Setup
Also called: installation
The process of siting a manufactured home: foundation, leveling, joining sections, anchoring, and utility connections.
Setup covers everything between delivery and a habitable home: preparing the pad or foundation, positioning and leveling the sections, joining multi-section homes along the marriage line, installing anchoring, connecting water, sewer, gas, and electric, and completing skirting.
Setup quality determines how the home performs for its entire life. A home that was never properly leveled develops sticking doors, cracked drywall, and plumbing problems; a poorly sealed marriage line leaks. These are the defects that show up years later and are expensive to chase.
Most states license manufactured-home installers and require an inspection. Ask who set the home up, whether it was inspected, and whether the paperwork exists. On an older home, a level check is one of the highest-value things an inspector can do.
See also
- Transport, Moving a manufactured home over the road, typically requiring permits, escorts, and a licensed transporter.
- Tie-down, Straps and ground anchors securing a manufactured home to the earth against wind uplift and sliding.
- Skirting, The material enclosing the gap between the bottom of a manufactured home and the ground.
- Double-wide, A manufactured home built as two sections, joined on site to form a home roughly 24 to 32 feet wide.