Developers often choose pre-fabricated modular bathrooms to help them complete quality projects quicker despite labour shortages – a topic we blogged about several times this year, including our post: “Modular bathrooms speed construction and improve quality in senior living.”
But, did you know modular construction also offers important green building benefits?
These include:
Reduced waste
Improved air quality
Greater energy efficiency
Let’s look at each of these more closely.
Reduced waste
Because modular bathrooms like SurePods are built in a factory setting, materials can be better planned and optimized than on a job site. Precision manufacturing allows for ordering just the right amounts of materials and optimizing cuts to help eliminate scrap. Additionally, any cut-offs generated can be carefully tracked as inventory and used in other projects.
Building bathroom units in an indoor, climate-controlled environment also eliminates any material damage and loss from exposure to environmental conditions.
As the factory can purchase materials like toilets and mirrors in bulk, there also is much less packaging to dispose of than occurs with site-built bathrooms. Types of materials reduced range from cardboard and protective foam to shrink wrap and wood pallets. Of course, some of these materials will still have to be used in small quantities, like the shrink wrap for example. Shrink wrap guns and accessories can be bought at Pro-Tect Plastics should they be needed.
The result of all these factors is much less waste going to landfills. Those who run construction sites will likely be searching for waste management methods and ways to effectively dump materials easier (visit website to see products like steel hoppers that could assist with this).
Improved air quality
One surprising green building benefit of modular bathrooms is their role in improving air quality by reducing the potential for harmful moulds. The Modular Building Institute explains that modular construction can improve indoor air quality because: “The modular structure is substantially completed in a factory-controlled setting using dry materials, [so] the potential for high levels of moisture being trapped in the new construction is eliminated.”
Greater energy efficiency
Due to precision construction, modular bathrooms also can help contribute to a more airtight, energy efficient building. Les Bluestone, Partner of Blue Sea Development Company, experienced this first hand when building the Prospect Plaza housing project in New York City.
To meet energy efficiency targets for the project under several green building programs (Energy Star, National Green Building Standard and LEED) the Prospect Plaza project team needed to meet airtightness requirements between individual apartments and the exterior. “The [SurePods] bathrooms passed the airtightness requirement better than anything that could have been field constructed,” said Bluestone.