NR Building Solutions

Structural & site

Lot preparation and site work in manufactured housing communities

Get the pad, the grade and the drainage right before a home arrives, because nothing built afterwards can correct a lot that drains the wrong way.

Request a bid(713) 923-0835
How it is priced
Per lot, by condition and volume of work
Timeline
Set in your written estimate, after the walk-through
Who performs it
NRBS crews, self-performed

Everything above the lot inherits the lot

Lot preparation is the least visible work in an infill programme and the most consequential.

A pad built on poorly compacted fill produces piers that move. Piers that move produce a home that needs re-leveling, and by then the movement has already shown up in the drywall, the doors and the marriage line of a double-wide. Correcting it means going back underneath a home that is now occupied, at several times the cost of building the pad properly in the first place.

A lot that drains toward the home puts water under it permanently — which means a wet belly, wet insulation, and eventually a soft subfloor — regardless of how well every one of those components was installed.

Neither of these can be corrected by anything built afterwards. That is the whole argument for treating lot prep as a scope rather than as a preliminary.

What we find on a vacant lot

Most vacant lots in an existing community have been vacant for a while, and the original grade is usually gone.

Settled or eroded gradeThe lot now falls toward the pad location rather than away from it
Altered by neighboursWork on adjacent lots has redirected surface flow across this one
Buried debrisRemains of a previous home, old piers, discarded skirting, concrete
VegetationRoot systems in the pad area, and mature trees in the delivery path
Abandoned utilitiesStubs and lines from the previous home, condition unknown until exposed

Each of these is ordinary. None of them is a surprise if the lot is walked before it is scheduled, and every one of them is a schedule break if it is not.

Drainage does not stop at the lot line

Grading one lot so that it sheds water onto its neighbour closes one work order and opens another, usually attached to an occupied home.

Surface flow has to reach the community's existing drainage. Sometimes that is straightforward. Sometimes it means the real scope is larger than the lot — a swale, a run of pipe, or a correction to something that was done wrong on an adjacent lot years ago.

We would rather tell you the scope is larger than the lot than deliver a lot that drains correctly onto somebody else's problem.

Access is found by walking, not by mapping

The constraint on delivering a home into an occupied community is almost never the road in. It is the last two hundred feet.

Turning radius at the lot. An overhead utility line at the wrong height. A mature tree. A neighbouring home set close to the line. A corner a transporter physically cannot make with a 16-wide behind them.

All of it is found by walking the delivery path before the delivery is scheduled, and none of it is visible on a site plan. A transport that arrives and cannot place the home is the most expensive single hour in an infill programme.

Also in structural & site

Specification

What we install, and to what standard.

Full specification
Pad
Built on undisturbed or properly compacted bearing, sized to the home
Grade
Positive fall away from the home on every side
Drainage
Surface flow directed to the community's existing system, not to the neighbouring lot
Access
Delivery path assessed before scheduling, inside the community not just to it

Not in the scope

  • Anything not written in the scope. Extra work found on site is raised as a written change order before it is done.

How the job runs

  1. Walk-through

    We walk the units or the roof, or work from the walk sheet you already have.

  2. Written scope

    A written scope and price before any work starts, priced as shown above.

  3. The work

    Our own crews do it, to the written scope. Anything extra is a written change order first.

  4. Final walk-through

    We walk it again with you and close out anything on the punch list.

Step one is your scope, as it already exists.

Request a bid

Pricing a whole community? Request a park-wide quote.

Common questions

Because everything above it inherits it. A pier set on poorly compacted fill will move, and the movement shows up as doors that will not latch and cracks at window corners in a home that was perfect at set. Correcting it later means going back underneath a home that is now occupied, which costs several times what building the pad correctly would have.

They have usually been sitting long enough that the original grade is gone — settled, eroded, or altered by whatever happened on the lots around them. The common finding is a lot that now falls toward where the home will sit rather than away from it, which puts water under the home permanently.

No, and it is worth saying because it happens. Grading one lot so it drains onto its neighbour solves one work order and creates another, usually with an occupied home attached. Surface flow goes to the community's existing drainage, which sometimes means the real scope is larger than a single lot.

Access, almost always. The road to the community is rarely the constraint. Turning radius at the lot, an overhead utility line, a mature tree, a neighbouring home set close to the line, or a corner a transporter cannot make — those are the constraints, and they are found by walking the path rather than by looking at a map.

W-9, written safety programme and certificates of insurance (GL and workers’ comp): being prepared. What is published so far is on vendor credentials.

Usually specified alongside

Where we perform lot prep & site work

Self-performed crews based in Houston. Each city page carries local housing context.

Houston-area city pages