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February 2025 #17307 Page #10
Home Building Technology, Part II: Mass Production Technology hile Sears had stolen the spotlight on precut technology, their lesserknown rival, Aladdin Homes, helped usher in prefabrication, but not initially. For many years, Aladdin fought the concept of preassembling parts of homes in their factory, asserting that their precut packages took “one-half the number of cubic feet that the same building would require in panels.” This certainly was a relevant factor very early in the 20th century, before trucks could haul large volumes of cargo. Sears, for example, shipped via rail, and it took up to three railcars to ship one of their precut homes. So, using Aladdin’s analysis, Sears would have incurred twice the shipping expense if they panelized their Honor Bilt Homes. Aladdin also asserted the same rationale that prevails in many corners today, that their “Readi-cut buildings can be erected as with practically the same rapidity as prefabricated panel type buildings.” And they demonstrated this on a large barracks project that was built incredibly fast in the frenetic war year of 1917. Even though Aladdin’s owners didn’t use panels on this project, when the next war was imminent 20 years later, they recognized that the dramatic improvements in transport and material handling would make panelization feasible. What they probably didn’t realize going into that war, however, was the immense scale of the military bases that would have to be built.
By Joe Kannapell
W
Sears also took on a large development in 1917, but of a different character – it was 192 units that Sears shipped to house workers for a Standard Oil refinery. Observing the rectangular footprints of these houses would suggest that panelization was feasible, but not in that day and age. Even if trainloads of boxcars could be marshalled, the difficulty of loading and unloading wall panels by hand would be overwhelming, as the modern forklift wasn’t yet widely available, having only been introduced in 1917 too.
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