Prefabricated Homes - Green and Growing

 Prefabricated homes are on the rise and home buyers are taking notice. A prefabricated home is built in a factory, disassembled and shipped to the property where it is erected. More "prefabs" are being purchased as people see that this type of home is a far cry from some of the shoddily constructed buildings of the past. Advantages of the prefabs are their quick construction and installation, the option for "green" materials and construction and the customizability of many models on the market today. Now that they are coming into vogue, prefabs are definitely an option for the property buyer, as more and more lenders are starting to include the purchase and placement of a prefab homes in their mortgage options.

The prefab has gotten a bad rap from shoddy building practices in the past, due to mass-produced, low-quality buildings of the past. Also, prefabs have been erroneously associated with mobile homes, which have their own stigma. It has taken interest in economical, customizable and "green" buildings to overcome the perception that homes manufactured in a factory are inherently ugly and poorly constructed.

A prefabricated home is, as the name indicates, built before it is placed on the property where it is to stand. Some of the advantages that people cite are that the factory process results in less waste, less chance of environmental damage, less overhead from stolen tools and equipment (that might be left during the building process of a traditional home), and less chance that structural faults will be overlooked. Once built, most prefabs don't look different from "stick-built" or traditionally constructed houses. High quality prefabs also age and appreciate in value similarly to stick-built houses, making them a viable choice for the property owner who wants to have a home constructed according to their specifications.

Recently, a number of award-winning environmentally sound designs and structures have awakened the public's interest in manufactured homes https://www.shrijigreen.com/. There are now a number of reputable companies producing these buildings for a market increasingly aware of their "footprint" in the world. Many prefab homes are being sold as "green" due to their efficient method of construction, their adherence to "green" codes and their space saving design. Some prefabs use a large amount of recycled material for the structure and interior features, like recycled glass tiles for bathrooms and countertops made from recycled plastic resin. Solar power and other alternative forms of "green" energy have also been utilized in some prefabs for exceptional savings on heat, light and power.

Most manufacturers can customize standard designs or build custom homes to meet clients' needs. This can mean extra costs, but it results in a home designed to your needs. It also means that you can solve some problems, for instance, building a home for a property that is on a slope. You can add or take away rooms and features, leaving you with the space you need, designed for what you need it for.

Prefabs need property to stand on that is zoned for the type of building you are planning to put on it. Also, most companies do not provide foundation laying; you will have to organize that yourself. However, once the foundation is laid to the specifications of the building and the prefab is completed, the prefab can be set up in a matter of days instead of months. This helps prevent weather damage that can be sealed up inside the building and end up causing further damage that is only found years later.

These structures are not for everybody, of course. There are some situations where a home built on the property is best. Also, today's prefabricated homes are not all to everyone's taste in their design and function. In many cases, the prefabricated home can cost just as much or more as a home built onsite. Also, you need to take into consideration that plumbing and electricity setup may require an extra outlay of cash.

Prefabs are worth checking out if you are considering a likely property that needs a home on it. Consult with your real estate professional for more information about your area's zoning requirements and the permits you may need for the erection of such a structure.

In this new era of fiscal responsibility and uncertain economic times, all businesses are looking for ways they can save money and be more productive. Information technology (IT) enables companies to be more efficient and effective; it can help them save money. Leveraging the right technologies by adopting recent advances in IT allows companies to enhance value and gain a competitive advantage.

Here are six key recommendations on how IT solutions can help save your business money:

1. Internet-Based Software Solutions - It is well established that the right investment in enterprise (meaning organization-wide) software can help your business boost employee productivity and therefore help the bottom line. As a consequence, there exist countless off-the-shelf enterprise software applications that help to automate common business practices ranging from accounting to membership management to sales force automation. Unfortunately, finding the ideal business application to match your particular business is often not as easy as one might think.

The traditional answer for finding the perfect software fit has often included three intimidating and expensive words: "custom software development." That is because hiring a software development firm to build your business' "killer app" can be time consuming, costly and risky.

Enter Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). These Internet based software solutions can provide your business with the best of both worlds - the ability to limit development time and deployment costs while still offering the flexibility to craft a custom solution.

SaaS solutions are based on the idea that sharing resources provided by experts is more cost-effective and yields better results. You basically "rent" the expensive software infrastructure including web, database and the hardware needed to run it from a provider and pay them an affordable monthly fee. Generally with SaaS, the application is highly customizable to fit a business' needs. Best of all, to run a SaaS solution, all that is needed is a PC with a reliable Internet connection. Users can connect to your SaaS business application from virtually anywhere.

Most SaaS providers such as Inuit's popular QuickBase application or SalesForce.com's CRM system come ready to run with previously created templates and designs that are straightforward and easy to manipulate.

When licensing SaaS software solutions consider purchasing single-seat licenses for current users rather than an enterprise-wide license. Then scale up with more licenses only as needed. Regardless of your task or budget, there is probably a SaaS software solution that can help your workforce become more productive.

2. Managed Services - Managed services offer affordable, increased levels of support and network availability for improved effective and efficient technical IT operations. Similar to SaaS software solutions, managed services provide a "toolkit" of back-end support systems which provide customers access to leading support technologies without having to pay for the hardware infrastructure.

Instead of hosting and maintaining many commonly-used technologies in-house, companies can have these managed remotely, saving valuable time and financial resources. More importantly, when combined with traditional IT support (such as on-site maintenance and remote help desk support), managed services bring a truly robust "IT department" solution to a growing business. And like SaaS solutions, managed services are generally offered for an affordable monthly price, saving your business money with no up-front investment.

Featured services provided by managed service providers typically include:

1. Remote network monitoring

2. Desktop and security monitoring

3. Patch management

4. Remote data backup

5. IP Telephony

6. Messaging and Call Center

7. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

8. Technical Assistance

3. Virtualization - Virtualization technologies minimize hardware costs by moving from physical to virtual (i.e. software-based) servers. This radical shift from traditional "big iron" hardware solutions to virtualized "cloud" based systems allow users to operate one piece of hardware to support multiple systems. A user can run several virtual machines on a single real computer system and the virtualization software will provide memory, processor and other hardware resources to each virtual machine.

There are numerous benefits to virtualization. Virtualization reduces capital and operational expenses and provides immediate, tangible and quantifiable cost savings. It also minimizes potential lost revenue associated with possible downtime, outages and failures.

In addition, virtualization also contributes to green initiatives, as less hardware is used, resulting in less energy wasted. Before you purchase a new server (or servers), ask how virtualization can save your firm money; many virtualization projects quickly pay for themselves.

4. Teleconferencing - Teleconferencing and web-based meetings create live, face-to-face experiences over the network, enabling interaction and collaboration with prospects, clients and co-workers online. With high-speed Internet capabilities and improved teleconferencing technologies, businesses can choose from a wide-range of teleconferencing solutions to reduce or replace business travel expenses.

One such example is GoToMeeting, an easy and cost-effective Web conferencing tool that allows businesses to organize meetings and meet online rather than in a conference room.

These flexible, easy-to-use resources allow businesses to conduct last minute or scheduled presentations in real-time. They will help to improve productivity, generate additional revenue, replace business travel costs and support green initiatives by reducing a firm's carbon footprint. They also help employees keep a healthy work/life balance by allowing them to spend more time with their families and less time on the road.

5. Phone Systems - Consider a Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP)-based phone system. IP based phone systems allow you to extend consistent communication services to employees in all workspaces. Often, IP phones can be run directly over existing Internet connections. Whether employees are working on a main campus, branch offices, or remotely, IP phone systems provide an open, strategic platform for extending customer-care beyond simple phone transactions to content-rich, customer-centric experiences. Additionally, they can be cheaper to operate than conventional telecom systems.

6. Donations - Support PC recycling programs such as Rockville, Maryland's Project Reboot, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization by donating old/unneeded computer equipment. Your old computers will be given a new life (as they will be wiped clean, repaired and upgraded) and then provided to families, senior centers, religious organizations and other local charities that really need them. Donations may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Make the most of your IT investment by using technology to create competitive advantages. Your firm may increase sales and employee productivity, maintain data integrity, gain another point of differentiation from the competition and more effectively serve its customers.