The words,
defined plainly.
Modular, RTM, manufactured, A277, skids, piles, permits. The terms that come up in a first conversation about a factory-built home or building, each one defined in a sentence or two and linked to the page that goes deeper.
RTM home (ready-to-move)
A house built complete off-site and moved to the owner's land in one piece, then set on a permanent foundation. It is built to the same National Building Code as a site-built house and is real property once set. Many RTMs are framed outdoors in a builder's yard; a Herauf RTM home is built indoors and meets or exceeds CSA A277.
Modular home
A home built as one or more finished sections inside a factory, transported separately, and joined on a permanent foundation. Sections allow layouts wider than a road can carry in one piece. Herauf's modules meet or exceed CSA A277 and are engineered to the National Building Code for climate zones 6 through 8.
Manufactured home
A factory-built home constructed on a permanent steel chassis to the CSA Z240 MH series standard rather than to the National Building Code. It is often treated as chattel unless it is affixed to land and the chassis title is retired. A modular home is not a manufactured home.
Mobile home
A pre-standard factory-built home designed to be moved, built before modern manufactured-housing standards. The term is still used loosely for any factory-built home; a modular or RTM home is neither mobile nor manufactured.
Prefab
Any building prefabricated off-site, in whole or in part. It covers modular, RTM, panelized and manufactured construction, so the word alone says nothing about the code a building meets. Herauf prefab is modular, built to CSA A277 and the National Building Code.
CSA A277
The Canadian standard for the certification of factory-built buildings. Under A277 an independent certification body audits the plant and inspects units as they are built, stage by stage, before walls are closed in, so the building arrives certified and municipalities accept that in place of opening walls on site. Every Herauf unit meets or exceeds CSA A277.
National Building Code and climate zones
The National Building Code of Canada is the model code provinces adopt for how buildings are built. Its energy requirements are set by climate zone, numbered from 4 (mildest) to 8 (coldest). Herauf residential models are engineered and independently energy-modelled for zones 6 through 8, which covers the prairies and the North.
HOT2000 energy modelling
Natural Resources Canada's software for modelling a house's energy performance. An independent HOT2000 model of a design shows how its envelope, windows and heating perform in a given climate zone before it is built. Herauf's residential models are independently energy-modelled this way.
Screw piles
Steel piles with a helical plate that are turned into the ground rather than dug and poured. They install quickly in most prairie soils, need no curing time, and avoid a large excavation, which is why they are a common foundation for modular and RTM homes.
Steel skid
A welded steel frame under a modular unit that lets it be set on prepared ground, lifted, and moved again without a poured foundation. Herauf builds skids in its own shop for rapid-response housing, washroom buildings and relocatable workforce units.
Set day
The day a finished home or module is lifted from the truck and placed on its foundation, usually by crane or picker. The lot needs room for the crane to set up beside the foundation, which is one of the five things the site-readiness checklist covers.
Development permit and building permit
Two separate approvals. A development permit governs where a building may sit on a lot: setbacks from property lines, roads and water. A building permit governs how it is built. Most municipalities want the development permit first, and applying in the wrong order costs weeks.
Winter road and ice road
Seasonal roads over frozen ground, muskeg or lake ice that connect fly-in communities to the highway network for a few weeks each winter. Frozen ground carries heavy loads that spring thaw cannot, which is how Herauf delivered finished homes roughly 700 km to St. Theresa Point First Nation.
Infill
New housing built on vacant or under-used lots inside an existing neighbourhood rather than on the edge of a city. Modular sections suit infill because the build happens off-site and the lot is occupied for days, not months.
Workforce housing
Accommodation for a project's workers near the site: dormitories, crew facilities, washrooms and kitchens. Modular workforce units are built complete, set in days, and can be relocated to the next project on their skids.
Module (section)
One factory-built section of a building, finished inside and out as far as its position allows, transported on its own trailer and joined to its neighbours on the foundation. A single-section building is an RTM; a multi-section one is modular.