They build with precast blocks

Homes are sturdy, energy-efficient and quick to assemble - especially if you own a concrete factory.

By Jodie Tillman, Times Staff Writer
Published February 18, 2008

As a crane does the heavy lifting of precast concrete walls, Jonathan Barker of Concrete Systems helps guide the operation with a strap. The walls of the Hudson home will be welded together.
	[Brendan Fitterer | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Dennis Maxwell, left, of Concrete Systems and project manager John Brennan review the plans for the home. [Brendan Fitterer | Times] After the pre-cast concrete walls are lowered into concrete footers with a crane, the tops of the panels are joined together with steel plates and welds. The exterior walls of the home are in place within a matter of hours.

HUDSON - When neighbors left for work last Monday morning, the 1-acre lot at 17507 Meridian Blvd. sat vacant.

By the time they returned that evening, the same address was occupied by the sturdy skeleton of a home: solid concrete walls with openings where the windows and doors will go.

In less than three months, this frame in the Highlands subdivision will turn into a stucco-finished home with a two-car garage, walk-in closet and breakfast nook. Asking price: $195,000.

So are bored construction crews moving at warp speed these days? Not exactly.

The house going up on Meridian is a precast concrete home, one of the first in Pasco County. Such homes are built of solid concrete walls made in a factory, transported to the homesite and welded together.

Building a precast concrete home usually cuts at least a third off the time it takes to build the more typical masonry block homes. Industry representatives also point to these homes' energy efficiency and their ability to withstand wind-borne debris.

No surprise that the Pasco builder in this case was already in the concrete field. Dennis Maxwell is president of Hudson-based Concrete Systems, a 30-year-old manufacturer of concrete architectural and ornamental pieces.

All the concrete pieces - from the walls to the footers - used in Maxwell's homes are formed at his Arcola Avenue factory. Some other Central Florida companies building precast homes buy the pieces from precast manufacturers.

In Hudson, the walls, which weigh about 12,000 pounds each, took about a week to make. They were transported by flatbed truck to the homesite and put in place by a large crane.

Maxwell said he has built and sold four similar homes -all around $210,000 - in Hernando County and plans to build about 10 this year in Pasco. A sister company, Del Zotto, has built about 50 in the Ocala area.

"You've got to know concrete," said project manager John Brennan. "This is not something you can just throw together."

Business at Concrete Systems is down about 50 percent because of the real estate slowdown, which raises the question: Why get into home building right now?

Maxwell and others associated with his project say the price of his homes may make them stand out in today's market. He said he wants to build an entry-level version for around $150,000.

"Sometimes," he said, "you've got to swim upstream."

Nancy Snodgrass, a broker with Gateway Mortgage, which is working with Maxwell, said, "He's got a product that's unique ... and durable."

Precast concrete homes aren't necessarily more affordable than masonry block homes. One builder told the St. Petersburg Times last year that the precast concrete homes were about 5 to 7 percent more expensive to build than comparable block homes. Another builder, however, said there was no price difference.

Maxwell and Brennan say the homes they are building in Pasco are priced relatively low in part because they have to be: The real estate market isn't exactly ripe for high-priced homes. But their in-house manufacturing, their reduced labor costs and their ability to share costs with their sister company in Ocala also help keep costs low.

"We're putting out a high standard home," Brennan said. "We're not going to get rich off one house."

Brennan says he thinks mobile-home owners will be one potential market, specifically those who own the land beneath their homes.

If those owners are thinking about trading an old mobile home for a new one, he said, they might find it almost as cheap to build one of the precast concrete homes since they won't owe any more impact fees.

Precast construction is much more commonly used for highways, bridges and parking garages than in home building. And in residential construction, it's more common in Europe than in the United States.

All-concrete frames have grown in recent years, mostly at the expense of wood-framing, Jim Niehoff of the Portland Cement Association told the St. Petersburg Times late last year.

"Masonry has more than held its own, particularly in areas such as South Florida," he said.

Niehoff said he thinks developers will pick the most economical building method based on such factors as the availability of trained labor, proximity of manufacturing facilities and the construction schedule.

"In other words," he said, "I think each system will have its niche."

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

12,000 The weight of each concrete wall.

$210,000 Average price of a home Maxwell has built using this method of construction.

4 Number of homes Maxwell has built in Hernando County using this method.

10 Number of homes using this method he plans to build in Pasco this year.

[Last modified February 17, 2008, 20:39:19]