The day is blustery, but at a new-home subdivision in Chantilly, no subcontractor for Pulte Homes Inc. is steeling himself against the wind trying to drive nails into wood studs. No one is pouring concrete for the foundation in bad weather, either.
Instead, a few miles away, a huge gray bridge is gliding overhead in a climate-controlled factory driving screws, cutting holes and marking wall partitions. Cutting machines are slicing wall panels into the shapes needed to go into the houses. Rather than wielding tools, workers are peering at computer screens for their next instructions.
A concrete section of wall manufactured at Pulte's Manassas plant is lowered into place at a house site in Herndon.
(Photos James A. Parcell -- The Washington Post)
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Pulte Homes, the country's second-largest home builder and one of the top 10 in this area, has started experimenting with a new way of making houses. Instead of building on site, wooden stick by wooden stick -- the way most houses are made in the United States -- Pulte has eschewed the stick framing and started constructing homes in a computerized factory environment, much the way automakers put together new vehicles.
The builder's goal, once the house factory is running at full capacity, is to build better homes more quickly and more cheaply than in the traditional way.
"There haven't been many changes in building over the past 50 years," said Chuck Chippero, general manager and designer of the new factory, which began operations in January. "Here, we're putting the house together like Legos."
The company says its primary objective is to construct a better-performing house for its customers by means of the factory environment. But analysts who watch Pulte say the big, savvy national builder also has an eye on its bottom line in a highly competitive business.
"It should make them more money in the long run," said Lawrence Horan, director of research at Parker/Hunter Inc., a financial research firm in Pittsburgh. "If it didn't, they wouldn't be switching to it."
Building in a factory means far more control. Inside, there are no lost days because of bad weather, which is the bane of builders. Since most of the new processes don't require the traditional skills, there's also less worry about finding skilled labor, something that has become harder to do. Finally, moving away from wood and into steel means an end to warping, bowing and bending.
Making homes in factories isn't new, of course. Modular and manufactured homes have been around for decades. Those homes are usually limited to a narrow set of designs, however, and are generally viewed as a low-end solution to home building, generally costing from 10 to 30 percent less than traditional stick-built homes.
That's not the kind of business Pulte is aiming for. So far, the builder has constructed some 125 houses in its Virginia factory. And the homes have been large -- up to 7,000 square feet -- with varied floor plans, and priced at the high end of the builder's range, up to more than $1 million.
The houses, called Pulte Home Sciences homes or PHS homes, have so far been made in three subdivisions -- Ridings at Blue Springs in Chantilly, Laurel Hills in Lorton and White's Mill in Warrenton. Next year, Pulte will start offering the PHS homes at the Mayfield Trace subdivision in Prince William County.
Factory-made components in homes are also quite common. About 90 percent of new homes made today contain factory-made components such as windows, doors, framing, roof trusses, floor trusses and kitchen cabinets, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Two-thirds of the components in an average new home today are made in factories, according to the association.
But even that doesn't add up to what Pulte is trying to do.
"A lot of the ideas have been used in bits and pieces by other builders," said Edward Pollock of the Energy Department, which worked with Pulte on the factory. "But Pulte is the only builder that has turned it into a whole house system."
