Thinking about building a prefab modular home in Australia? It’s not only the modular home design that you need to consider when buying modular – the site where you choose to build your home is equally important.

As well as deciding on the town or suburb where you’ll build, you also need to take a close look at the site itself. To choose a suitable block of land for the construction of your modular home, here are a few factors to consider:

1. Site Topography

Topography refers to the surface shape of your land. Whether a block of land is hilly, sloping, or flat is all part of its topography. When choosing land for a modular home, while a flat house site is ideal, sloping sites can still be built on without too many hassles.

In some cases it might result in additional costs for further requirements such as balustrading to your decking and engineered sub floor structure if your floor level is over 1m in height, and crane installation.

2. Access to the Site

To get a modular home onto your land we need to ensure that the roads leading to the site will accommodate a large module, as well as site specific details such as power lines, overhanging trees, and the ability to manoeuvre or crane modules into place.

Referring back to our earlier point about typography, a steep driveway or block can also hamper access. While these factors rarely mean a site is impossible to build a modular home on, in some extreme cases it can increase transport and building costs.

3. Planning Requirements

As discussed in an earlier article on permits required for modular homes, when choosing a block of land to build on, it’s important to understand any planning issues associated with that block.

Things like land zoning, overlays, and covenants on the property can all play a part in how hard it will be to get a planning permit for the block, and how quickly you can get started on your new home project.

4. Bushfire Risk

Even though you may have established your site is not in a Bushfire Management Overlay, every site is still subject to a BAL Rating. If your site has a high BAL rating, you could incur further costs associated with complying with the building regulations to bring the home up to the required BAL specification.

5. Orientation

Every home has to be assessed for the 6 star energy rating requirements, and the orientation (i.e. the direction it faces) of your new home will have a significant impact on the outcome of this energy rating.

The orientation of your home will also be a factor when considering sustainable design, incorporating potential views, and street appeal.

If you’re in doubt about whether or not your site is suitable for a modular home, we can look at it for you and give an opinion. It’s also possible to have our transport contractors and crane driver assess the property to make sure delivery will run smoothly.

Do you have questions about choosing the right site for your modular home? Ask us in the comment section below and we’ll find out the answer for you.