Prefabrication on a Small Budget
Back to blogsFull prefabrication is a factory business; partial prefabrication is a planning habit, and a small site can afford the habit. Start with the repeatable elements — bathroom pods, service spines, roof cassettes — and let the size of each shipment be set by the crane week rather than by the catalogue.
The economics work because waste is what a small budget actually loads. Every hour a wet trade stands idle waiting for a setout that will not close is money the programme spends twice: once in delay and once in the call-back.
"You do not need a factory to prefab. You need a drawing that was finished before the steel order went out."
The savings compound from the first cassette. One detail drawn once closes identically in every doorway and every pod, which is why the snag list on our last prefab-heavy site fit on a single page — and why the two weeks the method saved were weeks the budget never paid for twice.
Repeatable Cassettes
One detail, made in dozens, closes the same way the first one did.
Setout Decided Early
Site measuring gives way to shop-floor elements cut to a drawing that cannot drift.
Just-in-Time Delivery
Each shipment scheduled to the week it lands, so storage never becomes a constraint.
The small budget cannot buy everything the factory line offers, but it can always buy its most valuable product: certainty. Certainty in the setout, in the connections and in the delivery dates is what turns a tight programme from a wager into a plan.