Beracah Homes: Building houses one module at a time

In business since April 7, 2003, Beracah Homes in Greenwood is one of the few remaining modular home builders in the region.

When a customer decides to purchase a home from one of Beracah's certified builders, drawing and plan approval take place on the customer's timeline. Once plans are approved and ready to go, a house takes no more than 10 days to build in the plant, said Mark Leishear, director of sales and marketing.

After work at the plant is finished, a house is trucked to its final site where it's set, locked up and weather tight that day.

On-site builders usually take one to two months to fully complete a house depending on the amount of work requested by the homeowner. “Typically a house is completely ready to be moved in about three to four months,” Leishear said.

R. Wayne Collison, and a former partner, purchased what are now Beracah facilities from a bankruptcy court that handled the dissolution of Nanticoke Homes. A little over a year later, Collison bought out his partner and continued to grow the company. Roger Collison, Wayne's son, took over the company in May 2012 when his father passed from complications from a heart transplant.

Since 2003, Beracah – meaning blessing – has built more than 1,300 homes on Delmarva and looks to expand operations in 2013 to the western shore of Maryland and beyond.

Here is the way it works:

Each home is custom designed with an inspector double-checking every step in the process. Prior to the construction process, customers finalize design details and color selections.

There are specialized crews working on each box or module of a home on side-by-side assembly lines. Depending on the square footage of a home, there could be two to four modules.

Custom-cut lumber heads out of the warehouse to the framing department where floors and walls are constructed. The next step on the line is rough-in plumbing and electrical work, when electric boxes and piping are installed followed by inspections and blown-in insulation.

Next, drywall is applied to walls followed by custom trim and moulding work. Then comes painting and cabinetry work.

Meanwhile, work is taking place on roof framing and shingles.

The final step in the factory is siding application, although some siding is applied on-site. Then the house, which is about 85 percent complete, is prepared for delivery and loaded onto a trailer.

Work at the site

Foundation work is completed before the set day, when all sections of the home are delivered to a customer's lot. To the casual observer the process resembles a fine-tuned crew putting together a large puzzle.

Beracah Homes delivers the home and assists in setting the home on the foundation. The on-site builder is responsible for the crane and the set crew; 90 percent of all that work is done by the same Amish crew.

A crane lifts the first box or section onto the foundation and the section's roof is raised and propped up. The second box is placed on the foundation, and then roof sections are joined together followed by the gables and panels. In some designs, other box sections and dormers on second floors are lifted into place.

At the site, Beracah usually finishes all flooring work – carpet, vinyl, tile, laminate and wood. It's the last thing done so damage is minimized.

All other on-site work is completed by another builder who is responsible for permits, financing, scheduling on-site inspections, electrical and plumbing connections, HVAC, connections to on-site septic and wells or to central systems, garage and porch additions, steps, driveways, grading and insulation.

This past year Beracah built 100 houses across Delmarva.