By: John Taylor
Founder - The American Internet Society of Manufactured Home Owners (TAISMHO)

In addition to Congress changing the purpose of the Manufactured Housing Act, it was necessary for Congress to change several other key aspects of the Act to support the new purpose of the Act. We will discuss each of these changes in separate parts, starting with the elimination of performance requirements from manufactured housing standards.

Part I

The current regulation, which is based on the requirements of the original Manufactured Housing Act reads:

The amendment to the Manufactured Housing Act reads:

We will start by discussing the meaning of the term "extent". This is necessary for understanding why the removal of the term "maximum" is significant.

"Extent" - The range or limits of anything, scope; coverage;

"Extent" by it self is ambiguous. Re-writing the above bolded text using their definitions as defined by Webster's Dictionary, the two statements read:

"To the maximum extent possible" - to the highest degree or point that can be

"To the extent possible" - to the degree or point that can be

As can be seen, to where the degree or point is located is unknown, and therefore the term "extent" has no measure to guide its use.

Removing the term "maximum" will permit performance to be eliminated as a requirement for this product. With the requirement for performance-based standards eliminated, this opens the door for the adoption of prescriptive standards. 

What is the difference and why are performance-based standards preferred over prescriptive standards? We will let the professional organizations explain the difference and why one is preferred over the other.

Note: The above bolded text is one of the reasons the industry wanted performance eliminated from the standards. For further explanation, read the reports and letters at www.taismho.com on home anchoring and the current industry efforts to gain acceptance of an industry drafted prescriptive standard for the design of manufactured home support and stabilization system that is 2400% below the design requirement for site built housing.

So why would this industry draft, and then fund through various incumbent members of Congress, the introduction and passage of such an amendment. The answer is liability; cheap products are often less safe and lack durability. To put performance into a context that most everyone will understand, performance is the requirement in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and many others that triggers safety and defect recalls, even after the manufacturers warranty has expired. Performance is directly related to safety, and the durability of a product is directly related to how long a product "performs" in a safe manner. A product designed and built without durability may meet certain types of standards when sold, but it is not likely that the product will continue to meet those standards for any significant period-of-time. Safety and durability are the more expensive aspects of designing and constructing anything.

The vast majority of safety features in any product are stealth. For example, car purchasers know when purchasing a car that the car has an airbag system, but there is no way for the vast majority of car consumers to know if the airbag system will operate as intended when needed. In the same respect, manufactured home purchasers know that the manufactured home is anchored to the ground, but there is no way for the vast majority of manufactured home consumers to know if the anchoring system will operate as intended when needed. They, just as car purchasers have to take it on faith that the safety systems in a product will operate as intended when needed. In either case, should the system fail to operate as intended, the consequences can be deadly. The manufactured housing industry has always sacrificed stealth safety and durability before the visible bells and whistles that make their product more appealing to a consumer.

A manufacturer owes an absolute duty of care in the design, inspection, and fabrication of the product, a duty not only owed to the immediate purchaser, but to all persons who might foresee-ably come into contact with the product. Failure to carry out their duty in any of the three areas above, make the manufacturer liable for accidents that occur because of their failure. If the government prescribes the design and construction of a product that is neither safe and/or durable, who is at fault when people are injured and/or killed because of poor design, and/or construction? This is one of the primary reasons why government prescribed standards are preferred by an industry that is sacrificing safety and durability as the means for keeping its product cheap.

While the manufactured housing industry has put its effort and money into legitimizing its practices, other sectors of the housing industry have been developing proprietary products that enable them to build less expensive, safe, durable, and quality housing. This is narrowing the cost between this industry's product, and these new types of affordable housing. This is forcing the manufactured housing industry to compete for its market share of a market sector that has traditionally belonged to the manufactured housing industry. Hence, the purpose for eliminating the performance requirements of the Manufactured Housing Act is to enable the manufacturers to eliminate however much safety and durability is necessary, while keeping the bells and whistles, to regain and then maintain control of the lower income housing market. We will discuss in a later part how the manufactured housing industry will dictate the content of the federal standards that their product will be designed and constructed to, as well as how the intend to overcome the effects of eliminating performance, and therefore housing that has an in service life that is insufficient to justify 30 year loan notes.