building up ?

[diana]

hi.....i am wondering if it is possible to add a second floor over our mobile home ? we do have a basement under 1/2 of our home and the remander is on concrete slabs...it is two trailers put together ...we need more room for growing daughters !
thank you in advance
diana

[admin]

Anything is possible... You need to get an engineer to examine the existing foundation and framing system to see if they can take the added stress or if perhaps they could to be reinforced to take additional weight. Either way you are looking at a large expense for this undertaking.

Price out the possibilities and then visit your local manufactured housing retailers, price out a new 2 story HUD code or modular home. If your current home is in good shape the trade in, or private resale value might make it less expensive, and less complicated, to replace the older home with a new one.

[mannymanbo2]

No manufactured home is designed for any additions, let alone a second floor added to a home on two different types of foundations!
If you live in any state that enforces building codes, they would never allow this! And for good reason, it is not safe!
If you want to provide a good home for your family, follow the homeowners manual and installation instructions for any alteration to a manufactured home.

[diana]

problem is when we bought the property 9 years ago ( 12 acres with out buildings and home already there ) we have NO IDEA what type of home it is or what year .the place was in bad shape..grounds all overgrown so have been spending most of our time clearing trees and land .from the outside it looks like any normal single floor home...wooden siding , pitched roof.the only hint that it is a manufactured home is the low ceilings and in the basement you can see the metal framing ...oh...and the concrete slab that a portion of it is on .the inside is in reallt good shape tho ...new bathroom fixtures...tubs...hard wood floors so does everyone think we would be better off tearing down and rebuilding then ? we talked about that but think it will be WAY expensive to have the current home " taken away " . i dont think it can be sold and moved to another location .how about sky lights ?? is that a possibility ?
thanks ,
diana

[keriamon]

If you have an actual manufactured home, then you might could put a second floor on it, since they (especially the newest ones) are built to house standards; it'd be like building on top of a regular single-story house. Putting a second floor on, though, is really, really expensive. Probably pretty close in price to building another house (of course, that's what you are doing--doubling your square footage). If your place is two single-wide trailers put together or a regular double-wide, then no, you will never be able to put another floor on it. The only way to know is to ask an architect.

Why go up? It sounds like it's pretty nice, so it'd be a waste to let it go; why not build on to it at ground level? That would certainly be cheaper and you should be able to coninue to live in it while work was going on (can't when adding a second story). I would think that you should be able to find someone who could add on another room or two for you. Just be aware that you may need a spend a lot of $$$ on electrical upgrades, since, as we have found out through personal experience, trailers and manufactured houses are not necessarily plumbed or wired to any code. To wire in new rooms, you may wind up redoing the whole house to bring it up to code. Adding any additions may also change it to being considered a real house, which may increase your property taxes and house insurance; it all depends on your county's zoning laws and regulations, as well as your insurance's rules.

The other option I can think of is to build a garage with a great room over it. My parents attached a single-story garage to their manufacutred home, so I don't see why you couldn't either. You can also build it separately and attach with a breezeway or glassed-in sunroom, or even a regular room to use as a den. You can either use the great room for more living space, or install a bathroom and have room for one or two bedrooms. Perfect for teens who want more privacy. In order to balance out the height of the garage and house, you may want to re-pitch the house roof to something higher, maybe add some faux domers (there's your skylights--although there should be no reason why you can't add regular sklyights to your existing roof; they're offered in all types of mobile homes). And is your basement finished out? My parents finished out the basement in our old house and had a bedroom for themselves plus additional living space (it was full-size, but a half-size should afford you one bedroom or den).

If you really want to just start over, some dealers offer trade-ins just like at a car lot. It sounds nice enough to warrant trade-in value. I wouldn't tear it down; I'd think you'd at least get a little something for it, even if you sell it privately, although taking it off a basement foundation and having to add the wheels and things back on will cause it to be a bit less valuable as a tow-away. You may also can have it gutted for the value of the floors and fixtures and then let the local fire department burn the rest for practice. There's always a way to get rid of a house for free.