Speed, quality, price — choose any two. It seems that prefab technologies, which allow assembling houses from ready-made factory modules right on the construction site, have sent this common saying into the past. Although with all the obvious advantages, prefabs also have features that can be called disadvantages
In early July, Technonicol completed the acquisition of Scandic Construction*, the largest prefab frame house construction company in northern Europe. Prefabs, from the English prefab homes, are houses made in the form of separate modules in production, and then assembled into a full—fledged house directly on the construction site. — BFM). The plant, which has been present on the housing kits market for more than 20 years, is located in the Leningrad region. The asset includes more than 4 thousand square meters of production space, including auxiliary (for storage and loading of products). The plant’s capacity makes it possible to produce more than 400 houses per year.
The plant of the Technonicol company for the production of house kits in the Leningrad region. Photo: Technonicol/tn.ru
Technonicol already has a working factory for the production of house kits using panel-frame technology in the city of Semenov, Nizhny Novgorod region. By focusing on streaming standard products and not being distracted by changing projects, the plant can now produce up to 50 thousand square meters per year, and if additional equipment upgrades are carried out, then even more.
And the company also has ambitious intentions to open its own production in each or almost every region of the country and certainly in the neighborhood of every city with a million people and thus become the absolute leader of the segment. In a conversation with journalists at the Semyonov plant, Dmitry Apanasenko, head of the Technonicol Domokomplexes department, noted: “The shareholder has a vision that the prefab industry will develop more and more, therefore, the plans until 2035-2040 include the construction of factories near large cities. And in the near future, development is planned in Central Russia, the Volga, Ural, Northwestern, Southern districts and the Caucasus.”
In addition, according to the expert, Technonicol is going to build an additional warehouse of finished products in Semenov for 2.5 thousand square meters, where ready-made house kits of the most popular series will be stored (for a short time, apparently), over the next four years, together with the Ecopark Polyany tourist complex in the Ryazan region, a large hotel cluster on approximately 120 guest houses, even more actively train representatives of contractor companies on how to assemble houses competently, quickly and efficiently directly on the site…
In short, this player in the prefab market is clearly serious and for a long time. It is no coincidence that the co-owner and managing partner of Technonicol, Sergey Kolesnikov, calls the development of low-rise housing construction one of the company’s priorities.
In theory, the very interest of one of the largest manufacturers of building materials in prefab technologies and the market of house kits already confirms the prospects of the direction.
For greater clarity, you can refer, for example, to the statistics of the new exhibition “Low-rise Country”.
Roman Konyakhin, manager of the exhibition of houses “Low-rise Country” “At the time of the opening of the exhibition, we had 27 houses built using various technologies. Nine were built using prefab technologies (five modular, three using panel-frame technology and one more made of CLT panels). It turns out that the proportion of prefabs is more than serious: 33%. By a stretch, of course, but following some professionals, houses built using half-timbered technology and houses made of glued beams, which are also assembled on a construction site, can be attributed to prefabs. I repeat, with a huge stretch, but if so, then the share of prefabs at our exhibition grows to 44%. However, as for the demand from the end customer, according to our surveys, people are not interested in prefab as such. More precisely, they do not use the word “prefab” itself. At the same time, 12% are interested in modular houses, 9% — in half—timbered, 4% – in panel—frame houses, 2% – in SIP panels.”
The popularity that has already been won, even if not by the name, but precisely by the content of prefab technologies, has several explanations. “This approach makes it possible to eliminate errors on the construction site, significantly increase the speed of construction, reduce the cost of work and pay off the project quickly enough. This is especially true with the introduction of project lending and the escrow account system: the aphorism “Time is money” has acquired additional meaning for developers. Therefore, modular construction and fabrication are taking over the construction site,” says Olga Ivanova, CEO of BN Group.
Olga Ivanova, CEO of BN Group, “But timing and money are not everything. Take, for example, CLT panels (Cross-Laminated Timber) — an innovative product that we believe in and which brings benefits to all participants in the construction business. It has minimal impact on the environment and creates a favorable microclimate for humans due to the natural balance of moisture and heat. CLT buildings do not shrink, due to the short construction time, it is possible to reduce the number of people involved on the construction site by two to three times. Plus, it is an eco-friendly and energy-efficient material: the technology allows you to build buildings even in the Far North, where the air temperature drops below minus 60 degrees. For customers who choose CLT panels, environmental friendliness is important not only for the design itself, but also for the assembly process – it is less noisy and dirty, besides, the technology allows you to complete additional spaces and floors.”
“In addition to the obvious benefits, prefab technologies reduce the impact of the human factor on the quality of construction, as well as the need for workers themselves, which is very important in light of today’s shortage of personnel,” Dmitry Beresnev, Vice president of Segezha Group, agrees with his colleague.
“More and more people are not ready to wait long for the completion of the construction of a house and do not want to constantly monitor the builders working on the site. In addition, personnel hunger leads to the need to increase labor productivity, optimize and automate construction processes — and this is just about prefab technologies. Reducing the dependence of the construction site on weather conditions, reducing, and dramatically, the number of complaints and alterations — all this is also in favor of prefabs,” Roman Konyakhin argues.
According to Semyon Goglev, Director of Strategic Development of the Association of Wooden Housing Construction, the Norvex Art company, of which he is the managing partner, has developed its own prefab design based on the comfort class market, and as a result is now working on the construction of a premium cottage settlement. Apparently, the developers of the project really liked the panels made of prefabricated glued elements, already painted from the inside at the factory, insulated and prepared for the installation of the exterior cladding (the company’s small factory is located in St. Petersburg, and depending on the size of the house, it takes from a month to two to manufacture it here).
According to the expert, prefab really gives a gain in construction speed of at least 2.5 times, and this is one of its serious advantages. However, this is also the basis of a serious market problem. Prefab technologies have other… maybe not problems, but, let’s say, features.
Semyon Goglev, Director of Strategic Development of the Association of Wooden House Construction, managing partner of the company “Norvex Art”, “Probably, the disadvantage of pre-fabrication can still be called fewer opportunities to fix something in case of an error. That is, if you mess up somewhere, you have to return the part to the factory and redo it. We have only 30 kilometers between the site and the plant, and we can afford it, but it doesn’t always happen that way. The next special point is a two—stage sale: at the first stage we sell a set of panels and other wooden elements, at the second — a construction site. And when we sell a kit, it seems expensive, but it is important to understand here: a lot of work is done at the factory, so together the kit may be more expensive, but the construction site is cheaper. There is another important topic: the assembly of prefab houses is ahead of the usual construction rhythm. All builders are used to a certain rhythm, and when, for example, a house of 1300 square meters is built in just three weeks, then the next—in-line neighbors are often not ready for such speeds – accordingly, they do not have batteries yet, there are no cables, there is nothing, and it is very difficult to synchronize the work. Therefore, the speed of building a house is a little conditional: we quickly build structures, and then there is this pause, which often lasts even longer than it could. But in fact, it’s all a matter of time, a matter of segment development.”
Commenting on the decision of Technonicol to open its own training center for representatives of contractors, the expert emphasizes: the final assembly is a fundamentally important moment for prefab. “Our company can afford the ideal option: houses are assembled by the same people who made them in production. Only they can know the house in all its details, in all its nuances, and then the speed of assembly, of course, is much higher, and all sorts of calls and other communications need much less. But this is when it comes to atypical houses. When the house is typical, of course, it is possible and necessary, like Technonicol, to train third—party specialists,” Semyon Goglev believes.
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And what else can and should be done to develop prefabs? In which segments of the real estate market do prefab technologies have the most serious prospects? And is there a need to adopt uniform standards and rules of the game for all? We’ll talk about it next time.
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