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Manufactured Home Owner’s Guide

Seventeen chapters on keeping a manufactured home sound, roof, skirting, foundations and tie-downs, HVAC, plumbing, moisture, storms, energy, remodelling, accessibility, and preparing to sell.

Chapters
17
Reading time
22 min
Updated

A manufactured home is not a small house. It is a factory-built structure on a steel chassis, usually sitting above a ventilated crawl space on piers, and it fails in its own characteristic ways.

Three of them account for most of the expensive damage: water getting somewhere it should not, the home going out of level, and the crawl space not breathing. Almost every chapter here comes back to one of those, because almost every large repair bill does.

The good news is that manufactured homes reward routine maintenance more predictably than site-built houses do. The work is cheap, it is on a schedule, and doing it more or less on time is the difference between a home that lasts decades and one that develops soft floors in fifteen years.

Chapters

  1. Chapter 1: The maintenance calendarWhat to check and when, so maintenance is a schedule rather than a reaction to a symptom.1 min read
  2. Chapter 2: Roof careThe most consequential surface on the home, and the maintenance cycle that keeps it working.1 min read
  3. Chapter 3: Skirting and ventilationWhat skirting is actually for, and why blocking its vents causes the damage it was meant to prevent.1 min read
  4. Chapter 4: Foundations, piers, and levellingWhy a manufactured home goes out of level, what that causes, and how often to check.1 min read
  5. Chapter 5: Tie-downs and anchoringThe system holding the home to the ground, why it degrades, and why insurers ask about it.1 min read
  6. Chapter 6: Heating and coolingWhat is different about manufactured-home HVAC, and the maintenance that keeps it efficient.1 min read
  7. Chapter 7: PlumbingWhere manufactured-home plumbing runs, how it fails, and what to do first when it does.1 min read
  8. Chapter 8: WinterizationPreparing for freezing weather without creating a moisture problem in the process.1 min read
  9. Chapter 9: Storm preparationWhat to do before severe weather, and the one decision that is not about the building.1 min read
  10. Chapter 10: Moisture controlThe single most destructive force in a manufactured home, and where it comes from.1 min read
  11. Chapter 11: Pest preventionWhy the crawl space is attractive to animals, and how to make it less so.1 min read
  12. Chapter 12: Energy efficiencyWhere a manufactured home loses heat, and which improvements are actually worth doing.1 min read
  13. Chapter 13: Remodelling and improvementsWhat you can change, what needs approval, and the structural limits that are not obvious.1 min read
  14. Chapter 14: Accessibility improvementsAdapting a manufactured home to stay in it, and the constraints specific to this construction.1 min read
  15. Chapter 15: Insurance preparationWhat insurers ask about a manufactured home, and what to have ready before you need to claim.1 min read
  16. Chapter 16: Community livingLiving well under a lease you did not write, and what to do when something changes.1 min read
  17. Chapter 17: Preparing for resale, years aheadThe maintenance and paperwork decisions that determine what your home is worth when you sell.2 min read
Start with Chapter 1

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