More video of the i-house CLICK HERE, "Understanding Modular Homes." It features the i-house in the beginning.
Start the video by pressing on the center arrow. After it starts, make it full screen by clicking on the double arrow symbol in the lower right hand corner.
This is a 37 minute video, from the Nachi home inspection website, a link sent to me by a kind reader. Thank you!
After the introduction of credits, the great thing for me was seeing the outside of the i-house in natural lighting for the first time. The two tone on the outside of the core house didn't look right in indoor lighting. Outdoors, it looks perfect.
It starts off with big Dave, Marketing Director of Clayton, in a Core 1 (1 bedroom unit), talking about various aspects of the i-house. I learned a few things from this video and liked it so much I would have liked more of a tour.
I wanted the Nachi guy to say "Dave, show me the bathroom." After they leave the kitchen, they focus on the structural and mechanical aspects, since, after all, the interviewer is an inspection guy.
Still, you can see some nice things. The quality of the kitchen, the counter tops, the faucet, the back splash all look good up close.
Dave, who speaks very well, and looks like a Nick Nolte type from central casting, does a good job, but he's so tall, perhaps he dwarfs the impressive height of the i-house living room a little. The interviewer is more Danny DeVito size.
Stop the video at the opening, if you want to look at the pier foundation of the i-house, by pressing the space bar on your keyboard. The home has no skirting on the core unit so you can see how it is set up. Start the video again pressing the space bar again, or the button in the left lower of the video.
I like the plane landing at the airport across the street while they are on the roof deck.
The interviewer asks a good question about snow load, and the butterfly roof. Dave says they are eventually planning on a different roof style for areas with lots of snow. I'm just guessing, but if you are in an area that gets more than 4 feet of snow on the roof (we got nearly three, once here) then this gradually sloped butterfly roof isn't for your area. Thanks to the Nachi guy for asking that question.
Dave opens up a closet to show the point-of-use hot water unit and the first thing I notice, it is a Rinnai. Hmmm, website says they are using Rheem. Well, no matter, both are top brands.
Dave mentions that bamboo is green because it is sustainable and can be recycled. Of course, the unique thing about bamboo, which makes it "sustainable," is that it grows very fast, unlike oak, cherry, etc.
After about 9 minutes, the rest of the video is a factory tour with the Clayton production guy, who describes all the processes. Let me remind the viewer that the homes shown in production aren't all i-houses. The last one is one of Clayton's modular models that is sold under the Norris name.
The i-house has 2" x 6" exterior walls and R-21 insulation. It is a good tour though and describes the extra gluing that manufactured homes go through, which indeed gives them greater structural integrity than stick-built. Instead of just nailing or screwing, I-houses get nailing or screwing AND gluing. Stops things from coming loose in transport.
For a few of you who may be confused when he says OSB. That is oriented strand board. It's an engineered structural board that replaced plywood or fiberboard, in nearly all construction over twenty-five years ago.
