Mobile Home Living Expert Tips and Advice

Get tons of great tips and advice for a healthy and beautiful mobile home. Mobile Home Living mobilehomeliving.org Incredibly Useful Tips About Mobile and Manufactured Homes Over 18 million people are living in a factory-built home in America and while mobile homes are remarkably similar to site-built homes, there are still differences. There's a lot to learn about mobile homes if you've never been around one, or lived in one. Stay tuned, we're sharing our best tips about living and owning a mobile home in this video. INSTALLATION AND SETUP Let's start with some basic tips. First, it's been said that improper or incorrect installation of manufactured homes accounts for 80% of all warranty complaints, so make sure your manufactured home is installed properly. Second, HUD recommends the grade under a manufactured home have a 5-6" slope around the first 10 feet around the home - that equals out to a mere 1/2 " for every foot - for the best setup and drainage and to ensure water doesn't pool under a mobile home. UNDERBELLY AND SKIRTING The underbelly of a mobile home is way more important than you realize - there should be no rips or tears in the black material covering the bottom of your home. You can repair mobile home belly boards with special patches and tape. You should also always make sure plumbers and HVAC (or any contractor) repairs any tears or holes created in the belly wrap after they've finished repairs or installs. What else? Well, vents in your mobile home skirting should be within 3-5 feet of every corner to reduce dead air pockets under your home. These dead air pockets are a perfect environment for mold and mildew. And an extra tip for the underbelly and skirting is this: Skirting vents should be open during the summer and closed during the winter. DOORS, WINDOWS, SIDING Mobile home doors are usually smaller than doors in site-built homes. Upgrading doors is the #1 home improvement based on return on investment figures. Likewise, you can replace windows in a mobile home with site-built home windows but you'll need to retrofit in most cases. Here's something extra worth knowing, too: You can paint the metal siding on older mobile homes with brush, roller, or sprayer. ROOFING Flat metal roofs should be recoated with an aluminum-based roof coating every other year, so take the opportunity to check sealants, caulks, and patches - replace if brittle or cracked. Tip #2 is that mobile homes with no eaves need a healthy J-channel above doors and windows to act as a gutter and keep water from hitting them. Our third tip is this: opt for 8-12" eaves if you're re-roofing since these help keep the rain off those elements. WALLS, FLOORS, AND CEILINGS