If you ever get a chance to tour a manufactured home facility, one of the big things you'll notice is that there is almost no waste coming out the back end, and

If you ever get a chance to tour a manufactured home facility, one of the big things you'll notice is that there is almost no waste coming out the back end, and certainly far, far less waste than you see in a typical site-built home (huge dumpsters of waste being hauled off regularly). They're designed so that there's just not much in the way of waste - because dimensions are standard, and consistency is pretty good, you simply make sure that if you have a cut of a standard piece, you need the other half of it over there. There's just very, very little waste. On top of that, there's very little transporting of random stuff, because it's all built onsite. Cabinets are built as an entire unit in a quarter of the factory I toured, and are simply run across into the house before the roof goes on. There's no need to make sure the cabinets fit through doors and such - the entire assemblies are brought in and dropped in place (or nearly so) through the top. The roof, meanwhile, is built at more or less waist height (depending on slopes). It's assembled, "drywall up," on some jigs that hold it properly, wiring is run, the joists are added, and you end up with a roof segment that is then lifted up, painted, and set down on top of the house. It almost entirely eliminates the "roof work" risk for doing roofs. I know in most modern tech circles it's incredibly popular to hate "trailer homes" - which tells me that most people's vision of them is a 1970s single wide, 50 years of limited maintenance later. Modern manufactured homes have nearly nothing to do with that - ours is 2x6 exterior construction, drywall, Energy Star rated, metal roof, good insulated windows, etc. Out of curiosity I signed up for the power company's free "energy analysis" thing, where they come and check the ducts, do a blower door test, etc, and they left saying "There's literally nothing we can improve - this is a tight house, comfortably in the top range, and your ducts are very well sealed too." I'd wager my results against any similar size site built home in the area. People we have over are consistently surprised to find out that our place is a manufactured, because it doesn't match the "trailer house" image. I think it's blindingly obvious it's manufactured, but I also saw it come in on trucks, and I know the signs to look for - simple rectangular floor plan, a strong marriage line down the center, and typically water only on one half of the house (it avoids having to do any water pipe joins onsite, which reduces the risk of leaks). We have a concrete foundation under the house, and it works great for us. But, you know, we do legally live in a "trailer home." Doesn't bother us in the slightest.