Deliver right to your own door

Press, 7 July 1977, Page 24

Deliver right to your own door

Many people ask about the above line, which appears in the advertising of one of New Zealand’s major transportable home builders. True, Keith Hay Homes cannot deliver your home to your door, but it conveys the message that Keith Hay Homes can be delivered almost anywhere and with pinpoint accuracy once they get to theii destination.

Transportable housing is relatively new to Marlborough, but in the rest of New Zealand dozens of deliveries of large buildings are being made daily. These travelling houses can be seen each day where population numbers enable the delivery of such large units in the daylight, while in the

larger centres deliveries are made in the early hours of the morning to avoid traffic congestion. It was in the post-war days when people’s housing needs were great and finance limited, that Keith Hay pioneered the transportable home concept for New Zealand. Construction Yard was opened in Auckland and houses were transported to as far away as Taupo — quite a feat considering the road conditions in those days. These transportable homes catered best for the people in rural areas, enabling, for the first time, rural folk to buy at realistic prices. Today, Keith Hay Homes operate from 15 branches, covering both

the North, South and many . coastal islands, offering a personal localised service to New Zealand. In addition to this expansion road conditions have improved greatly enabling wider houses to be transported and hence much greater design flexibility. It is, however, amazing how a little standardisation can save costs. For example, transportable homes can be tied down to an average maximum width for delivery. House lifting and transportation methods have become more sophisticated with the company’s increasing technology, although many of Keith Hay’s pioneering principles are still employed in the house lifting field.

The basic principle is that the home is built in the conventional manner in a construction yard on a level and plumb foundation.

Building a home low to the ground on a level site has its obvious advantages of minimum scaffolding. The homes are generally completed to the point of painting and the stopping of the gib-board. Wallpapering is left until the home is settled on its permanent site. The home is lifted by any one of several methods — the pioneering method was the use of small “bottle” hydraulic jacks still employed by some today; then came the trewhella jack, a mechanical jack which relied on leverage and gearing.