If you blinked you could have missed it. On Tuesday Steve Doherty Contracting built a house – literally.
After having spent the previous two weeks preparing for the delivery of pre-fabricated, pre-insulated walls, Doherty and his crew were ready to build the first of two homes on a site located on Denmark Street.
Using the even surface of the floor that had been built atop of the foundation, Doherty built the roof structures ahead of the delivery of the walls.
Once the walls – manufactured by Ayr Ontario company Tampa Hall – had been delivered, Doherty's crew installed them on Tuesday morning. After breaking for lunch, it was time to install the roof.
A crane was on site to lift the roof into place. The roof installation was akin to placing that last piece into a puzzle – the fit was perfect.
“Steve does things a little differently than most contractors,” Terence Rothwell of Tampa Hall told The Independent, “Most builders install the walls and then build the roof structure. Steve built the roof first, and then lifted into place.”
Rothwell says that speed of erection is one of the key features to the product his company manufactures. The walls are built in a controlled environment and arrive on-site already insulated to an R value of 24. Current building code requires homes to be insulated to R-19.
Though the cost of his pre-fabricated wall systems is more than that of traditional home construction, the time saved during the build is valuable, and when combined with the energy efficiency of a completely air-sealed, well insulated home, in the long term the homeowner is better off.
“The home becomes a real investment that continues paying dividends,” said Rothwell.
The on-site efficiency can be particularly helpful when a company is building time-sensitive projects says Rothwell.
“We recently had a project for a seniors home. As you know for many seniors homes there are long waiting lists,” said Rothwell adding that by using their pre-fabricated walls, several weeks were shaved off of the time required to build the facility.
Throughout the day Tuesday, curious onlookers watched as the home transitioned from a flat floor in the morning to a fully constructed building by the afternoon.
Doherty told The Independent that more and more homes will be built this way in the coming years.
In the slideshow below, you can see the progression of the build througout the day on Tuesday:
