How Do You Skirt A Manufactured Home on A Sloped Lot?
If you have a sloped lot for your mobile home, you may know that mobile home skirting installation on sloped lots can be a challenge. For almost 20 years we have been skirting manufactured homes across the United States. Sometimes, though, it can be a thought-provoking experience.
Being the manufacturer of DURASKIRT™, we are sometimes asked the question, “How high do your mobile home skirting panels reach?” Our answer is always, “as high as you need.” The reason we say that is because we have ways to accomplish almost any height.
Use DURASKIRT™ For Breaking Through the Ground
There has always been a demand for mobile home skirting to look like an extension of the home. This, however, is a problem for wood skirting as wood shouldn’t be in contact with the soil. This is not a problem for DURASKIRT™, since it is made for ground burial. A hybrid solution can also also solve the issue of a sloped lot.
By using both DURASKIRT™ and wood, you can achieve the site-built appearance for manufactured homes that are on sloped lots. Just imagine, no more rotting skirting and tremendous rodent prevention. We recommend at least a 6” distance between wood and the dirt. So, plan your siding step-downs accordingly.
How to Frame Step-Downs on Sloped Lots
Using standard framing materials and siding to match, extend siding to form step-downs that conform to the slope. Remember to add paper under the siding to prevent moisture from entering the crawlspace. After the framing is installed under the homes’ exterior rim-joist brace it back to the I-beams. See Photo.
Things to Keep in Mind
Framing lines up with house above.
Siding matches brand and style.
Showing the siding and framing stepping down. Ready to install DURASKIRT™ concrete panels below.
Lap siding reveals are same as home.
Framing is braced adequately to support back-filling DURASKIRT™.
Wood is no closer that 6” away from dirt.
Use hot-dipped galvanized nails into siding.
Once all the framing is braced, papered and sided it’s time for the mobile home skirting installation by adding DURASKIRT™. We recommend digging DURASKIRT™ into the soil a minimum of 6” and back-filling with a coarse rock. This helps to prevent rodents from digging under the mobile home skirting.
Finally, your home will look like a site-built home. Your friends and neighbors will be surprised to know it is in fact a manufactured home. Furthermore, if you haven’t begun your search for new mobile homes you may want to read our article “Finding The Best Mobile Home Brands.“
Skirting Panels for Mobile Homes — How Exactly Do They Work?
If you’re about to buy a mobile home, you’ve undoubtedly heard of (CMU) skirting panels, but how exactly do they work? And what makes skirting panels for mobile homes or shed skirting so important?
Mobile home skirting kits cover up the crawl space underneath your home
DURASKIRT™ concrete skirting panels for mobile homes are easily installed.
(CMU) Skirting panels are not simply to make your home more fashionable. Skirting panels will provide some very important functional benefits for your mobile home.
Keep Critters Out – Your home is a shelter, but you want it to be your shelter, not a shelter for various animals. By adding skirting panels, critters like raccoons, rats, and snakes won’t be able to set up their home underneath your home. This is true for sheds, too. Shed skirting can keep animals from nesting or relieving themselves under your shed.
Help To Stabilize the Temperature Inside Your Mobile Home – All homes lose a little bit of losing a bit of their temperature throughout the day, including through the floor. Skirting panels enclose the crawl space under your home, thus helping to insulate your home and maintain the temperature. This will help to keep the inside of your home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
Protect Against Back-Fill – Before your home can be placed on its lot, the ground must be excavated. Meaning, that some of the dirt must be scooped out so that your home will be level. However, that dirt isn’t just carted away. Instead, it’s piled up evenly around your home which is called back-filling.
Mobile home skirting needs to be vented very carefully
Let’s say we attach some solid, concrete board, skirting panels to the bottom of your mobile home. What would you think will begin happening? You would wind up with a space that’s warm and muggy. Why? The moisture that naturally rises out of the soil ends up being trapped underneath your home.
Over time, all that stale, moist air will create dangerous mold and cause the underside of your home to rot. Talk about a major mess! That’s why skirting panels must come with special vents that are specifically designed to give the underside of your home the airflow it needs without giving critters a space to wiggle through. A good skirting manufacturer will also space those vents very carefully so that the underside gets good cross-ventilating.
Some venting systems can allow water to get into the crawl space under your home. Just like the moisture from the ground can cause mold or rot, if the venting system for your home allows water in, it can allow for sitting pools of water as well as humidity and cause great damage to your home.
Mobile home skirting needs to use quality materials
Even though you can find skirting panels in a variety of materials and finishes, they’re not created equally. Some last longer than others and some are more easily chewed, scratched, or broken by animals. Some provide good venting and others do not. DURASKIRT™ Concrete Board provides strong, long-lasting protection, and our special vent well technology will keep your crawl space well vented and help to prevent water from collecting under your home.
Contact us today to find out more or order your mobile home siding.
Is DURASKIRT™ A Good Cold Climate Skirting Product?
A History Behind the Making of DURASKIRT™
This is a legitimate question because we began by desiring to make the best cold weather skirting product. We hope this article will answer this question to your satisfaction. DURASKIRT™ went through an engineering and designing process before manufacturing our famous concrete board skirting panels which took into consideration the various climates the skirting would be exposed to.
You’ll be glad to know this question and more were addressed during the design and manufacturing processes. Consequently, durable concrete panel skirting was made possible. Indeed, it is now installed on thousands of homes across our great nation with great results.
Beginning
DURASKIRT, LLC began manufacturing, selling, DURASKIRT™ in several states. These states have some of the nation’s most severe and varying weather conditions. So, you can imagine we needed to pass rigorous testing. As people considered varioushouse skirting ideas, we wanted to provide a concrete skirting panel system for their homes that they could trust.
True Quality – How Durable Is DURASKIRT™?
Installing a DURASKIRT™ panel on a manufactured home.
Not to give away all our proprietary secrets, but DURASKIRT™ blends a quality concrete additive package into the panels. The characteristics of these concrete additives provide our panels with unique properties. For example, our concrete board panels resisting cracking and chipping during freeze/thaw conditions. They also help to prevent expansion or warping during hot and cold temperature changes.
The designers of this product were both educated for decades in concrete construction. Likewise, they worked for years with manufactured homes, modular homes, and site-work contractors. This provided an uncommon resume qualifying them for designing and engineering a high-quality product like DURASKIRT™.
Exceptional Circumstances
An exceptional set of circumstances birthed this new house skirting idea, a concrete panel system that succeeded when hundreds of others had failed in their attempts. Truly, the breakthrough came from a dream and vision, of all places (a story for later).
Two Schools of Thought
At any rate, beginning our perfect skirting quest the manufactured home industry basically had two schools of thought. One was cheap or inexpensive and the other was quality, durability, and longevity. Since both schools of thought have their places, our idea was to marry the two who gave birth to DURASKIRT™.
Certain Design Stipulations
Foremost, the panels must look great and function well for years in adverse climates. Secondly, they had to be cost-effective for meeting the manufactured home industry’s desire for affordable homes. These guiding principles set the stage for designing, testing, and building a manufacturing and molding process that meets the high standards of good looks, durability, and reasonable cost.
Note – No Outside Help
It should be noted that no government or private grants were obtained during the years of research and development processes. This isn’t because we didn’t have a need for outside capitalization, it was more because we like challenges and didn’t want to deal with the red-tape and interference from the sources of these grants. Therefore, we were able to make the product without unnecessary distractions, devoting our time to making them the best house skirting product available.
Understanding Lean
“Free” money doesn’t always make for the best environment. Rather, we wanted an unencumbered environment that was lean and challenging, similar, to the industry we were manufacturing this product to serve.
The manufacturing and installing DURASKIRT™ we gain both detractors and supporters. It has been a challenge to fight against outdated notions for acceptance of progressive products like ours, but we have sought to help the people who need skirting, not impress self-proclaimed industry “gurus”.
Many of our strongest supporters are our customers who have experienced first-hand the value of DURASKIRT™. However, it’s noteworthy that many of our current customers were once skeptics from the industry who have since been converted to strong supporters. Especially when they see that DURASKIRT™ is the best cold weather skirting product.
For everyone who had been asking, “why doesn’t someone make a quality, affordable, and durable skirting product for our industry?” We believe DURASKIRT™ is the long-awaited answer to their question.
Selling Mobile Home Skirting Kits
DURASKIRT™ Mobile Home Kits
Using the newest molding processes we began to selling mobile home skirting kitsnationally. These DIY skirting kits have become more than half of our business and will continue to grow. The kits are sold to contractors and homeowners who desire a quality skirting product made of concrete.
“Does DURASKIRT™ Do What You Say It Can for Us?”
Still, consumers are right in asking “does DURASKIRT™ do what you say it can for us?” Of course, we say “is 21+ years of quality service and real-world testing proof?” Further, “does an engineer stamp help?” We believe the answer is, “Yes!”
If not, perhaps, our customer service will win you over. We are committed to providing you not only a great product but a great experience.
We welcome all our customers to our family. Yes, we consider you a family because families share the truth and care for one another. We are thankful for everyone that purchases DURASKIRT™. Many of our sales come by word of mouth. So, we want to back up your words when we serve your family and friends.
As we explained in our last post, 2024 will be a year of expansion. Meaning, we will continue production and expansion of DURASKIRT™ underpinning/skirting and shed skirting products for residential and commercial use. Nevertheless, we began getting calls to produce a product to cover foam insulation. So, in 2024 we are introducing a new product called SDG.
What Make SDG Different?
SDG conquers the need for a factory-made product for covering foam Insulation panels with a very durable high-strength impact resistant surface. Best of all, SDG utilizes an exclusive blend of active ingredients resulting in the reduced ability of these concrete panels to conduct water flow. Besides, SDG concrete panels use higher than a seven-sack cement mixture in which anything over a six-sack concrete mixture is considered waterproof.
Thus DURASKIRT™ will continue to expand to become Industry Standard. Both in United States and Canada, DURASKIRT™ brand and SDG meet the standard for Free-Trade within US, Canada, and Mexico. For Canadian customers, there is a minimal border crossing fee. Still, the value our product brings makes it worth the extra costs.
Please review our informative website and call if you have questions.
Why DURASKIRT™? A Component of a Manufactured Home Foundation
Reason #1 – Proprietary Manufactured Home Foundations
E.R.B.S. Make Up Another Component of a Manufactured Home Foundation. They are also great when you pit set a manufactured home. Although there are more advantages we first want to discuss the kinds of E.R.B.S. so you can determine which one you need.
E.R.B.S. Earthquake Resistant Bracing System
Let’s talk about the reasons, why you should use DURASKIRT™? Did you know, over the past twenty-five years the manufactured home industry has undergone many changes? This includes new forms of mobile home underpinning (skirting) and new processes for how to install mobile home skirting. Another of those changing aspects is the use of proprietary engineered manufactured home foundations called E.R.B.S.
Earthquake Resistant Bracing Systems (E.R.B.S.) replacing tie-downs, runners and slabs. Additionally, these systems are replacing the need for concrete. Of course, the rising needs for a concrete skirting supporting itself on native soils or gravel pads.
Reason #2 – Better Rodent Deterrence
Many people living in manufactured homes can attest to having rodent problems. Moreover, the causes for this can be attributed to only one thing, namely, poor quality mobile home underpinning (or skirting). As a matter of fact, the list of problems rodents are causing is vast.
The bottom line is the costs of dealing with the rodents and repairing the home can be well into tens of thousands of dollars in damages. That doesn’t include months or years of higher heating or air-conditioning bills due to rodent holes through insulation and ducting.
We have years of experience crawling under theses homes and being firsthand witnesses. In the light of these issues is more reasons we began producing DURASKIRT™. Equally important, we understanding people needing a quality durable reasonably priced barrier system.
Not only can it be back filled without quickly rotting away but made strong to keep rodents at bay. We also observed a problem with venting and solved this issue with the “Hidden-Vent.”
Reason #3 – Hidden-Vent
Why DURASKIRT™? Hidden-Vent Feature.
Uniquely, the “Hidden-Vent” allows continuous airflow so there’s no dead airspace. Because of its location and size, it performs well as an rodent guard as well. There are other surprising features to the “Hidden-Vent” as well:
Deters Large Animals
No Vent Wells Needed
Preventing Lawn Sprinklers from Soaking Crawlspace Through Vents
Continuous Airflow (No Dead Air Between Vents)
Reason #4 – Why DURASKIRT™ – Protects Against Rot
We commonly find that homes we inspect are rotting at the contact points of the skirting. As a matter of fact, after investigating, we find that moisture is being trapped, which is detrimental to the integrity of the mobile home underpinning and the home, itself. This has led to replacing hundreds of skirtings made of wood, vinyl and masonry block.
The solution:
An important feature is designing DURASKIRT™ leaving airspaces between the top of the panels and the base of the home. This unique feature is working preventing trapping moisture and as a result rot. This is very important for the longevity of your manufactured home.
Conclusion
DURASKIRT™ is the most comprehensibly designed mobile home underpinning (skirting). Additionally, it’s engineering makes for a wonderful manufactured home skirting product. Call 360-419-9909 to order yours.
What Is The Best Way To Prepare A Site for DURASKIRT™?
The reason for choosing a product such as DURASKIRT™ is when you want your manufactured home pit set. Thus, we’re frequently we’re asked by contractors what is the best way to prepare a site for DURASKIRT™ mobile home skirting. Ideally, for mobile home skirting installation, the home should be set up level on a gravel pad that extends outside the homes’ perimeter by a couple of inches.
Gravel Pad & Access
The home pad should be excavated allowing 18” to 24” around the perimeter to allow for workers. One more thing to consider is accessibility. Since the panels weigh approximately 68 lbs., it makes it easier to have clean, level access from the crates to the home.
Excavating for Blocking Height
Soils preparation.
There are a few things to consider when preparing a gravel pad. In fact, there are three main considerations before cutting for the pad. One consideration is the soil and its ability to support the home. The soil needs to be dug into native supportive soil and free of vegetation.
Next, once the site is excavated, the manufactured homes’ waste lines need to be measured so that they have plenty of fall towards the city sewers or septic tank. This can be obtained from the factory prior to shipment. The factory will supply an exact location on the plan and a dimension from floor or beam height.
Lastly, now that the sewer height is established with the necessary fall, you can adjust the level by bringing in gravel. The finished height from gravel to the bottom of the home’s joists should be 31”. This provides the optimum height for DURASKIRT™ mobile home skirting panels so that there will be no need to cut panels to height.
A Word on Factory Installed Belly Band
Factory-installed belly band that leaves a 2” distance from the bottom of the rim joist to the bottom of the belly band is optimal. Some of the brands that do this are Marlette and Fleetwood. This saves time and material when installing DURASKIRT™.
Although these are the optimal conditions for DURASKIRT™, they certainly do not stop us from being able to prepare all sites. We’ve installed DURASKIRT™ on slopes and extreme height variations where we extend the framework under the home. This style is called a stepped foundation look and we will be covering this in another article with photos.
For more information about DURASKIRT™ mobile home skirting, call us, today, at 360-419-9909. You can also request information by completing the form at the bottom of this page (in the footer).
Controlling any projects costs are important. For this reason, we feel the best skirting product for controlling manufactured home skirting prices is DURASKIRT™. Especially when you consider all the costs involved topped with future savings. Not to mention, DURASKIRT™ concrete panel skirting have been in production since August of 2000. Go to DURASKIRT™ Cost!
Lean Production
Most noteworthy is the manufacturing processes have changed by introducing lean manufacturing techniques. These advancements ensure the panels are stronger and more durable. Additionally, these revisions help in streamlining manufacturing. With a leaner manufacturing process and control system the benefits are both better production and lower costs. Hence, DURASKIRT™ is more readily available and consistent.
A Skirting to Invest In
Trying to find manufactured home skirting prices? Are you considering all your costs? Look into the cost of DURASKIRT™.
Although they’re primarily sold for manufactured home skirting kits the concrete panels are also bought for other purposes. Today DURASKIRT™ kits are shipping to home sites throughout the United States. Moreover, the costs of these kits are very competitively priced when considering the overall costs over time. Of course, DURASKIRT™ is an investment.
Even more, two unique aspects to this system is the engineering and Hidden-Vent System. Primarily, the engineering helps homeowners get better financing rates. While the Hidden-Vent System, allows unrestricted air-flow under the home. This eliminates dead air, that normally would coagulate under the home.
Moreover, coagulating air can have a high moisture content. Truly, damp air can be detrimental to your mobile home. Moreover, damp crawlspaces push water into the insulation which in turn has adverse effects on R-Values. Finally, decreased R-values can cause heating and cooling costs to go on the rise.
Other Hidden Cost Considerations for Manufacture Home Skirting Prices
Furthermore, skirting can cause short- and long-term hidden costs. For instance, plywood or vinyl skirting can deteriorate rather quickly. Consequently, left unchecked can cause severe and costly damages to your home. More so, rodent infestation.
The results could be replacing insulation, water lines, polluted vapor barriers, and of course skirting replacement. Therefore, we recommend to choosing a skirting wisely.
Choose Your Skirting Wisely
For more information on DURASKIRT™ Pricing and the product please visit DURASKIRT.com.
We have people asking us this question all the time. The simple answer is to calculate the time to install one panel at a time then multiply it by the number of panels needed for your home. Once you know this you can simply do the math. The average home takes approximately 60 panels. So let’s assume 5 minutes each multiply by 60 panels then divide by 60 minutes per hour = 5 hours.
Now do not be frustrated if it takes you more time. We have people that can install a home in less than three hours which is flat out moving. Don’t be shamed because most homeowners average twice this rate and it can take even longer if the site is not prepped properly.
Remember the five Ps?
Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. If you have never heard of the five P’s well, it’s about time you learned and take it to heart. I want to continue by emphasizing the following before we go into preparation because I feel it very important to get this concept down first, that is, install times.
Again, How long does DURASKIRT™ installation take?
Really it depends on your home. Usually, it can take 3 – 8 hours to remove existing skirting from your home. Then you need to inspect and see if you have and rot where you need to attach the new …skirting and if so you must replace these areas with new wood. When this is all finished, DURASKIRT™ installation can take between 3 to 7 minutes per panel to install depending on your skill level and the home site. So one person can install DURASKIRT™ in one 9 hour day or up to 3 seven-hour days. Two people can install DURASKIRT™ in 4 1/2 hours or up to 10 1/2 hours.
1″ to a 1 1/2″ gap from the top of the skirting panel to give good ventilation.
Grade the site first by measuring and placing a 31″ mark on your shovel handle or a stick. A shovel handle works best because it is already in your hand. A properly prepared site is graded so that the skirting panels have a 31″ gap to the ground from the rim-joist. When the panels go in they need at least a 1″ gap but can go as much as 1 -1/2″ gap. This photo helps explain:
Manufactured Home Skirting Kits, Follow These Do’s and Don’ts When Purchasing!
If you own a manufactured home, you’re likely required by local law to put skirting on it. However, before you simply reach for the first mobile home skirting kits you can find, take advantage of these dos and don’ts. They’ll help you make a good choice and give you more bang for your buck!
— DO purchase direct from DURASKIRT™ – Not Home Depot or Lowes
We have always sold our skirting and underpinning kits directly to the public. So when searching for DURASKIRT Lowes call us 360-419-9909!
— DO pay close attention to how it’s made
All manufactured home skirting kits are not created equal. Some are made with vinyl while others are made with aluminum or concrete. There are brands that have special vents to even out airflow. While others have a finish that’s designed to look like stacked stones. Still, more boast of being the best cold weather skirting product.
Bottom line — there’s a variety of options out there, so do some homework! For example, learn about the durability of different materials (concrete skirting, vinyl, and aluminum) and additional expenses which may come up over time if the skirting material doesn’t hold up (rodent infestations, etc.) We think you’ll find concrete skirting is more effective and durable than vinyl or aluminum and will save you money in the end. Also, understand how air circulates inside your crawl space, and thus, why a special vent would be important. The more informed you are, the better-finished product you can purchase!
— DO buy your manufactured home skirting kits from a company that’s happy to help!
Some manufactured home skirting kit manufacturers only care about making money. Once they’ve sold you a kit, they could care less if you struggle to install it. Others intentionally make the instructions difficult to comprehend so that you give up and hire them (or their buddies) to install everything for you.
You can do better than that!
A good manufacturer will be happy to help with your skirting even after your purchase has gone through. Specifically, they’ll have an instruction manual that’s written in plain English, and they’ll post videos and other tips right on their website. Sure, they’ll offer their own installation services, but they’ll also make it relatively easy for you to do the installation work yourself, instead of trying to get you to spend more money!
— DON’T take winter for granted
If you live in a place that gets a lot of snow and ice, you’re going to need a manufactured home skirting kits that can keep up with weather changes, extreme temperatures, and moisture. Because of the way it’s constructed, it isn’t good to let a bunch of snow and ice pile up against ANY type of skirting, but some kits are better prepared to deal with nature’s wrath than others.
Before you buy anything, talk to the manufacturer about how their skirting is going to withstand winter. If you don’t like the answer, look for another kit!
— DON’T forget about your other structures
Yes, it’s called “mobile home skirting“, but these kits can also be used to finish off your deck, above-ground pool, or hot tub. Skirting is alsowhat to put around the bottom of a shed or the storage building you’ve got sitting in the backyard. So, before you put away the calculator, add up the space these structures take up. Odds are some mobile home skirting will make them look AND perform better!
If you have determined it’s time to replace skirting on your mobile home then it’s time to explore your options. So, what do you use for mobile home skirting? There are many materials you can choose for skirting you home. For this article we chose DURASKIRT™ brand mobile home skirting for obvious reasons.
To replace skirting on a mobile home begin by planning materials, sketching drawings and adding dimensions so you can make a material list.
Order new skirting materials, preferably DURASKIRT™, making sure you have a place cleared for their arrival. (Getting prepared for DURASKIRT™).
Assuming this project is replacing old materials, you can start off by taking down existing skirting.
Removal, Inspection & Restoring for Preparing to Replace Skirting on A Mobile Home
Termite damage in mobile home caused from wood skirting attracting termites.
After removing aged skirting, you need to inspect the homes’ rim-joist for rot replacing the rotten or termite eaten members if necessary.
Next begin to inspect the under-crawlspace blocking, tie-downs, belly wrap, piping, and vapor barrier for water or rodent damage. Moreover, this step is very important to replace skirting on a mobile home.
Also, looking underneath the vapor barrier begin inspecting the soils for settling filling and compacting low areas. Obviously installing a new skirting is easier on level earth.
Replace Skirting on A Mobile Home – Installing “ON Gravel or Dirt”
Start with leveling the grade around the home with a shovel making sure to the soils are firm. If uncertain about soils ability to support skirting I recommend using a compactor.
Now that the soils are level where you’re going to be installing new skirting it’s time to proceed.
Begin by placing panels at corners of the home using the larger brackets and venting for the long sides and the short brackets on the ends.
It’s important to keep panels plumb as you go and adding the venting before proceeding to the next skirting panel.
When all panels are set it’s time to for caulking and concealing the joints.
It’s best to caulk from the bottom of the panels upward scraping the excess with a used caulking tube. After scraping use the joint concealing powder over the fresh caulking.
Alternatively, Installing New Skirting “On Top of Concrete”
The only difference installing DURASKIRT™ panels on concrete is that you will need to cut them to height first.
When you replace skirting on a mobile home start measuring the panels making sure to leave a 1” gap between the top of the panel and the rim-joist.
We hope this was helpful and informative. Please call DURASKIRT or email us if you need further guidance 360-419-9909 or email richardimus@duraskirt.com.
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