Imagine steering into Sachem Village after hearing that the first of the multi-unit homes Trumbull-Nelson began building in Dartmouth College's graduate housing neighborhood last August was already up. Now imagine turning off route 10 about 1 ½   miles south of Hanover for another peak at the construction site just a few short weeks later to find a row of them.

It's not difficult to imagine any such passerby wondering: How on the earth did Trumbull- Nelson pull that off?

The answer, of course, is with the help of RCM Modular, a six-year-old Quebec firm that is quickly becoming a North American leader in producing high-quality prefabricated modules; a bevy of committed contractors, subs and vendors; and the dedication of the Trumbull-Nelson workforce.

"This has been and continues to be a real cooperative effort," explained Trumbull-Nelson project manager Michael Rosa. "What's nice about [modular] building is in the first week or two you might just have one building up. Then all of a sudden you have a whole street with 17 buildings up and the place is covered with people installing finishes and siding."

the buildings are 80% complete when they arrive on site; according to rosa, the speed of manufacturing is matched only by the quality of the product being turned out.

The Sachem Village project features 130 units spread over 37 two-story dwellings. Two-unit buildings comprise 3,200 square feet while the four-unit dwellings are 4,500 or 4,600 square feet. The project also includes a community building for the 300 or so graduate students and their families who live at Sachem.

At the current rate, rosa said the undertaking could be completed in the spring of 2007.

The Manufacturer

The modules Trumbull-Nelson is turning into dwellings are manufactured by RCM Modular's 88,000-square-foot facility in Saint-Benoît-Labre, in the Beauce region of Quebec, about 240 miles from the Upper Valley. With a staff of about 200, the factory can easily turn out the eight modules necessary to complete a full Sachem Village dwelling in a week. By RCM Modular's estimate, the buildings are a full 80 percent complete when they arrive on site; according to Rosa, the speed of manufacturing is matched by the quality of product being turned out.

"These are very solid buildings by nature of the fact that they have to weather the trip down from Canada," said Rosa.

Transportation

The largest of the Canadian-built modules is roughly 35 feet long and 16 feet wide. Delivered via RCM Modular's trucks (tandem when weather permits), the modules enjoy a Vermont State Police escort the full length of I-91 before the New Hampshire State Police finish the job. That's all arranged by RCM Modular, which first tapped into the U.S. market with a 24-unit project in Boston in 2001.

The modules enjoy a vermont state Police escort the full length of i-91 before the New Hampshire State Police finish the job.

Trumbull-Nelson got its introduction to RCM Modular and modern modular building in 2002 when the companies joined forces on riverglen, a senior housing project in Littleton, New Hampshire.

"It was very helpful having worked with them earlier," said Rosa. "It gave us a better understanding of how to coordinate our schedule."

The first of three phases of the Sachem Village project was simplified by the fact that Trumbull-Nelson had an ample staging area in which to store the shrinkwrapped modules trucked down from Canada. At times 24 modules--enough to construct three buildings--were queued up on standards at the back of Sachem Village ready to be moved into position.

Work Begins

final preparations are made before the crane carefully lowers the module onto the foundation.

Site work for each phase of the project begins with excavation and pouring of foundations. Then comes the installation of under-slab utilities, plumbing, and electrical work. using trusses manufactured on site, subcontractors complete the framing and sheathing of each dwelling's roof directly on the finished foundation, sometimes even shingling the roof units while they are on the foundation.

When the roof system is completed, a crane lifts it up and sets it to the side with help from a structural aluminum tubing system devised by Trumbull-Nelson engineers. At that point trucks bring the waiting modules to the crane, which places them one at a time on the foundation. After lagging, connecting, and shimming the modules, the roof is hoisted into place.

"The first building took us almost a whole day [to assemble] but we got pretty good at it after that," said rosa.

The Project Continues

By mid-February, Trumbull-Nelson had erected 17 buildings with just finish work to be completed before the buildings could be turned over to the College. While that was taking place, foundations were being poured for the next 6 dwellings, all of which have since been installed. The final phase of 11 buildings is slated to begin this summer.