Conquest Manufacturing is striving to change Canadians’ minds about modular homes, but it isn’t easy.
Even with the success of projects like the Karoleena four-unit, three-story condominium Conquest manufactured for Calgary, they still have to fight popular misconceptions.
“It’s an unfair classification, but people still associate modular homes with those ugly, rectangular trailers from the ’70s and ’80s developments,” says manager Donovan Fowke.
“We’re working to change the face of prefab, modular buildings, but we still come across this stigma on a regular basis. The quality of our finished products is far beyond whatever has been done in the past.”
In one Manitoba town, they even had to challenge a bylaw to be able to build.
“We had to fight really hard with the city council. This stigma against modular homes has been around for so long, it’s not going to vanish overnight,” Fowke says. “We had to prove that we build to national building codes. These are not mobile homes, they’re genuine homes.”
