Champion Genesis Modular Homes

Modular Home Nightmare

MODULAR BUILDING EXPERIENCE

Government Requirements, Utility Systems and Other Site Improvements For Modular Homes

This entry was posted on 8/9/2008 3:36 PM and is filed under Modular Home Buyer's Guide.

Here's another article from Al. He discusses some of the government requirements and additional improvements you should be aware of and consider when building a modular home. Covering areas that you may not have given enough thought to, both in terms of time and money.

Al also touches on his experience with one form of factory inspections. Please keep in mind, although he explains that he had to pay for a county inspector to visit the factory to inspect the fire sprinkler system, at least it was inspected by someone who knew what they were doing. Our modular home fire sprinkler system was "inspected" by no one at the factory and had to be rebuilt on-site (see photos in earlier posts on 3/31/07).

Factory inspections or more to the point, the lack of factory inspections, are a subject which will be covered in the future by either myself, Al or both of us. Thanks to Al for his contribution.

MODULAR HOMES 101

Article Three

Government Requirements, Utility Systems and Other Site Improvements

To the uninitiated it might seem that once you pick out your modular home and all the modifications to it, the job is done. Ah, but not quite so fast. You’ll have to set the modular on a site and there are numerous site changes and improvements needed in order to accommodate your modular. You have much more to do and in this article I’ll try to cover required and requested site improvements. Required, because if you obtain a building permit from your local government, codes and ordinances will dictate what has to be done. Requested, because along the way you will have certain wants and needs from the location of the house on the site to grading an earthen berm so you don’t have to look at your neighbor’s stick-built house next door.

In order to set the stage for the information covered in this article I need to brief the reader about existing utilities and improvements we had on our property before we located a modular home on the site and then discuss changes, modifications and other irritating things.

In our situation we were replacing a small modular home on our property in east San Diego County, California with a new larger modular home. We had owned this property for 15 years and at the time we purchased the property it had a small (850 square foot) modular house on it. The house was at least 25 years old and had been manufactured by a company right here in southern California. It was a comfortable ‘getaway place’ for us, although it was small. It was a two bedroom, two bath house. Thinking back now, the only comfort problem I recall was during the summer when the sun beat down on us and we did not have an air conditioner. We did have an evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) and it worked pretty darned good on those hot days when the humidity was low. We didn’t particularly care, because we only stayed at this small house on weekends and a few weeks during times we were on vacation from work. On those 100+ degree summer days it was much more comfortable to stay in our house in San Diego not too far from the ocean.

Government Requirements

Our property is zoned A-72, General Agriculture, for crop and animal agriculture. When we bought this property and even now, I don’t see any agricultural uses within miles, although there are various four-legged wild animals around our place and a couple of horses in a corral up the road. I suspect that the agriculture zoning designation was placed on our property and surrounding property because there was no other zone category to use for this area. What I find interesting about this zoning is that one can declare one’s property a farm or ranch (to officially declare a property a farm or ranch is more complicated than I can go into at this time) and in so doing it opens up a whole new list of possibilities. But the point is that even though our property is zoned A-72, the county of San Diego does not identify our property as a “farm or ranch”, it’s a single family property.

My wife and I planned to relocate our small house on our property and use it as a ‘granny flat’ for my elderly mother, if she ever needed to live with us, but the County of San Diego would not let us do this without removing the entire kitchen. I wracked my meager brain trying to figure out how the existing house could be retained on our 8.5 acre property without gutting the house, but I could not figure out a way to accomplish this objective. I visited various county departments to investigate ways of keeping our small house, but to no avail. I suspect this restriction had something to do with adequate water quantity pumped from a well and the disposal of sewage by septic tank and leach field.

Here’s something interesting to note; in the A-72 zone on a ranch or farm, the owner can house up to twelve agricultural workers in permanent housing. So, the county would not let us house my 95 year old mother in a ‘granny flat’, but if this property was declared a ranch or farm the county would allow me to house twelve agricultural workers. Of course, twelve workers would be consuming more water and creating more sewage than a 95 year old great grandmother. Am I missing something here? God bless the County of San Diego looking out for our environment.

I’m sure if we had retained the small house on the property there would have been additional county requirements imposed and quite frankly I didn’t want to deal with those additional burdens at the time. So we sold the little house to a small family-run business that buys modular homes from citizens just like us, in a bind.

The sale of the older, smaller house seemed to work since we wanted to obtain an occupancy permit for the new house as quickly as possible and avoid further local government involvement. A word to the wise, keep your involvement with the local government to a minimum.

To add to our scheduling pressure the new house was on the way to our place we had named “Rancho el Chiste” (translation: a funny story, amusing remark, prank or laughing stock, joke ranch. As to the Spanish definition I don’t know if this is a funny story, but in looking back on our adventure it seems more like a prank played on us from some unknown source. Of course our experience started with our conscious decision to buy a modular and move to our east county property, just as you have to make that very serious decision to buy a modular.

We had prepared and were watching our own time schedule of activities and a preliminary completion time of obtaining an official occupancy permit. Our San Diego house was on the market and soon would be sold. Needless to say, we began to worry about where we might be camping in east San Diego County, among the snakes and coyotes, if the new house wasn’t acceptable in a timely manner.

We sold the little house for $1,500, as I like to say, “under duress.” Our comfortable little house was worth much more, but we were under the gun to get it moved and make way for the new one. Once the deal was made the little house was quickly moved off the property in a couple of days. The small family business thought bought our house moved in quickly, disconnected utilities and removed various things, installed wheels on the axles that were still remaining under the house, installed a towing hitch on the house and pulled it right off the property. I was told later that houses, such as our little house, were usually moved to Mexico and sold at quite a nice profit for the family owned business. I’m also told the same family business has moved houses off the De Anza Cove site at Mission Bay, so they have quite a business. More power to you entrepreneurs, you’ve found a very profitable niche.

I was optimistic about placing a new modular on our property because we had existing utilities including electricity, telephone, water and a septic tank with leach field. Naïve me!

Utility Systems

Most people cannot exist without basic utilities. We are no different, but lucky us, we had existing utilities sufficient to support this home, or so we thought.

Always keep in mind that you are obligated to abide by the letter of the local law and keep the inspector happy. So, our little house was gone and the big house was moved onto our site. If you find yourself in this situation remember, it’s a new ball game and the local rules are constantly changing. Keep on your toes, keep your eyes and ears open and always ask questions. Here are some site changes we endured.

Fire Sprinkler System: The San Diego County Board of Supervisors, in a wink of an eye has made and will continue to make significant changes to the local codes and ordinances as its response to some significant problem within its jurisdiction even though to us, the taxpayers, their decisions may not be entirely logical. A good example of this recent code change is that since the Cedar Fire of 2003 all new houses of any type in San Diego County are required to have a fully automatic sprinkler system inside the house. Yep, we live in a modular that has 16 sprinkler heads protruding from the ceiling at various locations throughout the house. What may seem to you visually intrusive is not even noticed by us today.

The fire sprinklers were part of that previously identified work order sent to the factory and the sprinklers and all the accompanying accoutrement had to be installed at the factory. And would you believe, in addition to the cost of adding a fire sprinkler system in the house we had to pay all costs for a County of San Diego inspector to fly to the factory in Arizona to inspect the pipes and other sprinkler system items! Why? Because once the drywall was in place it would be nearly impossible to examine the ‘plumbing’.

We had an existing 5,000 gallon tank with the old house, but to support these new fire sprinklers based upon the size of this modular, we had to add one more 5,000 gallon water tank. A new pressure pump, a new smaller pressure tank located adjacent to these two large storage tanks and various pipes and electrical items had to be added to provide a complete automatic pressurized fire sprinkler system inside the new house.

Here is something I still do not fully understand, except to say God bless local government with all its wisdom. The electric motor for pressurizing the fire sprinkler system runs by alternating current provided by San Diego Gas and Electric. The motor turns a water pump which forces water into a pressure tank. In the event of a fire a little glass tube breaks, causing a small metal plug to pop out and water begins to spray into the house at the location of that sprinkler. Lowering the water pressure in the system causes the pressure in the pressure tank to lower and that lower pressure automatically starts the electric motor and pump. Pumping raises the pressure in the tank and more water pressure provide water to the sprinkler head. Seem pretty foolproof and straight forward, but wait one moment.

The strange thing is, during the Cedar Fire and other wildfires we’ve had over the past few years, the electricity and telephone service usually fail. If this happens we have no electrical power for the electric motor, to turn the water pump, to provide pressure to the tank and inside sprinkler system. Seems to me the result would be no sustained water pressure inside the house for the sprinkler system operation. I know what you’re thinking, ‘Buy a generator.’ I’ve got a generator, but how about others living in East County? So much for politicians making decisions in response to a catastrophe and, by the way, this fire sprinkler system that may or may not operate cost us about $13,000. Check with your local government, fire Marshall or building department, and write your list of fire fighting requirements before you go too far down the road.

Since the two water storage tanks are located on a ridge above our house, one might argue that gravity will suffice to provide sufficient water pressure and quantity to the house in a fire situation, but we’ve had power outages for other reasons and the water pressure drops to about 10 pounds per square inch (PSI) when there is no electricity and gravity takes over. You can calculate your own approximate gravity water pressure by multiplying the height in feet from the lowest elevation of the tank to the elevation of the sprinkler or other water fixture times .43. If the height difference is 10 feet then 10 multiplied by .43 = 4.3 PSI. With the electric motor running and pressure tank working the inspector would like to see between 40 and 60 PSI. There are many variables involved here, so be sure to check with your inspector. From 60 PSI to 4.3 PSI is quite a difference. You will certainly recognize a lack of water pressure when a faucet is turned on in the house and the pressure tank is not functioning.

The other interesting issue to contemplate is that the county requirement for an internal sprinkler system is just fine for fires that start inside the house, but what about that wildfire that approaches the house from outside? I doubt very seriously if the inside fire sprinkler system would have much more than a minimal affect on the outside fire. Here’s a suggestion to the San Diego Board of Supervisors, why not require fire sprinklers on the roof and up and down the sides of the house? Just joking of course, because most of us could not afford that cost! Chalk this fire sprinkler business up to another brilliant decision by our local government and this is one of many.

Electrical Service: After realizing we needed the fire sprinkler system if we were to obtain legal occupancy of the house, we found we needed to upgrade the underground electrical line from the meter near the edge of the property, our service point. This would require four underground cables to the house running a distance of about 100 yards. The copper wire in each of these insulated cables is nearly the size of one of your fingers. We had requested a factory upgrade from 100 to a 200 ampere breaker box in the house. We thought it would adequately support our proposed five ton air conditioner and other electrical needs. As it turns out we should not have upgraded to a 200 ampere breaker box in the house because it wasn’t needed for the air conditioner unit and it just cost extra money. The new meter/breaker box at the property service point could only provide 150 ampere. Duh! I didn’t understand this until the on-site contractor had installed the new meter/breaker box and then it was too late to make changes. I’m not convinced we could have found a service point meter/breaker box to meet our needs.

I’ve been told there are essentially three types of meter/breaker boxes that serve single family property, 1) overhead SDG&E service to a meter/breaker box and then overhead to the house, 2) underground SDG&E service to a meter/breaker box and then service to the house and 3) overhead SDG&E service to a meter/breaker box and then underground to the house. This latter arrangement, # 3, was our situation. I know what you’re thinking, ‘Why did you need 100 yards of underground upgraded electrical service to your house? Fortunately for us we have certain aesthetic concerns and one is, we have a great view from our 4,100 feet above sea level site over a valley with beautiful mountains in the distance. I like to tell friends, “We have a low cost house with a million dollar view.” So, we didn’t want wires in the air obstructing our sight lines.

Each of these meter/breaker box types is different and some can handle the capacity of a 200 ampere house service and some cannot. Unfortunately for us, the one that was installed by our on-site contractor couldn’t support 200 ampere service and I quickly determined the contractor was trying to weasel out of the way he bid the job, but more on that later. Please note that if you go through this new electrical service improvement, the breaker box at the meter should always be compatible with the breaker box in the house. If they are incompatible you may have problems like we still do.

I’m still a bit disgusted about this situation and the only solution now is to have a licensed electrician remove the new/existing breaker box at the meter and replace it with a new meter/breaker box (overhead to underground) that is able to provide a 200 ampere service. To make this physical change will require SDG&E to disconnect power to our property, have a licensed electrician remove the old breaker box and install a new one and make all the connections. Again, this will result in spending our money twice for the same site improvement. I occasionally wonders why my hair is turning white. Now you and I might know.

Telephone: As for the telephone service, it had to be replaced. Re-grading the pad for the new house had destroyed the existing underground telephone line. The underground service from a service point near the electric meter to the house needed new wires for two services, one for a talking line and one dedicated line for our computer. Note: we since have upgraded to broadband service for our computer, it is similar to a cell phone system, because ‘dial-up’ is a real drag, but our only option at the time. In some respects it is wonderful because our provider’s antenna is about two miles away in our line of sight on another mountain ridge and service is good, but it is also more expense. So, the dedicated computer line is not needed, but it’s there in the ground anyway. I’m not sure why we keep our ‘land line’ telephone service when we both have cell phones, but it’s a psychological home anchor of sorts. Remember as Daniel Burnham (1864-1912), famous architect from Chicago said, “Make no little plans.”

Septic Tank and Leach Field. What comes into the home must also leave the home and thus the septic tank and leach field is a requirement. The existing 1,000 gallon septic tank was large enough for our three bedroom house, but the leach field had to be extended by 60 feet. As I recall this requirement was based upon the number of bedrooms. This required hiring a septic tank and leach field contractor to obtain a county permit and do the work. This wasn’t extremely expensive, but it was additional cost.

Water System: Along with the old house we had an existing well, submersible pump, pressure tank, fire stand pipe (fire hydrant in the back county) and a 5,000 gallon storage tank up on the hill. Seemed to me that the water system was in place and only needed to be hooked up to the new house. Yes, I was a neophyte and I was going to learn a lesson. As the permit for the new house was being obtained from the County of San Diego we were informed that a second 5,000 gallon water storage tank would be required due to the size of the house. The county required two 5,000 gallon tanks connected together with a 4 inch diameter steel pipe and four inch “T” fitting to serve the fire hydrant near the house.

This work was completed, although I was never pleased with the work done by the contractor who connected the two tanks. This was almost a comedy situation and would have been laughable if it hadn’t eaten away at me for a couple of years. The old tank was in place and the new tank was installed at an elevation about five feet below the old one. Blame this mistake on the on-site contractor. As I recall I said to him, “Don’t you know both tanks have to be at the same elevation? Otherwise they will not fill equally and they will not serve the fire hydrant with a full 10,000 gallons of water when needed. Duh! I suspect you’re beginning to get an idea of what type of on-site contractor we had hired. He had a B-1 General Contractors license issued by the State of California, go figure. Hello state government, what are you overseeing in the vast field of contractors?

There is a lesson here to be noted. In California when one hires a General Contractor,

A-1 or B-1 license, always check thoroughly the validity of the state license, insurance, bonding and references. I’ll have much more to say about this in a future article.

Once the tank pad was re-graded and the upper tank was pulled down to the lower tank elevation, the connection between the two tanks was made. It was a very poor connection that I determined would last a couple of years and probably fail. If that happened it would possibly drain one or both of the tanks from the hill above the house! I didn’t want to wake up some night with 5,000 gallons of water in our bedroom.

This situation occurred because the contractor who made the connection was not able to align the two tanks horizontally and vertically. That requires a backhoe and quite a bit of ‘adjusting’. The contractor, for reasons only known to him, decided to do this ‘on the cheap’.

When connecting two 5,000 gallon tanks with a four inch diameter steel pipe, a “T” fitting and valves, the two tanks must be nearly perfectly aligned horizontally and vertically. Rather than take the time and expense of properly aligning the tanks, the contractor connected a two inch diameter sewer pipe (a black plastic type sewer pipe along with a rubber hose) to make the connection. He heated the sewer pipe with a blow torch so it could be bent to make the connection between the two misaligned tanks. Even then this Rube Goldberg arrangement did not connect properly and he inserted a two inch diameter rubber hose, similar to a car radiator hose, to make the connection with two screw type compression fittings. I recently paid another contractor $1,400 to disconnect the tanks, utilize a backhoe rig to adjust up, down and sideways, one of the tanks (this took six attempts I was told) to make the proper connection with a four inch diameter steel pipe and a new four inch gate valve. Thanks Marty, you set my mind at ease.

Why was all this was necessary? To have a full 10,000 gallons available at the fire hydrant though a four inch diameter steel pipe. Insurance companies have been acting very strange in recent years, so we must take all precautions for fire fighting purposes. In other words, if you do have a fire, do not let your insurance company off the hook because you had a substandard connection to a fire fighting apparatus. And would you believe, the county inspector apparently approved this sewer pipe connection arrangement. Was he drinking something other than water?

Propane Gas Line: A new propane gas line had to be installed in a trench running from the existing propane tank to the house, a distance of about 45 feet. Even though there had been an existing line, it was removed for grading and safety purposes and the old line had to be replaced with a new line.

Solid Waste Removal: Solid waste does not enter into most folks idea of utility systems, but to set my mind at ease I need to mention how we obtain solid waste disposal at this location. We currently pay a private company $ 99.50 per month to provide solid waste (garbage) removal. That’s for the service once a week and we pay to lease a 3.5 cubic yard ‘dumpster’. Your costs may very depending upon location. Generally speaking, we fill up a 3.5 cubic yard ‘dumpster’ each week. Sounds like a lot of solid waste for just two people, but that’s a fact. Don’t forget you will probably need this service if you are going to live out in the hinterlands!

Satellite Service: We’re blessed these days that we can also have satellite service. From our location we can obtain, at least until 2009, television service via antenna from two small towns 50 and 120 miles away. We couldn’t live with three TV stations, so we subscribed to satellite television.

You can also obtain satellite computer service also, but we’re happy with our broadband service provided by a national cell phone company. Something else for you to think about.

Other Site Improvements

In addition to utility site improvements you may require a site survey, grading, soil compaction, addition of wood chips and rocks on site as ordered by the inspector and other similar, but occasionally arcane things. Following are items we had to have constructed or placed on our site and a brief explanation of each. You may need these and/or others, for as they say, “Your needs may be different.”

Land Survey and Site Plan: To obtain a building permit for placement of the modular you’ll need a site plan drawn on reproducible material, such as Mylar or vellum paper, so you can make copies for local government offices. You may be able to draw your own plans if you have enough information about your property and the innate ability to draw. But in our situation I was not able at the time to do that sort of thing and a surveyor was hired to prepare basic graphic data on the existing conditions of the site and a site plan. If you are building a stick-built home you will probably have architectural drawings prepared by an architect or building designer that will be submitted to the county or city building department for a permit. Since a modular is being moved onto your site, you’ll not have those architectural house drawings to use, so you’ll need something.

Our surveyor surveyed the perimeter of the site (property lines) and then surveyed the topography of the driveway to our existing pad and the pad itself. He then generated a drawing that showed the new house on that pad with a few spot elevations. This made a good site plan to submit to the county building department and I suspect they appreciated the professionalism of the surveyor’s drawings. Note: recently when I built my detached garage I had the same surveyor prepare additional information on the topography and site placement of the garage and it was accepted by the county without any problems or questions by the building department and, yes, I did receive a building permit for a garage after only five trips to the county offices.

With a site plan of the property showing existing conditions and the location of site improvements such as our pump house, water tank, along with other graphic details and additional information a fee was paid to the county. Soon a permit was issued for the modular house.

Earthwork: Our on-site contractor proceeded to dig footings without thinking. When the county inspector first visited the site, the side walls of the trenches were collapsing. The inspector promptly ordered the re-grading of the pad, the re-compaction of the dirt and the re-trenching for concrete footings. This was another example of work that was paid for two times. Along with this, a soils report had to be prepared by a licensed soils engineer and submitted to the county building department. With newly compacted soil and new trenches, the concrete was finally poured and the footings were ready for the modular to arrive.

Before the modular was moved onto the pad all new utility lines were run to the correct service positions of the house on the pad. The sewer line was not a problem because the modular was placed almost exactly where the old house had been, and fortunately, the sewage line exited from the new house at the same location as the line from the old house. This made an easy connection to the septic tank. Once the home was positioned on the pad, all the final connections were made.

For some reason I certainly don’t understand, the county inspector instructed the contractor to bring in a large truck load of wood chips and to spread them around on the ground outside the external walls of the house once it was in place. If this was some feeble attempt to discourage weed growth and prevent a fire from starting I think my choice of the word ‘feeble’ fits perfectly. Within a few days the wind had blown the wood chips all over the property and virtually none of them remained around the house. The inspector also directed that a truck load of 1 ½ inch rocks be brought in and spread around at the two steepest areas of the dirt driveway up to the house. This almost makes sense, but then again any large vehicle driving across those rocks just spins its wheels and creates ruts in the driveway. Bless the county; this must be something else I don’t understand.

All this site improvement work cost someplace in the neighborhood of $16,000. This work was done in late 2005 and early 2006, so your costs may be different depending upon the work to be done, the cost of materials, the number of contractors who have work to do and that ever loving fact of life, ‘inflation.’

My advice is to employ professionals in all aspects of improving your site. These folks understand the local conditions, issues and will have worked with local government inspectors in your area. This may assure things go smoothly, but if you’re unfortunate to have an inspector that has a ‘burr under his saddle’, look out. We were fortunate in that some of our site characteristics existed and provided a great opportunity for us to locate our modular on our property where we wanted it to be, thereby maximizing our view with our selected floor plan and minimizing wholesale changes necessary to accommodate the modular on our property. If you’re starting with raw land, you should sit down with a professional and carefully think through the whole project. I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact that this is not necessarily a low cost project. Good luck!

My next article will be titled, “Further Education About Modular Housing.” For some strange reason this makes me remember a true story my brother told me. He was working as an engineer for Boeing in Seattle and had traveled to China with another engineer to meet with prospective purchasers of Boeing aircraft. The two engineers sat down at a dinner with six or seven Chinese aircraft people who spoke no English. My brother and the other engineer spoke no Chinese. An interpreter had been hired to sit with the group through the meal. Several courses of food were served and one course came with some strange looking thing on the plate. My brother asked the interpreter, “Mr. Chang, what is this?” Mr. Chang answered, “Oh, you don’t want to know.”