How Laura's stylish house was built twice as fast as normal

Sydney Morning Herald

a day ago

Traditionally-built houses take more than a year from approval to completion, according to ABS and AMP data. Prefab and modular experts say they can get more homes built affordably, up to 50 per cent faster, and with fewer disruptions.
Prefabricated components are made in a factory and assembled on site; modular sections are factory-produced and combined on site. Prefab modular is a hybrid.
Governments need to commit up to 70 per cent of social housing projects to prefab or modular, to achieve the kind of scale that will reduce costs, says Dr Ehsan Noroozinejad, a senior researcher and global challenge lead at Western Sydney University.
'We need some sort of support from the government,' he says. 'We cannot push the private sector and the community alone to use this technology.'
The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), a joint body of the federal and state and territory governments, released a handbook last year on how to use modern methods in line with the National Construction Code, and is developing a voluntary certification scheme for manufacturers.
However, prefab and modular is still unfamiliar to some councils and building certifiers, who are the guardians of permits and approvals, experts say. A lack of understanding is delaying what should be a speedy option.
Noroozinejad says there is not enough training in how to approve the final product, and the voluntary scheme will be more effective if it were compulsory.
'The certifiers and the councils are not familiar with this technology, or they believe that it is not suitable for their area because of cultural heritage value,' he says. 'If the process is streamlined, this type of technology should be very efficient. Otherwise, it's not working.'
Jennings' home is the work of Prebuilt, a prefabricated modular manufacturer with a base in Kilsyth and another near Newcastle in NSW.
Prebuilt chief executive Malcolm Batten says incorrect perceptions of modular have held it back from wider adoption.
'When the average person thinks modular, they think of flimsy, temporary and cheap, and the permanent buildings we do are not flimsy,' he says. 'They're very strong and will last as long, or longer, than a conventional build.'
Prebuilt has constructed hotels, family homes, granny flats, farmhouses and beach retreats, from Sydney's high-end Mosman to the hamlet of Lorne, on Victoria's Great Ocean Road.
However, some councils are so uncertain about what modular means, they scotch planning applications that come across their desk.
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'In one of them in NSW, we can't put a modular building there because their statutes talk about modular like it's a caravan, and so you're not allowed to because it comes in on the back of the truck,' Batten says.
Another hindrance has been access to finance, leaving home owners to meet 90 per cent of upfront costs or enter into arrangements with their builder, as Jennings did.
Many banks have been unwilling to make progress payments to builders when the asset – the block of land – is not gaining value while construction occurs elsewhere. However, their stance is softening.
The Commonwealth Bank has changed its lending criteria after collaborating with industry group PrefabAUS, and now provides prefab and modular home loans of up to 60 per cent of the contract price.
Damien Crough, co-founder and executive chair of PrefabAUS and managing director of Advanced Offsite Group, says companies were shouldering the financial risk, which limited their growth.
'Planning, regulation and financial models all need to be adjusted to recognise off-site construction,' he says, 'and so that's what we've been working on.'
PrefabAUS members have drafted an advice paper for the treasurer on barriers to financing and Crough is assisting the ABCB in streamlining industry definitions.
Tahi Merrilees and his Wild Modular co-founder Alex Tattle launched their company in 2021 after years on old-fashioned building sites.
'We got sick of trudging around in mud and being delayed, and it got to a point where we just started looking at better ways to build,' Merrilees says.
The Sydney-based company has just delivered three social houses in Wollongong for the NSW government under a pilot program. All were handed over within six months, but the build time was only three-and-a-half weeks.
To help facilitate loans, Merrilees and Tattle have set up live-feed cameras in their Wetherill Park factory to track progress of projects. The transparency has compelled more lenders to fund their projects, from Tasmania to WA and the Whitsundays.
'There's change happening to make it smoother,' Merrilees says. 'That's going to have a massive impact on housing supply as the industry grows.'
Noroozinejad says only 4 per cent to 5 per cent of Australian housing is prefab, compared to European countries such as Sweden, where it is 84 per cent.
To increase output, he proposes empty car manufacturing plants be repurposed as prefab housing factories. 'We have the capacity and very positive feedback from the industry,' he says.
Jennings, an experienced renovator, has been astonished by what modular can achieve.
'I love the level of finish,' she says. 'After doing renovations that have gone way too long, the build time was extraordinary.'