THE disruption, inconvenience and expense of home improvement projects is leading potential renovators to think outside of the box, with European-style modular home extensions emerging in Perth suburbs.
While modular housing has grown in popularity in recent years, Cockburn-based renovation firm Nexus Home Improvements, which installed a master suite with a balcony to a house in Cottesloe last week, is believed to be the first company to install prefabricated two-storey extensions to existing homes in Western Australia.
Nexus director Matthew Keogh told WA Business News that, unlike conventional home renovations, which typically require seven to eight months of onsite work, the installation of prefabricated modules - built by Nexus at its Yangebup yard over a three-month period meant the time spent onsite was reduced to a matter of weeks.
“This [Cottesloe job] is quite a complex home improvement. They’re renovating the whole downstairs area; we’ve moved walls and everything, so it’s probably about an eight to 10-week process for whole upstairs and downstairs,” Mr Keogh said.
“If it’s just the upstairs modular two-storey extension it’s about three or four weeks.”
The logistics of undertaking such a large job - with trucks and cranes taking up most of the street - meant preparation was vital. The team at Nexus spent three weeks distributing flyers to residents and liaised with the local coffee shop and gym to ensure as smooth a process as possible.
“There are plenty of challenges,” Mr Keogh said.
“We just scraped under a footway bridge on Stock Road by 100 millimetres. The modules are big, heavy things and you’re moving them through suburbia.”
Despite the logistical challenges, Mr Keogh said the reduced time spent onsite as a result of the prefabrication of the extensions made life easier for customers, and that demand had been strong in the wake of the completion of Nexus’s first three completed extensions.
“We’ve only been working on this house for a couple of weeks now. If it was a traditional build we would have been in here for three months,” he said.
“The owners are living downstairs quite comfortably. It sets us apart from all the other traditional home builders.”
