Nunavik’s new prefabs: easy to build, but small

Nunavik’s new prefab houses are cheap, plentiful, and easy to build.

By JANE GEORGE

QUEBEC CITY — Nunavik’s new social housing units are so easy to build that most prospective tenants should be able to move into them by the fall

“We know they’re not very big, but that’s what the Kativik Regional Government and Makivik Corporation asked us to build,” said Claude Desmeules from Quebec’s housing corporation, the Société d’Habitation du Québec (SHQ).

The 24′ by 28′ houses are self-contained units, with a combined living-dining room, master bedroom and smaller bedroom.

The design was chosen for its price, so that the $10 million the federal and provincial governments gave Nunavik for social housing would go as far as possible.

“But it’s surprising how much room there is. There’s no lost space at all,” Desmeules said. “We’ve respected all the norms and tried to maximize every inch of space.”

Tasiujaq and Aupaluk will receive six units each, while 15 are slated for Kuujjuaq and 16 for Sallluit.

Salluit received its new houses on July 22. Ten days later all the houses were on their pads.

Unlike most existing social housing units in Nunavik, the new “cottage-like” houses stand out because they are covered in blue and grey vinyl siding, instead of more costly wood and steel. The interiors arrive fully-finished.

It takes only four hours to set out a unit’s stairs and connect it to utilities. All 16 houses in Salluit were finished by August 10.

“They’re welcome because we live in a housing crisis,” said Salluit’s manager George Kakayuk. “These are a big help.”

Kakayuk said that elders, single-parent families or young couples with infants will likely be selected as tenants for the new houses.

In Kuujjuaq, where the prefabs are scheduled arrive by the end of the month, the waiting list for housing tops 140.

Kuujjuaq’s housing manager Jim Walls said that some small families now in apartments will be able to move into the new houses. Those on the waiting list will then take over the vanact apartments.

“It’ll be a big shuffle,” Walls said. “But it will help in the long run.”

Nunavik needs more than 400 new housing units to meet its immediate demands. Only a handful of privately-owned and built homes currently exist.

According to the SHQ, the new two-bedroom houses cost around $130,000 after installation, half the usual cost of an similar social housing unit in Nunavik.

And their construction includes new features. The roof covering, a membrane that;s directly welded on, is guaranteed for 40 years and unlikely to blow or peel off.

The SHQ also plans to test out a new heating system in one of Kuujjuaq’s units. This house will be heated through its floor by coils that circulate hot gylcol. This fluid will be heated by the water heater.

Such a system may mean that the houses built in Nunavik eventually will be able to get by without a separate furnace or a double floor.

Interested homeowners will also be able to buy these units through the SHQ, although no price has yet been fixed. In the future, prefabricated houses may also be available in larger four-bedroom units.

“The drawback is that no local labour is needed for the construction,” said Watson Fournier, the manager of Nunavik’s new Kativik Housing Bureau. “But the advantage is that people used to camp out until Christmas before their houses were ready.”

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