Cutting edge All go for prefab homes
Fletcher Building has opened a giant factory in South Auckland which can turn out two prefabricated homes a day.
The Clever Core factory in Wiri was developed in an enormous warehouse once used to store vast quantities of soft drinks for Coca Cola.
The hi-tech factory will produce the core structural components of a home in a factory environment, which can be trucked to a building site and assembled, with homes able to be put up and finished within six to 10 weeks.
German precision-cutting machinery ensures cuts are accurate to within half a millimetre.
The factory, which was opened by Housing Minister Megan Woods, produces wall, floor and roof components, and is run by a team of 20 staff.
Because of the way the factory was designed, there is no heavy lifting needed from operators, meaning women are at no disadvantage, and two of the staff are women.
While the factory will provide prefabricated homes for Fletcher Living, which develops residential subdivisions in Auckland, and further afield, in about a year the company intends to seek external customers.
Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor said the Clever Core factory also produced little waste – less than a rubbish bag per home made on site.
Woodchippings were shipped to Golden Bay to be used to generate energy at a Fletcher-owned concrete factory.
‘‘Our Clever Core facility will produce core components for at least 500 new homes each year, including 100 by the end of this calendar year,’’ said Taylor.
‘‘Clever Core will initially support our Fletcher Living developments but we plan to extend the offering to group home builders and retirement home operators in the future.
‘‘Once production is at scale, we believe Clever Core will play a pivotal role in helping the industry deliver more quality, healthy homes that Kiwis love, faster.’’
The new hi-tech site at Wiri will employ 35 people, from technicians and engineers to carpenters.
The first order of 100 homes is set to be delivered and finished by the end of the year.
Fletcher Living’s developments at Ormiston, Swanson and Beachlands will be the first to receive Clever Core structural components, which will speed up delivery and allow people to move in before Christmas.
Auckland mayor Phil Goff welcomed the factory’s opening as it could speed up the supply of new homes in the city.
‘‘You can’t build houses in the
21st century like you built them in the 19th century,’’ he said.
‘‘Why the hell weren’t we doing this 10 years ago?’’
Goff said consenting had accelerated in Auckland, with more homes consented in June, July and August than in the whole of 2012. The Auckland population was still growing at
40,000 people a year, he said. Woods said off-site manufacturing could transform the building sector and the Government had streamlined consenting for prefabricated homes.
She said that in some countries 80 per cent of new builds were homes manufactured off-site, while the proportion in New Zealand was about 10 per cent.
Taylor said New Zealand needed factories making homes to provide jobs, and lift productivity, but also to avoid importing prefabricated homes from countries where there might be lower labour standards.