When you’re in charge of a restroom building project, one of the more critical questions you need to ask is if a prefabricated restroom building is the best solution for your project or should you have a site-built toilet block.

Making the right choice before orders are placed and shovels hit the ground can help to save a lot of time, heartache and budget, but what’s the difference between a site-built toilet block and a prefabricated restroom building?

How are prefab toilet buildings different to site-built bathrooms?

As the name implies, a site-built restroom building is built on-site by contractors on location using a range of available building materials and labourers. 

A prefabricated restroom building has many components already prebuilt in a factory and can be fully or partly assembled before being shipped to the project’s location. Often pre-fabricated buildings are flat packed to the construction site and assembled quickly and easily on location as opposed to being ‘built’ on location like a site-built building. 

Do pre-fabricated buildings cost less than site-built buildings?

The cost of buildings will often fluctuate depending on various factors. Building demands, the availability of contractors, building material costs and shipping prices will all affect the costs of buildings. If building costs are considerably high in the area where you wish to have a restroom built, there’s a good chance that site-built buildings will also cost more, so a factory-made or prefabricated building is a good option for saving on costs. 

Below are a few reasons why prefab buildings often cost less than site-built:-

• Modular and prefabricated restroom facilities often have less material waste involved with the development of the building
• Prefabricated restroom buildings often require less manpower to install
• Modular restrooms in remote locations require less travel for materials and manpower as items are flat-packed, and less labour is required for construction
• Prefabricated buildings are usually already built and ready to go so there won’t be lengthy delays in finding materials or contractors
• If a custom design is required, often this can easily be incorporated into already existing plans

No matter where your building is being built or the market forces at play, prefabricated buildings will almost always cost less to procure, cost less to ship materials, won’t require as much manpower to assemble and won’t be impacted as much by the local market forces. 

What’s quicker to build, prefab restrooms or site built?

Without a doubt, prefabricated restroom buildings will almost always take less time to complete. This is because many components are already manufactured and ready to dispatch, and most materials come from one factory. This alleviates issues like projects being put on hold because one crucial component of the project is delayed or has a longer delivery time than expected. 

What other factors should be considered when thinking about modular toilet buildings vs site-built toilet blocks?

When constructing restrooms, bathrooms and toilets, several other considerations are important to consider. We list some of these below. 

Is site disturbance an issue?

Often construction sites are noisy, messy places that can greatly impact the usability of the surrounding area where the building is being erected. Often considerations need to be made for businesses or residents in close proximity to native animals or plants that might be in the area. Prefabricated toilet buildings will reduce site disturbance to a minimum. 

Are environmental issues a concern?

If your carbon footprint and environmental impact are of concern, prefabricated, modular toilet buildings will almost always be better than site-built buildings. More often than not, they produce less waste, less site disturbance, less community disturbance and have a lower impact on the environment because they require less transportation than a site-built restroom building. 

Is consistency a consideration?

Suppose you have a range of restroom building projects that need construction. In that case, it’s likely that even if you use exactly the same materials for each building, there will be different labourers and construction crews working on different sites. This means there will be a variation in build quality, time, and issues potentially arising. 

With prefabricated restroom buildings, all the unpredictability of the build process goes out the window, and you work with consistent materials and build times across multiple projects. 

Conclusion

Both prefabricated and site-built buildings have advantages and disadvantages, and it’s worth noting that one isn’t necessarily better than the other. Depending on which type of building you decide on, it’s always a good idea to talk with multiple vendors to find out which option suits you best. 

If you would like to speak with one of our experts about prefabricated modular bathroom buildings, call us today on (07) 3889 6144.