Panelized Residential Project

We recently completed the installation a panelized residential project for Vancouver, Canada.  The main residence has three floors, 6 bedrooms and five bathrooms.   The project included wall, floor and roof panels.  We also panelized a backyard cottage – these are referred to as Laneway Cottages in Vancovuer – that will likely be a rental unit for nearby University of British Columbia. This was an especially interesting project because it was designed by the home owner, Kenneth Chooi,  an architect and instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

The general contractor for the project is the Econ Group of Vancouver – our friends Mike Dutson and Marcel Studer (a Swiss architect).

Panels Ready for Loading in Portland

We cut the all of the timbers and assembled the panels at our factory in Portland, Oregon during a couple of week of intense work by our engineers, machine operators, and framers.  We did most of the CNC cutting on our Hundegger SC1, which we had just finished installing in the new building.  Some of the larger timbers were cut on the Hundegger K2.

Truck Load of Panels

The bundled panels are then loaded onto trucks by our 15,000 lbs. overhead crane.  We nest the panels in groups which facilitate unloading and assembly on site.  Because we have modeled each timber we are very familiar with the design and layout of the home and can therefore translate the assembly knowledge we acquired during design and production into the optimized loading order.

Crane, Truck and Rain.

Three trucks were required for all of the panels and the 5-6 hour drive from Portland to Vancouver. A large crane and unwelcome rain greeted us on our first install day in Vancouver. All of the activity attracted a lot of attention and many visits from the neighbors.  Here is a photo of the crane and a bundle of panels.

Wall Panel

All of the panels are individually numbered and typically “flown in” individually.  On the right is a photo showing a good example. The total time to install all of the panels was four days (with a break for the weekend).