Cavco Dorchester, from the ground up

A house is made of more than wood, nails, and drywall. Its made of your memories, and your dreams. It’s where your children want to be when they’ve had a rough day, and where you gather to celebrate milestones with the people you love most. It’s your comfort zone and your safety net, where you laugh and where you cry, and in those moments you’re not thinking about how well your house is made, only that you live there, and that it’s yours. Thankfully, there are people that worry about the wood, nails, and drywall for you, people like the entire workforce at Cavco Dorchester. Formerly Midcountry Homes, Cavco Dorchester sells houses to 14 states out of their plant located on 337 Liberty St. They build both manufactured homes, or houses where the steel frame used to carry it by crane remains underneath even after the house is set, and modular homes, from start to finish in their warehouse with over 160 plans to choose from. The Dorchester plant was built in 1996, and though it wasn’t acquired by Cavco until more recently, it is the first of 31 Cavco plants. And the most incredible part? From the very first floor joist laid to the last shingle placed on the roof, these homes are complete in just five days. It seems impossible to imagine that the culmination of nearly every working adult’s dream, to be a homeowner, can be built in only five days, but it’s happening right in your backyard every day. The crew at Cavco Dorchester measures their output in floors, meaning that one single-wide home takes one floor, and a sectional home, also known as a double-wide, requires two floors. They estimate that they send out close to 1,100 floors each year. That’s just about five floors every single day, five shells all ready for a new family to nestle in and give it life. Each unit goes through five stages in the warehouse, beginning with the floor. Technology unique to Cavco helps employees to work quickly, safely, and comfortably. It starts with the measurement system secured to the ceiling of the warehouse. It uses a laser to pinpoint and project exactly where each cut should take place and where each staple should be driven, leaving less room for human error. It’s so sensitive that it requires frequent recalibration, especially in winter when the snow-load on the roof influences its direction. The floor is built raised off the ground so the construction crew doesn’t have to stand hunched over as they labor. It’s done to the same standards as stick-built homes, but by building inside the warehouse, Cavco is able to control variables that could otherwise create an uneven base, ensuring a perfect floor every time. And once the floor is done just right, it has nowhere to go but up. Literally. The floor moves through each stage fluidly with builtin cranes, the first of their kind in the industry, raising and lowering it at the crew’s convenience. “Better equipment is safer,” said sales manager Todd Metz, reiterating that employee safety and wellbeing is at the top of Cavco’s priorities. Furnaces and showers are installed sooner rather than later which helps to speed the process along. Walls are constructed on their sides and filled with insulation prior to being secured to the floor, tile showers are built prior to installation so that they’re grouted into place levelly, and cabinets are constructed by Cavco professionals off the line, all of this to maintain the integrity of their product. Accuracy means everything. In addition, each floor is built with a double floor joist. These homes are set onto a foundation with a crane, so the floor must be sturdy enough to withstand that pressure without damaging each painstaking detail the crew has taken care of beforehand. “Our competition does not do that,” said Metz. What’s more, the steel frames underneath their manufactured homes are created on-site, and the house is placed directly on top of that frame via crane rather than built on it. This is significant; while there is extra labor involved, the purpose again is to maintain control of every possible outcome. And the proof is in the pudding. While the dealer is responsible for fixing any drywall cracks created through the house settling on its foundation up to one year after placement, Metz recalls just one incident where a Cavco Dorchester house required drywall correction. One. “We build a strong house,” he said simply. They keep costs down by utilizing as much of their material as they possibly can. If it can be used, you can bet you’re not going to find it in Cavco’s dumpsters. They purchase their products in bulk to reduce packaging, and leftover materials are repurposed rather than thrown away. The result is up to 40% less waste than traditional sitebuilt homes. “The team at Cavco Dorchester is a good steward of our environment,” Metz said. They receive up to 24 semi-loads of product each day. Why? So those materials aren’t sitting around waiting to be damaged. Each item is inspected for quality and controlled temperatures keep supplies like shingles from warping and losing its integrity. Quality control is done at each stage, and the marriage-line between floors is observed constantly. And they’re doing all of this while still trying to make home-ownership accessible for everyone. On September 9 and 10, Cavco Dorchester hosted a home show to invite professionals to tour their warehouse and several floor models, many of which have seen some impressive upgrades. The home show culminated on the 10th with the arrival of roughly 30 visitors of the Crosswinds community, a location in Brodhead that is currently installing 53 Cavco homes. In attendance were representatives from the Bank of New Glarus, the Bank of Brodhead, Berry Homes, Rosegate Mortgage, Burg Realty, Guild Mortgage, Exit Realty, and Brodhead residents interested in the Crosswinds community, among many others. The rode a bus for three hours to tour Cavco Dorchester, all to experience the homes they were putting their customers in, from the ground up. “As an agent I want to understand how these are made and what the quality is like,” said broker of the Bank of New Glarus, Amber Foster. “This is amazing.” “The workers here take pride in their work, you can tell,” said Exit Realty realtor Jennifer Elliot of Cavco Dorchester’s 165 employees. “We are extremely excited for this opportunity and everyone involved in the Brodhead project is to be commended for taking action,” Metz said. “Our state, and the 14 states we serve, are all in need of attainable housing. This group has come together to knock down barriers.”