HFO-TV: What You Need to Know About Modular Construction

This month on HFO-TV, broker Aaron Kirk Douglas speaks with leaders of two Oregon modular construction companies to learn more about the growing industry. 

Kendra Cox of Aumsville-based Blazer Industries tells us about the basics of modular construction and how they work with their clients, including the benefit of working with a modular construction company during the current shortage of construction laborers. 

"It's hard to find contractors and people to put the building together generally in certain locations. On the one hand, contractors are very busy right now, and so when a group can't find a local contractor, they may come to a modular builder."

Nathan Young, CEO and principal builder of MODS PDX, discusses how he came to work in modular construction and its benefits to developers and the planet.

"When you think about the fact that we're building four, five, six projects all at one location, it means we're not driving all over town," Nathan tells us. "There's obviously a fuel impact there, but it's also we're able to recycle a lot more materials because things that would otherwise fall under the off the into the mud and not be utilized, fall onto the ground, onto the, onto the cement. They're dry, they're still clean, we can take them over to a table saw, turn them into something else. So, we have a lot less waste just because we're able to reuse products in different formats."

When asked about the reason behind the reported surge in modular construction's popularity, Kendra pointed out the urgent need for affordable housing of all kinds, and Nathan shared that he sees this as the natural development of the industry. 

"Essentially, as we're able to move towards more technologically advanced systems and approaches, we can move the construction into an offsite world where we can now know that we're going to build it the same way," Nathan says. "The analogy that I use a lot for people is the same way that your custom cabinets are built inside your kitchen. The cabinet maker comes to your house, measures the cabinets, leaves, he doesn't go into your garage and set up a table saw and a chop saw and start cutting the cabinets ... we have the same capacity now to go and measure a site or look at a site, draw it up, and then go build it off-site and bring it to the site and know it's going fit just the same way that we do other forms of carpentry."