Manufactured Housing Transportation

Manufactured housing is a prefabricated housing that is largely assembled in factories and then transported to sites of use. It can be a huge endeavor to relocate a manufactured housing unit.

Transportation of prefabricated housing are divided into two categories:

1. Delivering a new unit to a customer's location

2. Picking up and shifting an existing unit from one area to another.

Despite the differences between these two categories, transporting the units involve the same circumstances.

Newer prefabricated houses weight anything from 45 to 50 lbs. per square foot, whereas mobile homes normally weigh 35 to 40 lbs. per square foot. That implies an 800 square foot prefabricated house may weight up to 40,000 pounds. In addition, the average width of a prefabricated house is around 12' which in turn results in a non-divisible load with just minor travel constraints. In contrast, mobile homes between 12 and 16 feet wide are likely to be treated as super-loads, with very strict restrictions on when they can travel, what roads they can use, and that they must be accompanied by two or more civil escorts, including possibly police escorts depending on the state. Permits may be required for each separate region a mobile home enters or travels through when relocating it to a new county or state. These permits, like any other oversize or overweight cargo, must be obtained prior to the transportation.

Each state has different rules and processes for assessing what constitutes an oversize load, which cargo requires permits, and escort vehicles, just as they do for any other potentially large load—and the permissions and requirements differ in many states. States have significant influence over the conditions under which large or overweight cargoes, particularly non-divisible items, can travel. State permitting rules vary widely, making it difficult to move big goods over state lines, such as trucks hauling prefabricated houses.