Manufactured homes have basements and serve as a type of foundation system. This option is considered an expensive investment but with great financial returns as it doubles up your floor area while qualifying the manufactured home for conversion into “real property.”
Types of Manufactured Home Foundations
Just as a quick recap back to our piece on manufactured home foundations, a basement is actually a type of foundation that you can use. The most common ones are: (1)
- Pier and Beam Foundation: The most popular for its simplicity and affordability. It consists of piers which are attached to the steel beams of the home’s frame.
- Slab Foundation: The solid concrete slab serves as the home’s floor and structural support.
- Crawl Spaces: Combines some of the pier and slab concepts, but gives an image of a traditional site-built home. It provides a literal crawl space that can be used for storage and utilities but is non habitable.
- Basement Foundation: This is considered the most expensive foundation system among the four choices, but gives the most returns in added area and monetary value.
What to Know in Having Basements
As with any home, basements can present issues in drainage, flooding and added maintenance. The largest “plus” of having these areas is all the added space you get without increasing the building footprint or height.
It’s giving your structural foundation a double purpose whether it’s more storage space, an extra bedroom, guest house, game room or even emergency bunker!
Another great benefit to basements is that they give your manufactured home more added value being viewed as more permanent, with the features of a site-built home. You are also able to avail of FHA loans (in the U.S.) and conversion of the manufactured home into “real property.”
What’s important here is that manufactured homes are highly viewed as something impermanent, having descended from the trailer mobile homes. Having a permanent, solid and durable basement foundation, gives it an elevated status.
The HUD (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) indicates that manufactured home foundations must have connection points that anchor the home and transfer all its weight to a solid stratum. “The permanent foundations must be structurally verified by a licensed professional engineer.” (2)
One thing to watch out for in opting a basement is all the added time in design and construction. It won’t be as speedy a move in as most manufactured homes. The structural design needs careful attention, also because this has to undergo specific study of your local city building codes.
These basement foundations are often built out to let in daylight, either through “walkout walls” or doors and windows. Really elevating it from a crawl space to an entirely added level. Therefore opting for the basement option will give you the highest financial returns. (3)
References:
- R, A. (2020, April 24). What to know about manufactured home foundation types. Types of Manufactured Home Foundations | Clayton Studio. Retrieved May 2022, from https://www.claytonhomes.com/studio/building-on-strong-manufactured-home-foundations/
- Worthy Inspection Services, LCC. (2018, June 7). A Quick Guide to Manufactured Home Foundations. A quick guide to manufactured home foundations. Retrieved May 2022, from https://www.worthyinspections.com/blog/a-quick-guide-to-manufactured-home-foundations
- Preferred Homes. (2022, January 18). Modular & Manufactured Foundation Types & requirements to know. Preferred Homes. Retrieved May 2022, from https://preferredhomesmi.com/manufactured/foundation-types-and-requirements/
