The advantages and problems of prefabricated housing (housing prefabricated)

Prefabricated houses nowadays in China and a half should be fairly new or not new term, as old, because long time ago, someone made a similar term - integrated housing; as new, because it has come to be new housing trends in the world.

Certainly someone to ask what is the prefabricated houses?  Simply speaking, prefabricated housing means that houses are produced semi-finished products (modules or blocks) in the factory and simply assembled to complete at site.

Now in North America, the Nordic prefabricated houses can reach the level of 90% of basic housing from the factory has been formed, just like building blocks to assemble it, and then you can check the fitting. The actual installation time only takes less than a week to fully complete for a 300sq.m house.

 The name of the prefabricated house can be: prefab house, also called: for example, manufactured house, industrialized house and so on. Some countries also have many other types of prefabricated houses, for example, modular house (module housing), mobile house (moving house), container house (container housing) and so on.
 Prefabricated structural system of the house is now the basic steel structure, wooden structure and some SIP panels.

Now the main building structures in the world are keeping in brick and reinforced concrete structures. Internationally, the Richter scale earthquake magnitude indicators divided into 1-8.9 grades, 1-3 grade earthquakes makes the buildings without damage; four grade makes the building minor damage, the big damage started from five grade. Therefore, designers should consider the earthquake proof in the seismic area which is more than five grade.

Brick structure has the advantages of low cost, good thermal insulation performance, easily build. Disadvantages: the span for the rooms is restricted, interior layout generally cannot be changed, the wall takes too much space, life and durability is poor.
 
 Reinforced concrete structure suitable for medium-rise residential, high-rise residential in which the whole cast wall structure is better, or small multi-storey high-rise, high-rise residential commonly used frame structure, large module structure, the board structure. Overall, good seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures, high integrity, fire performance, good durability, indoor surface Bureau flexible than the brick structure. But the difficulty of construction of this structure is relatively large, structural cost is relatively high.

1. Prefabricated houses are mostly finished in the factory, so it is easier to control quality (QC), and saving more in labor costs.
 2. Prefabricated houses are modular houses or basically plate, directly assembly at site, it reduced the on-site technical workers and the skilled workers.

3. The performance of the modular and plate makes the delivery time and the installation time shorter.

4. Prefabrication housing structure used mostly the LGs (Light steel structure), SIPs (structural insulation board system), ICF (insulating concrete structure) and so on. The materials used are green, and more environmentally friendly.

The problems should be faced on prefabricated houses now:
 1. Prefabricated houses are mostly done at the factory, the highest level of prefabrication is modular, finished house, that makes the delivery cost is higher than bulk cargo.
 2. Prefabricated houses are very popular in North America, but in other countries is still a new thing. So the acceptance of the people is not high, installation problem, durable problem, environmental protection and other problems are concerned customers, but also have become our problems to be solved.
 3. The big problems to be solved should be whether the standards can meet the local building codes. Currently, most countries have corresponding standards, in some developed countries or which are started earlier, there standards are recognized and adopted by other countries.