MHS Construction Technology

The status of the environment and economy on Earth has incited a breakthrough in building methods. Our firm, U.S.SYSTEMS began creating an alternative to stress skin homes in response to energy failures globally and the necessity for a building to obtain a complete envelope of insulation. In response, we developed a system that uses both traditional (post &beam) and modern methods to create an un-stressed aluminum frame kit home construction technology.

Unique Structural Systems (U.S SYSTEMS™) was invented by Tim Siahatgar an architectural engineer. His method, Modular Housing System, which provides modular structural components or quick development is a brand new modern construction system and has remained at the cutting edge of aluminum structural technology. We use advanced computer-aided structure design and analysis for assurance in developing safe building structures.
Shelters built with MHS Technology are engineered for strength and efficiency. All modular components and panels are manufactured in accordance with a strict policy of quality control and excellence. They feature extreme design flexibility, low energy use, minimal maintenance requirements, and admirable durability. We invite you to alter your perception of  how space is made.
Structural Applications:


Engineering Information for Light--Frame Homes, Apartments, and Townhouses

MHS Framing and Mold Infestation

In recent years, mold infestation has emerged as one of the most insidious threats to the home - and one the building and insurance industries have had a very great difficulty addressing. Mold infestation is a very serious health hazard and homes which succumb to it become totally uninhabitable even though structurally in perfect condition. Mold infestation is the direct result of the common choice of materials and building practices applied to wood frame housing. It is a product of an obsession with cheap polymer based composite materials and high thermal efficiency. Mold infestation occurs when laminate materials such as wallboard, plywood, chip-board, and oriented strand board (OSB) become host to molds in the interstitial spaces between laminate layers. Molds feed on the glues and cellulose which bind many composite materials together, this becoming a particularly favorable environment for them when combined with trapped humidity as a result of using plastic 'house wrap' products, sprayed foam insulation, and polymer paints.

Once one wall in a home is 'infected' by mold it will freely spread from one piece of plywood, OSB, or wall board to another wherever they come in contact with each other, quickly taking over an entire home! There is NO effective means of abatement for this. Once a wood frame structure is sufficiently infested with mold, the only solution is complete demolition and incineration of the house! No surprise, builders and insurance companies have become very reluctant to address this problem because of the huge costs this represents - not only in terms of home losses, but also in terms of medical expenses for residents over an extended period of time.

Conventional wood frame construction offers no defense against mold infestation other than seeking to carefully manage humidity levels during construction.

Homes that retain the 'breath ability' common to earlier forms of construction are rarely prone to mold growth, but virtually no builders in the US have such skills anymore. Therefore, this problem is anticipated to get progressively worse during the coming years. When using OSB-based SIPs and conventional wallboard products, MHS is still prone to this hazard. However, it has two very important forms of defense that wood frame construction lacks: 1. MHS aluminum frame members function like a fire-stop to the spread of mold between walls, and 2. the ease of replacing infested wall sections without great difficulty or expense. Even in the event of massive contamination, the aluminum structure of the MHS home is itself unable to harbor mold and so is always recoverable.
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Termites and MHS aluminum structure

By virtue of its metal composition, MHS is naturally immune to damage from termites, carpenter ants, and other wood damaging pests. MHS also offers other benefits with regard to pest resistance. The hollow wall cavity structure of conventional wood frame structures is often prone to pest infestation because the hollow spaces hidden behind wall board, plywood, and other cladding present a virtual highway by which animals can move freely through the unseen structure of a home. Many forms of insulation also provide pests with nesting material. The conventional approach to resisting pest infestation has been to apply chemicals such as pesticides and formaldehyde to insulation and lumber products in order to either kill pests when they enter a structure or make the structure uninhabitable to them. However, this also tends to make these products latently toxic with potential health threats to human inhabitants. By using SIP wall panels, MHS resists pest infestation by employing a more monolithic structure.

SIPs are not entirely pest-proof - unless they are of the metal clad type - but the continuous foam fill eliminates the spaces that pests can exploit while the surrounding frame structure presents an impassible barrier between sections of structure.

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Moisture and MHS aluminum frame

The installation of Structurally Insulated Panels as a wall, roof, and floor is often subject to swelling by moisture. The result is often an uneven wall, roof, or floor. MHS Technology insets the SIP in the aluminum extrusion and then connects with other extrusions to create a space frame structure. This releases the previous function of the SIP as a structural element into just a surface occupier.
In a MHS aluminum frame the patented design of the extrusion allows the inset of panels. Environmental concerns and limitations can be adapted to the surface of a structure (SIP, brick, adobe, glass, others in architectural manual) without placing a heavy responsibility on the space frame module of MHS.
In the event, that moisture penetrates the tiniest openings of the border outlining the extrusions and SIP then that wetness is absorbed by the inset OSB. This tightens the space within the extrusion outline and border of the space frame. The proportion achieved by arranging the extrusions in a modular placement thwarts the capability for the connection to dismember internally from the pressure of its inset surface material. A rigid MHS frame after exposure to moisture along its extrusion outline becomes pure and ripe in rigidity as the structure systematically bonds.
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Dwell Connect

Dwell Connect

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MHS Challenges Natural Disasters-Hurricanes

Perhaps the most powerful of all meteorological forces on the Earth, hurricanes are a steadily increasing threat as larger and larger populations move to coastal regions. Hurricanes mainly present three basic sources of damage to the home; wind, waves, and flooding from storm surges. But one of the added problems with hurricanes is that as they destroy homes the debris created by this destruction becomes projectiles that increase the hazard to other homes. Thus poor quality homes are not just a hazard to themselves; they are hazards to whole communities. This fact has compelled many coastal communities to impose very stringent building codes intended to insure a minimum standard of hurricane resistance for all structures.

Stick frame homes are prone to wind damage from hurricanes for the same reasons they are prone to earthquake damage; nails have a hard time holding things together if they shake or vibrate. Roofing is particularly prone to this problem in response to wind and is one of the greatest sources of debris, commonly being the first part of a house to give-way. The common method of reinforcing homes against hurricane winds is similar to that employed in increasing earthquake resistance -since the root cause of weakness is the same.

Key portions of the structure like the roof are reinforced by adding strapping and gusset plates which are mounted-sometimes- with bolted connections.
In addition, roofing panels may use bolted or screwed attachment rather than nails or may have additional steel strapping, adhesives or adhesive membranes may be added to reduce the tendency of roof shingles to fly off, special kinds of shingles made in continuous strips or with proprietary locking systems may be used, or-perhaps best of all- metal panel roofing with bolted connections may replace conventional roofing altogether.
Here MHS offers the same advantages it offers in respect to earthquake resistance. With positive interface between all components, it simply isn't as likely to come apart under the vibrations induced by wind as nailed construction.
Similarly, with its wall panels held in place continuously along their perimeter they are far less likely to come off and become projectiles, though any nailed siding applied to wall panels is just as likely to come off as on a stick frame structure.
A secondary form of wind damage is impact damage resulting from flying debris. With such extremely high wind speeds, debris impacts the structure of homes with extreme force causing great damage. Penetrations of the walls or roof often lead to subsequent failure of the structure, thus expanding the field of debris.

Stick frame construction has long tended to perform poorly in resistance to such debris impact and much research has gone into trying to find means of reinforcing the wall and roof cladding materials. The use of Structural Insulated Panels for walls has fared well in this respect. SIPs are more monolithic in composition than stud framed wall structure and impacts produce less secondary debris, passing through the SIP like bullets but not causing the SIP panel to come apart whole.
Since it also relies on the use of these, MHS offers the same advantages but improves on this by virtue of the fact that its SIPs have a much more secure and continuous perimeter interface to its overall structure. So while the SIPs of a conventional SIP based or hybrid SIP and stick frame home have the potential to be shaken apart along their nailed connections, a SIP used for walls in an MHS structure could sustain massive amounts of damage before finally coming free.
And when it does, the aluminum post and beam structure itself will remain largely unscathed, whereas the stick frame or SIP based home could be prone to structural failure.

Wave damage is primarily a problem for the few homes that are in direct proximity to the shore. There damage is caused primarily by the subsidence of foundations caused by waves washing sand and earth away or direct damage to home sub-structure by wave impact. Immersion also tends to deteriorate the wood in this structure, making it progressively weaker over time. Considering the environment such sub-structure is subjected to, nailed construction has long ago been abandoned even for structures which are otherwise of conventional stick frame construction. Here MHS is on a roughly equal footing to the conventional structure except that its aluminum composition is immune to the effects of water and thus will not deteriorate over time. However, the elevated substructures used for coastal homes are often based on very large scale timber components. MHS may not be able to approximate this without some kind of compound strut structure or by employing a hybrid of other larger scale aluminum I beam structure. Storm surge damage is essentially the same issue as with flooding and MHS relates to stick frame construction in the same way as noted above.

MHS Challenges Natural Disasters- Flood

While occasional extreme flood events can destroy homes outright, the most common danger posed by flooding is the damage to structure and finish materials as a result of immersion in water. Most floods do not completely destroy the structures of homes. Instead, they immerse a portion of the home and do damage through the subsidence caused by the washing away of soil around foundations. But the effect of water on the materials commonly used in wooden stick frame homes is devastating to livability even f they retain most structural function. Stains and odors become permanently mbedded into them, they become warped or delaminated, fungus ontamination permeates all cellulose materials. The result is that, post flood, he typical home must undergo extensive and expensive renovation and ometimes homes that are otherwise structurally sound become so costly to enovate that they are simply abandoned or deMHS offers many advantages in the event of flood damage. The aluminum omposition of the structure is completely immune to the effects of immersion, hough subsidence of foundations is still a serious threat. Wall panels may be as usceptible to immersion damage as conventional stick frame walls but they are ar easier to replace than stick frame walls by virtue of their modular construction.

Also, just as they create a fire stop for the spread of fire in wall panels, the luminum frame components also present a kind of fire stop to the spread of ungus contamination, since the spread of fungus in wall panels materials occurs here there is communication by layers of cellulose material. But there is perhaps ne virtue of MHS which surpasses all others. MHS allows one to readily and apidly move a whole home out of harms way. If one is faced with an impeding lood event that offers some time before a home is immersed, one can literally ake it all apart, pack it up, and ship to high ground! This virtue also eliminates the eluctance many people stuck in flood prone areas have toward relocation. hile we have a highly mobile society, this mobility is contingent on the ungibility of the home, not its direct mobility. A home in a flood prone zone loses ts resale value and, therefore, the mobility of the home owners is lost. With MHS here is no loss in equity in the home if it is forced to move because it is emountable. This is one of the most powerful of all virtues of modular building echnology.molished whole.
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MHS Challenges Natural Disasters- Fire

Fire

In comparison to wooden frame construction, MHS offers few advantage in terms of fire resistance. Its aluminum frame structure is not flammable but it's also not immune to the damage of fire. Aluminum profiles will fail by metal softening at longer times than lumber will. MHS used structural aluminum alloy 6061-T6
And its wall and roof panel materials may be roughly the same in fire resistance as stick frame walls. How ever company interoduced a new Flameproof Sandwich Insulated Panels (FSIP) to used with MHS building System. MHS offers one great advantage is in fire containment. The aluminum post and beam structure effectively isolates the more flammable materials of wall panels like a network of fire-stops or fire walls. Thus the time fires take to spread may take longer. Its standardization on the use of metal exterior cladding is also an advantage in resisting fires from external sources.

Another great advantage of MHS is seen after a fire event, assuming a home has suffered only partial fire damage. Most of the materials used in the conventional stick frame home will retain residue of smoke and toxic chemicals from burned plastics indefinitely. They will also suffer extensive damage from the water and fire retardant chemicals applied in fighting a fire. Thus even small brief fires can require extensive renovation to completely restore the livability of a home. In contrast, being composed of aluminum, MHS's frame material will not retain any residue of fires and is completely undamaged by wet or fire fighting chemicals. It's quick modular construction makes recovery from a fire quick and simple.

MHS Challenges Natural Disasters- Earthquakes

By : Eric Hunting
Part 2

Under the forces of an earthquake a building's structure is deformed mostly by strong horizontal movements which create great shearing forces on its joints. The framing 'wracks', pulling back and forth, square frames pulled into rhombus shapes with alternating joints pulled out and in. For nailed joints the effect is akin to having someone rapidly flexing the joined pieces of wood with great force or wedging a crow-bar between them. This loosens the nails by pulling them back and forth, widening the split between the fibers that was first made when the nail was driven into the wood and weakening the connection. Such structures usually fail in an earthquake at the nail points, the wood finally splitting and cracking apart as nails are twisted or the nails being pulled out. After an earthquake home owners are often frustrated when authorities will not allow them back into their homes to recover their goods even when the buildings, from the outside, don't look too damaged. But the emergency workers know that all the nailed joints in the structure may be greatly weakened, with perhaps many cracks being hidden behind the cladding of the home, ready to fail at the least vibration or live load.
Mobile homes are a little better in the face of this sort of damage in part because they are normally no more than a single story high. This reduces the top mass of the structure greatly and hence the amount of shearing force applied as the structure shakes. They are also engineered to tolerate the conditions of road transport so they tend to be made to resist wracking better. But it's largely because of one of their great weaknesses; their primitive foundations. Most mobile homes have no more foundation than a set of little metal pyramid piers which stand on plastic or cement pads on the ground. When an earthquake hits these are quickly broken away, the structure then being free to slide around on the ground as the earth shakes under it. Unfortunately, in the process the underside and lower edges of the structure-not to mention any trailer wheels- can be quite torn up and then the single greatest flaw of mobile homes -their very poor repair ability comes into play to doom a structure nature itself didn't completely destroy.The standard techniques for reinforcing stick frame structures against earthquake damage involves control of wracking and hence the deformation caused by shearing forces. This is usually done by bracing the corners of frames with various forms of 'gussets' or adding diagonal tension members across frames to tie opposing corners.
These components are typically made of steel and are often bolted in place rather than being nailed in place. Diagonal bracing was common with the balloon framing of the late 19th century but disappeared as lumber shortages compelled builders to rely on shorter length timber.
Old Japan homes commonly employed post & beam construction with nail-less joinery. This had many advantages in that earthquake prone region. Nail-less joinery typically relies on a 'positive' or 'compression' interface between wooden components.
Thus one of the stronger properties of the wood -it's compression strength perpendicular to its grain- hold structures together and is doing the work of resisting shearing forces in response to the shaking of an earthquake. Joinery in the traditional Japanese home was often deliberately left a little 'loose', allowing the structure to be more flexible in response to earthquake shaking. This allows the full resilience of wood to come into play, structures flexing greatly but in the end withstanding the abuse. No surprise that this form of construction was employed through most of Japan's history. Let's now consider the way MHS behaves in an earthquake. Like nail-less post & beam structures made of wood, MHS relies on a positive interface between its components. All its components are bolted or clamped together. Thus it should exhibit the same resilient characteristics of the wooden structure and nail-less joinery with the benefit of the increased tensile strength of metals. Like the old style Japanese house, the MHS house will flex greatly but in the end it will return to its original shape.

However, MHS's aluminum profiles and clamped joint connectors are more rigid than wood and would not bend to as great a degree as wood will without suffering permanent deformation. But at the same time it is going to resist -due to its tensile strength- that high degree of bending better than wood can and so may subject its joints to less shearing force. In essence, MHS should behave more like the steel frames of skyscrapers which, as is well known, is one of the safest forms of structure in an earthquake. Where MHS may actually do more poorly than wood is in conditions of constant vibration or extremely frequent tremors. Aluminum is subject to a greater potential for metal fatigue because its molecular structure tends to retain deformation.
This metal fatigue will eventually lead to cracking of the components which cracks occurring at connection points. But these are conditions more typical of a vehicle suffering the vibration from decades of constant use. That is unlikely for any stationary structure.
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MHS Challenges Natural Disasters- Earthquakes

By : Eric Hunting
Part 1

Perhaps the most destructive of nature's hazards, earthquakes havewreaked havoc on human habitation since the dawn of civilization and, while no form of construction can be considered truly immune to damage from this powerful force, in the most earthquake prone regions many different methods of coping with it have evolved. In general there are three ways structures can be made to withstand the forces of earthquakes; resistance, resilience, and dynamic response. Resistance basically means making a structure so physically strong and massive that it resists the damage the shock forces of an earthquake produce. This approach has tended to be difficult to employ because it often calls for large volumes of material. When the limit of resistance is reached, it may mean total and sudden structural failure, in which case the massive amount of collapsing material itself becomes the chief hazard. Underground homes have been the most successful with the strategy of resistance because their subsurface location allows the structure to communicate the shock waves of an earthquake like the earth around it rather than simply withstanding them by brute strength. This makes them some of the most earthquake resistant structures of all.

Resilience means the ability of a structure to suffer physical deformation in response to shock forces and return to its previous state with little or no damage.
Historically, this has been the most successful approach for building in earthquake prone areas. Japan is infamous for its frequent earthquake activity and its traditional approach to dealing with this hazard for housing was to rely on relatively light post & beam wooden construction which could be shaken violently but return to its previous state with little damage. If structures did fail, light composition meant there was less potential injury from falling material and often the structures would not fail completely, leaving opportunity for refuge and escape. Post & beam construction also offered the advantage of relatively quick repair after an earthquake, the nail-less joinery leaving surviving materials and components intact for reuse. This approach is also the approach common to steel framed skyscrapers and is responsible for the adage that skyscrapers arefar safer than other structures during an earthquake.
Dynamic Response is the high tech strategy for dealing with earthquakes. It is based on designing systems of components which allow a structure to respond dynamically to the forces of an earthquake. This may take the form of springs of cushions in a system of foundation piers. Or it might take the form of special limited motion sliding plates that allow the earth to slip under the structure as shock waves pass through it rather than transmit them to the structure. Another approach is to mount systems of mass dampers or shock absorbers in different locations in the structure so that it dissipates the energy of shock waves passing through it. The cost, sophistication, and perpetual maintenance overhead of these systems tends to limit their use to the largest and most critical of buildings.
Conventional stick frame homes and prefab mobile homes rely on the strategy of resilience for tolerating earthquakes and their predominantly lumber composition works fairly well in this respect. Natural lumber is a very resilient material. Their limitation is the use of nailed joints. Wood is exceptionally strong except in one respect; under tension force in the direction perpendicular to its grain. Wood is essentially a fiber material. It's like a very stiff rope made up of individual strands of fiber. Pull the rope in a direction parallel to the direction of the fibers and it is very strong. But pull a rope sideways, perpendicular to the direction of the fibers, and the individual fibers readily come apart and the rope unravels.
This is why pieces of wood will sometimes split when you drive a nail into them. A nail pushes between the fibers of the wood, breaking their weak adjacent bonds, and if it's a particularly hard or thin piece of wood -or the nail is very thick-has a potential to split the wood, generating a crack that spreads in parallel to the grain. This is why homes tend to be made with softer woods like pine, the softer wood easily crushed under the point-compression of a nail and so offering less resistance to the penetration of nails and cracking less frequently. The friction between the nail and the wood along the surface area of the nail is what holds nailed connections together. The strength of this connection is generally determined by the length of the nail and thickness of wood, which increases the surface area of the nail in contact by the wood. This is generally a fairly strong connection but it’s a connection that relies on the weakest aspect of the wood; the bond between its fibers. Once broken, the bond is never restored and the wood is permanently damaged. This is why one can't re-use a nail hole. And this is also why it takes many nails spaced out over a large area to effect a very secure joint.
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MHS Challenges Natural Disasters

With extreme weather increasingly frequent due to the effects of Global Warming, news of various disasters supplied steadily from around the globe, and home insurance companies increasingly reluctant to meet claims or provide insurance in the first place, there has been growing concern about the ability of homes to withstand nature's fury. The Modular Housing System from USS offers a number of advantages with hazard and disaster resistance compared to conventional building methods. We will look at how MHS compares against conventional stick frame construction and prefabricated mobile housing in the face of different hazards.
One of the common mistakes made by designers when addressing the issue of disasters and hazards is to focus exclusively on withstanding the effects of nature without damage.
But in any arms race between man and nature, nature usually wins. So it's just as important to think about how a structure recovers from damage, how a building is repaired and its materials salvaged in order to ameliorate the inconvenience and financial losses from a disaster. As we will see, this is one area where MHS excels compared to all other structural systems.
continue.....

MHS offers some degree of superiority over stick frame construction

By : Eric Hunting
Part 4
MHS solves the wall fabrication issue using SIPs and other panel materials which slide into the paired grooves of the frame profiles. This affords the ready demountability of the Japanese light partition panels while allowing the use of more resilient materials like sheet metal or ceramic with weatherproof gasketing along the exterior faces. The result is a hollow wall system like that of stud frame construction, able to accommodate insulation, utilities runs, and built-in fixtures but with none of the disadvantages of stud frame construction. This also allows for the use of pre-finished materials or materials that need no finishing, since the walls are mechanically fastened. One can use virtually anything one might want for a wall surface; conventional plaster coated sheet rock, solid wood planking, veneer board, metals, cloth, plastic, Panelized masonry materials (gypsum plank, ferro-cement panel, corrugated clay panel), or just about anything else one could imagine. The MHS frame will even serve adequately as a window frame allowing for the direct integration of window panels.

And if this isn't powerful enough, this method of panel integration offers the option to physically integrate whole pieces of furniture or appliances fashioned into this panel shape. Photovoltaic and thermal solar panels, flat panel TVs and home entertainment systems, computer systems, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, HVAC systems, shelves and cabinets, 'Murphy' beds and folding tables, art objects, and more can all be designed to integrate directly into this frame system just like the many industrial components which integrate with T-slot framing systems. To facilitate this kind of integration, the MHS profiles will also integrate with a smaller scale version of the same kind of profile originally developed by US Systems for store display framing. This system can be used to fashion many kinds of furniture and appliance enclosures and will plug right into the larger MHS frame structures. This capability to integrate so many kinds of materials and equipment creates the potential for a vast third-party marketplace of products to plug-into MHS housing -much like the innumerable peripherals and software which are made for personal computers.

At present one feature of MHS limits the flexibility inherent in the rest of its building system, and it's something which also troubled builders in pre-industrial times. The one thing it cannot, at this time, realize with the same modularity and demountability as the rest of its system is its roofing. This is because we have yet to realize a fully weatherproof roofing system which can be freely changed in area using modular remountable units.
There are two sides to this problem which tend to work against each other. On the one side is roof cladding -the material which makes the roof waterproof. Modular roofing materials exist in the form of shingles and tiles. Though uncommon in shingles, tiles are readily remountable and reusable and so one could use them to fashion a modular roofing system that can be changed on demand to suit changing roof areas. But tiles and shingles only work with a sloped roof. They rely on the force of gravity to insure that water sheds off them in one direction. On the other side we have roof shape. Sloped roofs are difficult to modularize because as you increase the area under a roof you must simultaneously increase the length of the rafters and beams supporting the roof. The flat roof solves this problem. Its rafters remain the same length no matter how you increase the area. You just add more of them. But roofing tiles won't work for a flat roof! Most flat roof construction relies on some form of monolithic material; membranes of plastic or asphalt sometimes called 'composite' roofing or layers of continuous concrete.

The closest we can come to a solution is a set of compromises. One can make modular sloped roof units and repeat them as the area of the structure increases. This way the individual roof structures don't have to be changed. One just adds on more of them for the newly added sections. But there are practical limits to this. Roofs valleys -the points where opposing descending roof slopes meet in the center- tend to be leak-prone and can get complicated if you try to mix roof sections of different sizes. The other option is to use a flat roof and a kind of roof panel which is modular in one direction and monolithic in other. Raised seam metal roofing is the prime example of this. This kind of roofing consists of long panels of sheet metal -or sandwiches of sheet metal and foam insulation- which are joined along their sides by raised seams. Water sheds off the panels only in parallel to their seams, since they create a channel. It's as if you made a roof tile that was very long and overlapped on its sides. Such roofing is readily expandable in the direction perpendicular to its seams. But it can't expand in the direction parallel to its seams unless -just like the old fashioned roof tiles- there's a slope in the roof that allows them to overlap. Of course, this is just as much a problem for stud frame structures as for post and beam structures. We just don't have, as yet, a roofing technology that lets us freely expand a roof in all directions while using modular parts. But a solution may come if people finally clue-in to the virtue of plug-in architecture and start applying some modern engineering to it. For the time being, MHS offers the option to use either of these compromise approaches, or one can just settle for a more conventional sloped or flat roof in shingle, tile, metal panel, or composite.
In conclusion, we can see that with MHS we have a building system vastly superior to the stud frame construction common to contemporary housing. It restores and greatly improves upon the virtues of the traditional post and beam construction system and so simplifies the process of construction that it becomes quite practical for most anyone to assemble their home on demand in a very short time. It has the potential to be a true plug-in architecture that anyone can use -and not just for housing but for an infinite diversity of applications. With a modular structural system offering ready demountability we not only have infinite flexibility but indefinite repairability and the option of transportability. Not only can the home be eternal, we can pack it ALL up and take it with us wherever we go! We don't have to go into great debt to buy more house than we need in anticipation of what we might need in the future. We can change our house to meet our needs on demand. And with the freedom to take our whole home with us when we move just like it was a piece of furniture we don't need the crutch of bank financing to make the value of our home fungible. And we don't have to fear losing the value of our home investment if there are differences in market values one place to another. We can think about things like saving for a home by literally stockpiling its parts or letting our children take a portion of the family home away with them when they are old enough to leave and live on their own. With a healthy industry based on this kind of building technology in place, we can also expect the appearance of a large after-market for used components. This would be a practical solution to the problem of low-income housing and possibly an answer to the problem of hopelessness as well -though, of course, having a place to build a home is just as important as having the stuff to build it out of.

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MHS offers some degree of superiority over stick frame construction

By : Eric Hunting
Part 3

MHS consists of a system of extruded aluminum profile posts and beams similar in nature to those of T-slot framing commonly employed in industrial automation. These are assembled in simple box frames using a concealed bolt-lock clamp which leaves the structure with a clean appearance. This is supplemented by a bolt-in-place diagonal corner brace for multi-story structures which is normally concealed within wall panels. The cladding system uses either Structural Insulated Panels or most any combination of other panel materials which slide into the special grooves of the framing profiles. The panels contribute little to no addition to structural performance so their composition is not critical, all loads being born solely by the post and beams as with traditional post and beam construction.These panels may be pre-finished, composed of materials that need no finishing, or can optionally be finished by conventional house siding, surface mount veneer board, and painted plaster board sheathing. The profile slots also readily accommodate modular window panels or composite panelwalls can be framed to accommodate more conventional windows of any shape. Roofing, supported by a simple roof truss and extruded profile solid web truss rafters, can be either conventional or, more practically, metal panel roofing. Flooring uses the same extruded solid web truss pieces as joistsand can employ any conventional flooring material. Additionally, the joists will also accommodate a clever suspended panel ceiling system. Foundation systems can be conventional curtain or slab foundations or piling foundations typical of many post and beam structures.The greatest feature of MHS is its demountability -precisely the feature that stud frame construction is lacking. With MHS one can freely and quickly disassemble, repair or modify, and reassemble structures without causing any damage to the components and materials using little more than a few hand tools. Combined with the virtues of a modular space frame geometry, this affords the system a flexibility, capability, and economy impossible with stud frame construction. The MHS building is a truly immortal structure -not because its basic materials are more resilient but because all its components can be forever replaced as they wear out and its form can be forever adapted to any use or need.

Our ancestors knew what they were doing when they first adopted post and beam construction. Before industrialization, people had to make most of the things they needed with their own hands and all such work competed for time with the more important priorities of producing food, caring for family, and preparing for seasonal changes. So people were frugal with their time and labor. They built things to last, and in those days that didn't mean futilely trying to defy nature by making things impervious to wear and damage. It meant making sure whatever you made could be repaired, reused, adapted, and recycled perpetually. The post and beam framing system achieved this capability through its demountability and modularity. By being able to be readily taken apart, any individual component could be replaced on demand without effecting the rest of the structure. By using a space frame where the loads were borne by the frame alone, weatherproof enclosure materials could be easily replaced as they wore out and the structure adapted and expanded on demand, since no walls were actually permanent. If you needed more room, you added more to the grid of the frame. If the roles of some rooms changed, you could readily remove or add walls to change the space for its new use. If you needed larger clear-span rooms, you increased the length of beams and posts around those rooms -though this had the caveat of increasing their mass greatly as well when using wood. If situations forced you to move, the whole building could be readily taken apart and rebuilt somewhere else, conserving your labor investment in its fabrication. And in the worst case situation where your house suffered too much damage to be saved or became completely obsolete, all its surviving components could be readily salvaged and directly reused in another structure. Indeed, many of the new wooden post and beam homes built today -for sake of their rustic style- use lumber salvaged from buildings more than a hundred years old!

MHS improves upon these original virtues by taking advantage of modern materials and industrial parts fabrication. Traditional post and beam structures required a high level of skill to craft their key components which tended to be large and difficult for a single person to handle. This is what compelled the old tradition of community barn raising, the components of these wide span structures being far too heavy for any individual farmer to handle alone. By using much lighter and stronger aluminum profiles fabricated by mass production, MHS eliminates the skill overhead associated with fabricating lumber post and beam components and brings the mass of components suitable for a useful range of frame spans down to a level where an individual can easily handle them. Like it's lumber predecessor, MHS still requires an increase in the length and mass of its beams as it increases in span. But because aluminum offers a higher strength-to-weight ratio than lumber it doesn't increase in required mass as fast as lumber does as required spans increase. Thus a fairly modest profile size of 6.75" is sufficient for a very wide range of spans. When the limits of this component scale are reached, the system can readily switch to the use of trusses made out of the same components, switching to a type of structural member with an even higher strength-to-weight ratio but also with a greater volume.

Another limitation of the traditional post and beam system which MHS resolves is the limited demountability in cladding and partition walls. In the past it was generally very difficult to achieve a weatherproof barrier from materials which were not monolithic in nature. Thus while the frame system of post and beam buildings was readily modular and remountable, the materials filling in the space between the frame members for walls often had to employ a compromise. Walls might be based on more 'plastic' materials like clay, cob (a mixture of clay-rich earth like adobe), wattle & daub (mixture of cob-like materials applied to a light grid of thin crossed wood strips coated in plaster) or might use siding attached with nails -even though that did damage the major frame pieces. These materials were not truly remountable but they could be very easily removed and were potentially recyclable. More remountable walls appeared in the traditional construction of Japan. They also relied heavily on their own kind of waddle & daub (though made with bamboo lathe) but complimented this with decorated paper and veneer wood panels, heavy wood planks, and paper shade screens which fit into shallow grooves carved into the post and beam frame. This was generally poorly suited to exterior walls, however, because they were so lightly and loosely attached and was more commonly employed for interiors. The Japanese also developed modular panel flooring in the form of tatami mats -an innovation that never found its equivalent in the west until the invention of raised floor panel systems for computer rooms!

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MHS offers some degree of superiority over stick frame construction

By : Eric Hunting
Part 2

These limitations on structure and its adaptation are reinforced by the reliance on nailed connection and plywood and plaster board use. Using nailed construction, the act of assembly itself permanently damages the material it uses. Upon completion, the structure becomes impossible to modify or repair without first performing some form of surgical demolition causing possible additional damage and producing much waste in the process-since the material is damaged by its construction process and can't be reused. Very little of the material is directly reusable in the event of renovation or demolition. Most of it simply becomes trash when taken apart, ultimately increasing the expense of repair and renovation. While larger pieces of framing can withstand multiple re-nailing using nails in different locations, you can only get away with this a few times. Eventually the integrity of the wood is completely lost and one is compelled to replace it altogether. We like to pretend our homes are built to last forever but in reality they all -if based on stud frame construction- have a built in obsolescence. A point where, because of the nature of this building system, they MUST reach a state of diminishing returns where the cost of repair or renovation becomes higher than total replacement. This inevitable condition tends to be hidden by the tendency of labor and bureaucratic costs to inflate faster than the rate of home deterioration, always keeping the cost of new home construction slightly ahead of old home renovation and perpetuating the illusion that homes appreciate with time. But ultimately this cannot be sustained -especially when homes are relying more and more on materials with less and less reusability, such as SIPs.
Because of these limitations the use of stud frame construction has, in fact, been quite limited. Though originally adopted by farmers to aid in building agricultural structures with solitary labor, today it is ONLY in common use for suburban housing. All other types of buildings -industrial, municipal, commercial, urban mass housing- generally rely on the true traditional technology of post and beam construction, though these days they normally use steel instead of wood. One would think that by now the limitations of stud frame construction would have become so obvious that its use for housing would be in decline. But the public seems largely oblivious, tending to have a poor grasp of history and being easily fooled into thinking that anything which has been around for at least one generation has been a 'tradition' forever. Thus this form of construction has become very ingrained into the culture despite its obvious flaws. People simply have no memory of what came before -and little understanding of what's behind the plaster board and siding in the first place- and so the methods and materials commonly used by the other classes of construction are regarded as 'new' and 'unconventional' even though their roots are thousands of years deep!

Let's now look at MHS. With its reliance on factory fabricated modular aluminum components using quick-connect assembly technology and standardized dimensions, the Modular Housing System of US Systems presents a radically different situation from that of stud frame construction. But its virtues are rooted not in new technology but rather in the practical advantages of traditional post and beam construction. MHS is essentially a traditional post and beam system using a simple rectilinear space frame geometry and a bolted rather than nailed method of assembly. It overcomes the limitations of using large heavy specially crafted lumber -the limitations which compelled the invention of stud framing- through the use of a light weight low cost recyclable material -aluminum- and precision engineered mass produced modular components. It is a system which offers us the best of both worlds; the flexibility, simplicity, and strength of traditional post and beam structures with the labor savings and efficient economics of industrial production. It is the closest we have so far come to the ideal of a plug-in architecture.
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MHS offers some degree of superiority over stick frame construction

By : Eric Hunting
Part 1


The Modular Housing System of US SYSTEMS presents a radical new approach to housing construction offering new freedom and capability for the home owner and a new economic model for the housing market. Here we will compare MHS to conventional housing, illuminating the key advantages of this new construction system.
Contrary to popular belief, the wooden stud or, as it's sometimes called, the 'platform' framing system commonly used in contemporary housing is a rather recent invention which had its origins in a building technique called'balloon' framing which appeared in the US Midwest in the 1830s and was popularized by early Do-It-Yourself carpentry and construction books and magazines. Up until that time the predominate framing system for housing construction was the post and beam system which had been in use for thousands of years and which has its variants in every culture and civilization in the world. Stud framing method was developed primarily as a means to save labor and materials, trading the use of skilled carpentry with nail-less joinery for quick and easy nailed construction and large heavy pieces of lumber for smaller lighter pieces that were easier for one person to handle, easier to transport, and which allowed the lumber companies to get a larger percentage of usable lumber out of a given tree with less waste.


Stud frame construction did not start to become ubiquitous for American housing until the 1920s-1930s with the import of the 'garden city' concept from Europe, the growth in automobile use, and the subsequent growing demand for housing outside of urban areas where, for fire safety, masonry had become the predominate construction material. The labor saving, reduced skill virtues of this technique and its use of cheap small piece lumber appealed to builders -especially the mass housing developers that emerged during the post-WWII housing crisis. They faced problems of a need for rapid large volume construction and a steadily declining quality and rising cost of wood. This building technique offered a means to build quickly with what used to be considered quite inferior grade lumber, this virtue aided by the adoption of composite wood products which made what was formerly lumber production waste into a usable product.


Over time this trend to make nominally durable structure from materials of steadily declining quality has evolved into an increasing dependence on the products of organic chemistry. The diagonal dovetail board cladding of early 'balloon' framed structures was replaced by adhesive bonded plywood which now is itself being replaced by Oriented Strand Board made of even cheaper wood and cellulose fiber scrap bound together with more adhesives. The early wood lath supported hand plastered interior wall covering, with its often intricate molded plaster details, was replaced by a laminate of paper and gypsum called 'plaster board' or 'sheet rock' and is now giving way to various forms of paper composite board. The humble 2x4 is now being replaced by laminate lumber made of glued wood strips and wood trusses made of OSB and thin laminate wood pieces. And most recently the whole stud frame system is starting to be replaced by Structural Insulated Panels -a sandwich of OSB and styrofoam. All-in-all, there really isn't much that one could call 'traditional' about this conventional building method. It became the standard simply because it was fast and cheap, and nothing more. And if the current materials trends hold true, it looks like stud frame construction will ultimately evolve into a system where houses are nothing more than various forms of composite paper held together by and wrapped in plastic.


Stud frame construction is based on the concept of a stressed skin structure where the frame and its cladding combine to function as a whole load-bearing system. It's quite similar in nature to the monocoque structures of aircraft, affording a high strength-to-weight ratio but at a cost of a high number of individually fragile components -as anyone who has built model airplanes knows well. In the original 'balloon' framing system the stressed skin structure would be fashioned to span all stories of a home and be unified by a cladding of dove-tail joined planking in a diagonal pattern. In the more contemporary 'platform' system each floor is framed independently and clad in plywood or Oriented Strand Board creating a system of stacked single-story boxes. Altogether, this is an adequately strong and efficient system with great initial design flexibility but it imposes severe limitations on performance and later adaptation.
Structural Insulated Panels represent the latest innovation in this building technology and may eventually replace stud framing while remaining essentially the same building system. Composed of a sandwich of semi-rigid foam insulation and Oriented Strand Board with an edge frame of conventional stud lumber, they function as stressed skin structures in the same way as the stud frame but eliminate all the assembly of intermediate studs and offer the further bonus of built-in insulation. One simply erects the panels in the same places one would build a stud frame and nail them together at their edges. SIP panels offer higher strength-to-weight ratio than stud frame structures and are very quick and easy to assemble but are far more dependent on chemistry for their performance than anything previous. Some have questioned their use as an exterior wall system because of Oriented Strand Board's greater susceptibility to moisture and the potential for deformation of the panels in the event of moisture infiltration -though, of course, polymer chemistry will probably arrive at some quick solution for that too. It's a great labor savings innovation, but also one that amplifies all the inherent limitations of the stud framing it replaces by an order of magnitude!


The greatest limitation of stud frame construction is its non-demountability-its inability to be taken apart without destroying it in order to repair or adapt its structure. With this system walls are the primary load-bearing elements and their arrangement becomes critical to the structural performance of the house. Once built, it becomes very difficult to rearrange the layout of a stud frame home because of the impact of such changes on structural integrity. Change too much and the whole home comes down. Most home designs try to ameliorate this limitation by putting the load bearing dependence primarily on the exterior walls and a few select key interior walls which are assumed to be less likely to need later changes. Innovations in roof truss systems have expanded this capability, allowing for larger clear roof spans with most of the roof load on the perimeter walls alone. But room spans can still be very limited with this system and when homes are expanded at their perimeter it becomes impossible to remove those key load bearing walls when they suddenly become intermediary walls without radical modification of the roof and floor systems.
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Innovative prefab components

MHS Modular prefab homes can be completely customized. The floor plans we have in our collection can be altered, or you can come to us with your idea, and our team of architects and engineers can create a complete set of custom home construction documents for you.

Aluminum Framing

MHS Aluminum Framing™ is an equivalent to conventional post & beam home design where the structural lumber is replaced by steel posts and beams.

MHS Aluminum Framing™ Framing System features interlocking bolting system, modular grid-type construction built on 4-foot center. Aluminum column Post & Beam member’s bolt-together, while integrated with in file insulated panels for walls, roofs, and floors.

Pre-engineered MHS Aluminum Framing™ post-and-beam-could be supported with MHS tested shear wall and diaphragms. Almost any architectural design can built with this method of construction and its prefabricated components.

Home built with this method can be single-story, two-story, and even tri-level home with shear walls.Unlike conventional wood stick framed home that requires interior walls to support the roof, MHS Aluminum Framing™ house allows to modular span, more open walls with less material and save a lot of space. The result is modern floor layout and interior design flexibility.
Unlike wood, MHS Aluminum Framing™ won’t shrink, rot, warp, buckle, split, or be attacked by insects. Save a lot of trees in the planet.

MHS home with Greater durability, sustainable design, and higher energy efficiency with greater quality.

The MHS Aluminum Post and Beam Framing can be remaining exposed to the interior and exterior of the building or cover with any of enclosure building systems.
MHS Aluminum Framing™ structures exhibit a strength and aesthetic quality not found in the other conventionally framed houses. MHS Aluminum Framing™ are extruded by ASTM standards, pre-cut, and fabricated at the factory, then structural member and accessories sent to the construction site base on project shop drawings where they can be quickly assembled by a contractor’s crew, without using a heavy equipment.

A True Green architecture

The Modular Housing System (MHS) was developed by Tim Siahatgar, founder and CEO of Unique Structural Systems.
This system is composed of MHS aluminum structural members connected by a patented, quick connect bolt and clamp technology. Typically it is designed to be used with SIPs or other panels which fit within the unique channel configurations of the framing members.

Siahatgar notes that the growth of aluminum industry, advanced extrusion machinery, the characteristic and properties of aluminum as a material have led to evolutionary and innovative changes in building techniques, architectural and engineering projects.
MHS works to foster effective collaboration between all the members of the MHS design and construction teams with the goal of using this technology in a cost-effective way to meet each client’s particular needs. The MHS aluminum-based system works ideally with standard SIPs or with metal-skinned and hardwood SIPs as alternatives which require further finishing for wall covering and siding. While the twin grooves in the extruded aluminum framing members were designed to be fitted with almost any kind of panel, the strength of the SIP is preferred. Thus, walls can be assembled using a weather-resistant panel on the exterior surface side of the framing component, such as sheet metal, foamed aluminum panel or even ferro-cement panel. On the interior side the groove can be fitted with a hardwood dovetail board, cork, cloth-covered panel or simple drywall. Due to the fact that panels are set within the flanges of the channels at all four sides, issues or problems with panel connections are eliminated.
In designing a modernist, pavilion home one eliminates this issue altogether by relying on window walls for most of the exterior, with light partitions and sliding panel screens inside. The ability of the MHS system to integrate smaller-scale US Systems framing units means there is a ready method of integrating built-in furnishings, an advantage in approaching the next stage of construction.
Due to the unique properties of aluminum (among them its light weight) and the patented bolt-and-clamp connections, the MHS system offers some degree of superiority over stick framing in resisting almost every hazard or disaster scenario. Among its attributes are green, recyclable components, true modular design versatility, high earthquake resistance and open architecture

Perhaps the most innovative feature of the MHS is its reuse and re-relocatability –precisely the feature that stud frame construction is lacking. With MHS one can freely and quickly disassemble, repair or modify, and then reassemble structures without causing any damage to the components and materials using little more than a few hand tools. Combined with the virtues of modular space frame geometry, this affords the system a flexibility, capability and economy impossible with other methods of construction.