Middletown >> There were only a few inches between the men’s hands and the roughly 21,000-pound structure hovering right above them. Tuesday morning the Salmina Construction crew was busy installing a hybridCore Home to replace a house burned by the Valley Fire.
The structure traveled from a Sacramento factory where the kitchen, baths and laundry hookups, as well as heating, ventilating and air conditioning were built in about two weeks, Bob Brandstad, of Santa Rosa based hybridCore Homes, said. The house also includes appliances, fixtures, cabinetry and counter tops.
In another seven to eight weeks the home will be move-in ready, as opposed to the four months it would have otherwise taken if the entire home was constructed from the ground up on the Douglas Street property, partner and vice president of construction Otis Orsbun said.
The advantages of this process are many, according to advocates. Crews building the cores don’t have Mother Nature to worry about, since they are out of the elements and in the controlled environment of a factory setting. A hybridCore can be constructed while the foundation pours and cures, that and the assembly-line method used help cut the home building process in half. And all of the efficiencies used to built a core reduces costs by roughly 20 percent.
On-site construction crews do not require specialized training, though they do receive classes on how to handle the hybridCore once it’s in their hands, Orsbun said.
Using a crane, the core was lifted about 5 feet off the ground and maneuvered over from the flatbed truck on which it traveled to the foundation.
While the construction workers were getting ready to place the hybridCore onto its permanent location, a small crowd of onlookers formed which included a Cobb couple who will have their own hybridCore Home built in the coming weeks.
With more than 1,000 homes lost in the Valley Fire, Branstad said they are already seeing an influx of demand that will only grow as more residents become ready to rebuild.
The company has set up a special website for Valley Fire survivors, vf.hybridcorehomes.com, where residents can take a look at floorplans that are already pre-approved for the area. For every home rebuilt, hybridCore is committed to donating $1,000 per unit to the CalFire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit.
For more information, visit hybridcorehomes.com or call (707) 523-3673.
