelized homes. Once you have completed the form at the bottom of the webpage, you will have access to our library of downloadable e-brochures in PDF format. The BSC staff and our membership will send additional information to you in the future about the systems of interest to you.

Free E-Brochures Learn more about concrete, log, modular and panelized construction from the Building Systems Councils.
Home Builders’ Guide to Offsite Construction An overview of the offsite construction industry and various building systems, the benefits of these systems, and how builders can incorporate them into their business.