Kit House - Delivery and Construction

Delivery and Construction

Depending on the size and style of the plan, the materials needed to construct a typical house, including perhaps 10,000-30,000 pieces of lumber, would fill one or two railroad boxcars, which would be loaded at the company's factory and sent to the customer's home town, where they would be parked on a siding or in a freight yard for unloading. Once the materials arrived, a customer would arrange for a local carpenter or contractor to assemble the house on a piece of land owned by the customer; or a customer who was handy with tools might assemble all or part of the house himself in several weeks or a few months' time.

The resulting houses were indistinguishable in quality and appearance from those built by traditional methods, if not better, yet were often significantly cheaper to build because of the savings on carpenters' and contractors' wages; and the cost of high-quality lumber bought from a large kit house company often was lower than at the local lumber yard. In addition, some companies, including Sears, Montgomery Ward, Gordon-Van Tine, and Harris Brothers, offered cash discounts and generous mortgage terms. For most homeowners, the complete cost of building a kit house was about double the catalog price, allowing for the construction of a foundation and labor costs. The price of land or a city lot on which to build would be another expense.