New Home

[Tammy]

I'm about to purchase a new 2000 sq.ft. Southern Energy Home. I'm getting a little scared because I believe it may have 2 x 4 ext. marriage wall studs 16"oc and 2 x 4 top plate and 1 x 4 bottom plate. I have read that this is not good. We live in S. Carolina and don't plan on moving the home (on it's on property). Please advise.

[rmurray]

Southern has 3 series of homes...Southern, Southern Lifestyle and Southern Energy....All 3 have very different construction specs...
A 2000 ft Southern would cost about 48K, Southern Lifestyle 58K and Southern Energy 68K...There is a whole lot of difference between these homes...
All are standard with a pressboard (NOVODECK) floor..they will option to plywood..

Have you considered Horton...All Hortons are built like a tank..the cheapest are just plain...the most expensive have all the goodies and lots of looks...but..no Horton has anything but the best basic construction..

[Bill Fry]

2 by 4 16 o.c walls are standard building code in any home,stick or otherwise.Its usually common practice to double the top plate(2- 2 by 4s on top of each other).The bottom plate is one 2 by 4.Your builder may be using a 1 by 2 for a bottom plate,hardly seems to be worth the cost difference to me but isnt going to make much difference as the bottom plate is strapped to the stud and sill. 2 by 6 walls are good if you live in the cold because you can pack more then R-11 insulation in them.Strength wise there better for second floors,heavy roofs,snow loads but none of these things are common in MF homes or SC.I wouldnt worry about it,most MF homes skimp with 24 OC studs cause HUD says its OK.

[Tammy]

Thank you. I feel a little better. I also found out that some of the new homes that are being built in this area have 2 x 4 walls too!

[Tammy]

This home is supposed to be a "Southern Energy". From what I've found it has 1316 Nova deck flooring, 2 x 8 floor joist OC, and 21-11-7 insulation. The Southern Energy site just shows 1 set of specs for all their homes so I can't figure exactly what I'm getting.

[rmurray]

"Southern Energy". From what I've found it has 1316 Nova deck flooring"

Be sure not to buy this stuff in your floors...be sure if you buy one of these...you option in the plywwod floors that Southern offers...

By the way...I did check the specs on the site....They are not quite as exactly the same...The differences are clear between the Southern and Southern Energy...But the Southern Lifestyle specs look old...They mention OSB floors and they no longer offer OSB for the floors...

Good Luck...