Silvercrest Tour - Woodland California

Vacaville may have the Jelly Belly factory (and Budweiser), San Francisco may have Gharadelli- but Woodland has Silvercrest. And if you aren't busy on a Saturday morning at 10:00- you can go check out the Silvercrest production facility at 109 Pioneer (north of Main St.), and see what's going on. If you're interested in buying a manufactured home, or you just want something to fill your morning, I suggest you check it out.

You can see the different steps of construction, and the cool techniques they use to get these houses done in 9-10 days. Take the tour!

The tour starts as all good tours should start. They've got donuts, coffee, water, and a decent bathroom. Now only if they had chocolate milk- the beginning would be perfect.

We walked out into the production area, where we stopped, and our tour guide 'Mike' told us some of the details about the Sivercrest production process. One of the main things he told us about, was the fact that about 75% of the homes they build are 'custom'. Few people actually order the homes straight from the catalogs/models. They have 6 engineers who draw up the plans for these custom houses. Moving the interior walls seems pretty easy, and you can also make exterior changes, move plumbing, etc. etc. They do not build 35 copies of a house plan, and then have them sitting out on the lot, waiting to be ordered.

This is the first view of the shop. They build about 20 houses per week in their Woodland facility.

Next we went into the cabinet door area. We were told that they've got about 5 grades of cabinet doors, ranging from the 'best cheap door' to solid wood doors. Thier current best seller is cherry-stained alder.

Here's mike telling us about the different cabinet door types. The white ones are the cheapest.

Next came the showers, and furnaces. All of the master bathrooms have showers with seats- some have two seats. Personally, I don't feel comfortable sitting in the shower, you never know what's growing in there. But I guess some people really like this sort of thing.

The furnaces, and all appliances come standard from GE. You can upgrade to your own applicances, and get a credit for what is not used. All of their houses come with gas applicances (dryer, oven, furnace) standard. You can get electric if you want- but then they need to upgrade the electrical panel from 100 amps to 200 amps.. Mo money, mo money, mo money!

Counter tops are either Wilsonart (formica) ceramic tile, or Corian. Corian is the most expensive of course.

Man- that is really some sweet ass
flooring. Actually, most people agreed that the vinyl flooring choices were pretty 'blah'- but they need to order some type of super-wide flooring to fit. I would minimize the amount of this stuff I put in.

Next we moved on to the framing section. This is one of the largest areas of the factory. In the background you can see one section being framed. In the foreground you see a piece of plumbing. Soon after delivery, this will be decorated with 'racing stripes'. The sub-floor is made from MDF which is attached to the metal frame. The wheels and axels that are used to deliver the house to your property will be taken away, and re-used for the next house. So no, you won't be moving these things around.

It's important that they strap the heck out of the framing. They use 2x6 lumber for all of the outside walls. They also insulate the heck out of these things using a low-formaldyhyde insulation. The ceiling is blown-in R22, the walls R19 and the floor is R11. The ceiling insulation goes in damp- so it will crust over, and setting in place. I would say that of course you need to insulate a big aluminum box. But I didn't see any aluminum going into these things at all. The exterior wall is either HandiPanel cement board, or they can even stucco thing thing for you.

Believe it or not, the tour actually is interesting. Most everyone kept their eyes open, except for this little girl. I'm sure she was hoping to tour new houses..not a factory.

Here you can see some of the crew (back to the right). They were chilling out here because it's about 5 minutes before they need to leave.

Okay- this being a factory in Woodland, it is no surprise that they had a lot of Mexican guys working out there. I liked to see that everyone got to add a little something to their work area. In the upper left you see a montage of photographs of a bull fight. Upper right, the guy gets his point across simply- with a Mexican flag. But to the left, you see the most interesting display. You've got a picture of Pancho Villa, a newspaper article about Mexican Independence day. (September 16th!) and a flag with Hidalgo's head (no, not the horse). I thought that this guy went a little further than the rest, and I give him a solid 10 for his informative display.

Who was pancho villa

Pancho Villa, so the saying goes, was "hated by thousands and loved by millions." He was a Robin Hood to many and a cruel, cold-blooded killer to others. But who was this colorful controversial hero of the Mexican Revolution and where did he come from?

Doroteo Arango, for that was Pancho Villa's real name, was born in the state of Durango in 1878, a share-cropper peasant on a hacienda. According to the legend, one day when he was sixteen, he returned home from the fields to find that his sister had been raped by the owner of the hacienda, Don Agustin López Negrete. Doroteo took up his revolver, shot Don Agustin, and escaped into the mountains on a horse.

He became a cattle rustler and later joined a band of rustlers that was led by a man named Francisco "Pancho" Villa. In one of their many skirmishes with the law, the group was surprised by a group of rurales (mounted police) and Francisco was killed. Doroteo then took command of the gang and also assumed the name of the fallen leader. He may have done this to throw off those who hunted him for the murder of the hacienda owner or he may have done this to insure his authority over the group. Anyway, from that time on it was he who was known as Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

Pancho Villa was a natural leader and was very successful as a bandit, leading raids on towns, killing, and looting. He was also involved in more legitimate ventures, including being a contractor on the Copper Canyon railroad.

In 1910, when the Mexican Revolution broke out, Villa was recruited by the revolutionary leader, Abraham Gonzalez. Villa put together an army of armed cowboys and ruffians and became the revolutionary general who led the war in the northern part of Mexico. His charisma and victories made him an idol of the masses.

In 1916, when an American merchant refused to deliver the arms to Villa's army which they had paid him for, Villa entered the United States and raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico. He was pursued by General "Black Jack" Pershing through the mountains of the State of Chihuahua. Pershing's pursuit of Villa ended in failure, causing him to telegraph back to Washington that "Villa is everywhere, but Villa is nowhere."

The war ended in 1920, and many attempts were made on Villa's life by relatives of persons he had killed. On July 20, 1923, while driving his car through the town on Parral, Chihuahua, he was assasinated. The men responsible were never identified.

Okay...back to the tour...

It's hard to make out in this picture- but this is the area where they braise the copper pipes.
You can order PVC as an option, but the typically do everything with copper. They also use Moen faucets.

Nice selection of plumbing fixtures. This is for the drain area (that's why it's not copper)

Moving along, this are starting to be recognizable. The cabinets are in, and primer is sprayed everywhere. Only the primer is sprayed- everything else is painted by hand.

The last step of the process that happens inside the factory, is installing the windows.

Next, the houses move outside for final painting and prep area. There is a state inspector on-site 5 days a week! Every house needs to be inspected to ensure that it meets government standards. Custom homes take much longer than one of the stock plans.

The last part of the tour is seeing the models. This one has some fake garages out in front. Or, it's set up to be a mini-dungeon.

Inside the models is very, very, very nice. The model that is furnished is HUGE, and feels like a really nice house. Not like a cheap house, like a nice house. They did a great job on this.