Modular homes that arrive assembled from the factory

Here the foundation is also the floor: the slab poured on the plot carries the underfloor heating and cooling, and the finished modules are set on top of it.

It is the entry model from Casas Cube: a single storey with two bedrooms (the main one with a dressing room), a bathroom, a WC and a living room with kitchen that takes up almost half of the floor you walk on (38.5 m²). The modules leave its Carballo plant complete after about three and a half months of manufacturing. On the plot you need a rectangle of about 16 by 6 metres, plus whatever distance to the boundaries your council requires. It suits a couple or a small family who want a single storey and a fixed price.

In a single day it goes from an empty slab to a house in place: the mobile crane lifts the finished modules and sets them on the foundations in a few hours.

The modules leave the Casas Cube plant in Carballo (A Coruña) complete after about three and a half months of manufacturing, and after the lift a few weeks of welding and assembly finishing remain. Inside, the living room with kitchen is generous (50.3 m²), as is the main bedroom (21.2 m²), and there is a utility room as well as a bathroom and a WC. It is for a family who want three bedrooms on a single storey (there is a four-bedroom version) and a plot a large lorry can reach easily.

A double-height space fits inside a single module: the living room rises to the ceiling and the bedroom sits on a mezzanine above it.

Kodasema builds it in Tallinn (Estonia) and ships it whole, as an abnormal load, to a levelled base: within a day it is placed by crane and needs no conventional foundation, so if you ever change plot it can be loaded up again. It arrives with a tiled bathroom, electric underfloor heating, ventilation and the electrical installation, and a local installer connects the utilities. It is a home for one or two people, a studio or a rental unit.

The solar panels and battery come even in the basic level, and the self-contained water system in the most complete one: it is designed for plots without electricity or water.

It is the largest module in the BOX series from Slovakia's Ecocapsule: a box with a timber façade, a bedroom at each end and the bathroom, kitchen and living room in the middle, for up to four people. It leaves the factory finished and is set on ground that has already been prepared, with whatever equipment the access allows. Per square metre, measured externally, it comes out 22% above the median for turnkey modular homes: what that difference pays for is autonomy, not space.

The contract covers the whole process: Abodu takes care of the permits, the concrete foundation, transport and installation.

It is the one-bedroom accessory dwelling from the Californian maker Abodu, designed for the garden of another house: a bedroom with two built-in wardrobes, a bathroom with a tiled shower, a galley kitchen with full-size appliances and a living area with high ceilings and large windows. It is a good reference for how a modular home is sold when the maker also takes on the work on the plot, although its market is California.

It is a single rounded piece, with no sharp corners and a fully glazed front, that arrives finished and can be moved whole to another plot.

It is made by LTG Lofts to go, an Estonian company with factories in several countries, with a timber wall clad in spruce or pine and a glazed aluminium front. With its SieMatic kitchen and Laufen bathroom it works as an open-plan studio with no bedroom: the brand pitches it for holiday lets, as a guest house or as a retreat, not as a home. If it is too small, it can be built longer or joined to another module. It has no distributor in Spain: you deal with the brand.

It is non-combustible, and there is an option designed for areas where homes border woodland, which is exactly where that matters.

From the outside it looks like a container, but it is not one: Canada's Honomobo builds its G5 series with steel frames and corrugated sheet, and this is the most compact home in the series, a single storey with one bedroom, another that can be left as an open room, a full bathroom and a living area with large windows. It is insulated with polyurethane foam and heated and cooled with a heat pump and heat recovery ventilation. It suits a home for one or two people, a guest house or a rental.

The same house comes with two or three bedrooms, and both versions keep two bathrooms.

It is designed and built by Koto, a British studio known for a minimalism with Scandinavian and Japanese roots. The solid timber modules leave the factory finished and are joined on site in a matter of weeks. On the plot it takes up about 101 m² for 81 usable, with a lot of glass and the house opening onto the landscape. It suits a main home or a second home in a natural setting, for someone who ranks design as highly as price.

It is a closed product: you buy it as it is, with almost no changes, and in return it is delivered ready to live in within a couple of months.

It is the largest bungalow from the Belgian maker Skilpod: a single storey, with no stairs, two bedrooms, a bathroom with a level-access shower and double basin, a room for the washing machine and dryer and an open-plan living room. It is made in the workshop as a catalogue product and the maker sells it at an “all-inclusive” price. It suits someone who wants to live on one level, with plenty of space, and does not need to touch the design.

It travels folded on a standard lorry, with no abnormal-load transport, and is raised on its base in about three hours.

The Latvian maker Brette Haus patented a system of cross-laminated timber panels that fold, and this is the largest house in its main range. It arrives finished: branded bathroom and kitchen, heat recovery ventilation, electrical panel and water and drainage connections, and the maker includes transport and installation. It is designed to last more than 50 years and to be moved more than a hundred times, so it makes sense if you do not know how long you will stay on that land.