Benefits to choosing bathroom pods

Choosing to use bathroom pods can lead to benefits realized in purchasing, design, production, quality control, and shortened completion times.

PURCHASING: With a focus on similar bathrooms, i.e., hospitality, student housing, senior living, or multi-family the bathroom pod manufacturing purchasing agent has the opportunity to purchase in bulk or even custom internal components that fit their specialty. This is especially valuable to proto type or repetitive clients who wish to work through the details of their bathrooms only once and not with every general contractor, sub contractor and supplier in every location. Therefore, time and cost is saved for the client.

DESIGN: Building with a bathroom pod requires specific changes to the framing, dimensions of the bathroom and building and (very importantly) to the inspection process. With multiple iterations of a bathroom pod, these initial expenses will be minimized. With enough space, a sample bathroom pod can be pre-produced for client comments and acceptance before ordering is completed.

QUALITY CONTROL: As construction managers and architects become more comfortable with prefabrication and its areas of application, bathroom pods will become more effective at delivering higher quality and more profitable outcomes than traditional on-site builds. Quality that is derived from best practices in manufacturing, all in a controlled factory environment, not a temporary facility, where repeatable functions can be monitored and scrutinized for the utmost consistency.

SHORTENED COMPLETION TIME: This is the big differentiator where finishing the bathrooms is traditionally on the critical path for completion. An 80-room hotel fits this where a 100,000-square foot warehouse with a single bathroom may not. The bathroom pod manufacturer will be producing and finishing a bathroom while the dirt is still being moved on-site.  With properly routed and bundled utilities, the units can be very quickly connected into the larger building with a lower level of skill required.

OVERHEAD SAVINGS: Building bathrooms onsite requires the general contractor to coordinate 5 specialty trades, each of which is dependent upon the other to do their jobs. You also have the “it was not me” scenario when it comes to damage. Eliminating all this time and effort helps site supervisors become much more effective at managing the construction process. Bathroom pods also reduce the amount of site waste, electricity, material handling equipment, and other resources that must be used to support the site. Using bathroom pods can also cut pre-opening room cleaning.

WORK AROUND LABOR SHORTAGE: Is there enough cost effective trained labor available? Naturally, bathroom pods have their biggest impact in areas with high labor costs and a shortage of skilled tradesmen. That would be remote sites and urban areas.

Skilled labor and construction shortage is a problem that is not going away. For example, the 2015 Worker Shortage Survey Analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 73% of survey respondents said carpenters were in short supply and 60% said electricians.  Not only does this make it extremely difficult to find reliable on-site workers, but it also impacts the cost of employing these skilled laborers.

SUSTAINABILITY: Factory manufacturing is inherently less wasteful than traditional forms of construction and thus more sustainable. Factory waste material is typically less than 1.5% compared with 7%+ on a traditional construction site and recycling of waste is more reliably controlled in a factory environment than it is on-site.