Longest-established prefab house manufacturers

It started as a carpentry workshop and has turned that craft into a system that is its own from end to end: the wall, the wood-shaving insulation and the shielding of the electrical installation against electromagnetic fields were developed by the brand itself, and each house is designed to measure with those parts. It delivers the house finished from the slab up, but its price list is for Germany, with German VAT: from Spain it is useful to see what a high-end timber house includes as standard, not as a quote.

It has spent generations on the same idea, catalogue timber-frame houses that go up on the plot in a couple of days, and the craft shows in what it signs: a warranty on the load-bearing timber far longer than the legal one in Spain. It sells each house at three finishing levels, from the shell to turnkey. If you compare with builders here, that is the warranty to measure theirs against.

Its craft is an architecture you recognise from afar, exposed timber framing with floor-to-ceiling glass panels, and a method in which the brand answers for everything: its architects design the house, the permit and site management are included, and its own team assembles and finishes it on the plot. Once the design is closed, it fixes the price and the handover date. It serves Spain from Germany, through a sales partner: it is for someone who wants that house and accepts dealing with the factory at a distance.

What it sells today is still timber, as in its sawmill beginnings: kits of solid Nordic spruce planks with doors and windows, for you or your builder to assemble. The wall is the timber itself, without insulation, so to live in it all year round you need to add it. It is the same company as Casas de Madera Modernas, with another shop and the same history. It suits a country house, a guest house or a seasonal home.

The Lindal family has spent generations on the same system, cedar post and beam with large glass panels, and sells it as a pre-designed materials package that a local dealer erects. The brand says it gives a lifetime warranty on the structure. What you buy is the package: land, foundations, labour and finishes are extra. Outside the United States and Canada it works through independent dealers, so in Spain you depend on there being one to erect it and answer for it.

It makes the house from the tree: it saws its own timber, builds almost the whole home in its plant and fits its own climate technology, heat-recovery ventilation backed by a heat pump that heats through the air. And it has a foothold here: a site adviser for Spain, in Vilobí del Penedès (Barcelona), and part of its website in Spanish. What does not travel is its price list: it is for Germany, with German VAT, and starts from the slab.

Its craft began with concrete joists and tiles and today it is industrial: in Vinaròs it makes columns, beams, hollow-core slab floors, stairs and walls, and assembles them on site. It does not sell finished houses: it provides the structure for homes the client designs with their architect and that a prefab housing builder usually puts up. It suits you if you already have a design and want the concrete frame made in a factory; not if you are looking for someone to hand you the house with the keys.

Its craft is industrialised concrete construction, with factories in Tarragona and in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), and it sells homes under a brand of its own, Hormipresa Living: large houses in reinforced concrete made in the plant and assembled on the plot. Where that craft shows is in how it fixes the price: after a preliminary design with a topographic and geotechnical survey, and with the permit handled by them. It suits a high-end custom house; not if you are looking for a model with a catalogue price.

Its craft is the log: it manufactures in Pudasjärvi (Finland) with Arctic pine, says it has put up tens of thousands of log buildings and presents itself as the largest manufacturer in the world in its field. That volume shows in the kit, which arrives with every piece machined, the openings cut and the seals fitted, so the log frame goes up on the plot in a few days. In Spain it works through a distributor for the Iberian Peninsula; the building work, services and finishes are for a local builder.

Its craft is the mobile home on a chassis, made in the province of Valencia, and it shows in clear, published terms of sale: its main-residence range is sold with VAT and assembly included, and with transport if the plot is near its base. It suits a small house or a second home with little work on the plot; before anything else, check that your town council allows a house like this on your land.