Site Establishment Before Modules Arrive

Installation day looks fast because it is the visible part of weeks of preparation. The modules are set in a day or two only because everything they land on and connect to was already correct.

Access

The truck has to reach the site and the crane has to reach a position it can lift from.

Which is a survey question, not an optimistic one: turning circles, overhead lines, road widths, weight limits, gradients, gates and the width of the last twenty metres. On a constrained or [regional](/blog/modular-for-regional-and-remote-sites) site the access assessment happens before the design is finalised, because it can change how many modules the dwelling is split into.

Temporary access works are frequently part of this. A crossing, a widened entry, road plates, or removal of something that has to come back afterwards.

The crane pad

A crane lifting a module puts a large, concentrated load into the ground through its outriggers.

That needs an engineered pad: level, compacted, drained, and sized for the machine chosen during [lift planning](/blog/crane-selection-and-lift-planning). Soft ground, a service running underneath, or a pad built on fill that was not compacted is how a lift gets cancelled on the morning.

Foundations, set out accurately

Modules are manufactured to tight tolerance. The foundations have to match.

Which means the pads, piers, slab or screw piles are set out by survey to the fabrication drawings, not approximately, and the levels are checked before delivery rather than on the day. A pad thirty millimetres out of position is a problem discovered while a crane is on hire.

Concrete also needs time. [Foundations](/blog/groundworks-and-foundations-for-modular) poured too close to the delivery date cannot take load.

Services to the connection points

Water, sewer, stormwater, power and communications brought to the positions the modules connect at, capped, located and recorded.

This is where programmes slip most often, because [authority connections](/blog/utility-connections-and-authority-approvals) run to the authority's timetable rather than the project's. Started early they are routine. Started late they hold up a finished building.

Laydown and set-down sequence

Somewhere to put a module if it cannot be placed immediately, and a sequence that does not require lifting one module over another already installed.

The sequence is planned with the lift, and it decides the delivery order of the trucks. Getting that wrong means a module on a truck waiting while another is repositioned.

Fencing, amenities and the ordinary items

Site fencing, signage, a traffic management plan where the lift affects a road, toilets, a site shed, waste, erosion and sediment control.

None of it is interesting and all of it is required. A site without an approved traffic plan on a street lift does not get to lift.

The parallel programme advantage

All of this happens while the modules are being built, which is the reason a modular [programme runs shorter](/blog/why-modular-programmes-run-shorter) than a conventional one.

It is also the reason the site preparation cannot slip. On a conventional build a delay in groundworks delays the trades that follow. On a modular build it delays a factory slot and a crane booking, both of which were reserved.

The check before delivery

A survey of the foundation positions and levels. A confirmed crane pad. Services capped and located. Access walked, not assumed. The lift plan signed off.

Five checks, done the week before, which is what turns installation day into an unremarkable day.

How we deliver.

MADEmodular / MADEbetter.