Grand Opening of Our New Production Facility
News
APRIL
2018
Tedd Benson speaking at
Bensonwood's new production facility
Sarah Kossayda
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Sarah Kossayda
Bensonwood and our sister company, Unity Homes, celebrated the grand opening of our new panel production facility in Keene, New Hampshire, on April 20. More than 200 guests came for the celebration from as far away as Germany, Tennessee and Utah. The production facility produces insulated enclosure systems for high performance buildings.
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Bensonwood, in the business of building off-site high-end custom homes and non-residential buildings for the past 45 years, will use the new facility to better serve commercial clients and the multifamily sector, in addition to the single family custom home market. Unity Homes, a six-year-old spinoff of Bensonwood that was founded to bring high performance homes to a broader market, will realize similar benefits from the new facility. As demand for Unity Homes has grown, the need for increased production capability has become increasingly apparent. Unity will utilize the manufacturing facility to serve more clients in a wider range of markets, including residential developments of high performance homes. Company founder and steward Tedd Benson summed up the significance of the new facility:
World-class manufacturing
The manufacturing lines at the newly opened facility use automated equipment from Germany, Austria and France while the timber fabrication equipment, located at their Walpole, New Hampshire facility, is a robotic timber processing machine from Germany. Its precision, six-axis capability and machine efficiency expands the capabilities to work with mass timber and larger timber frame structures.
More than 200 people attended the event
Off-site production
Once the components of the home or building are manufactured at the facility, they are transported and assembled on-site using a construction system they call “Montage,” as opposed to modular or prefab. This method, according to the company, removes time and costs from building design and construction; Bensonwood has been successfully using its method of off-site manufacturing and Montage construction for its custom homes for decades.
Custom cupcakes by local confectioner, Life is Sweet, were served.
Increased capcity creates new job opportunities
In addition to expanding production capacity, both Bensonwood and Unity Homes plan to expand the scope of work that is completed in the facility prior to being sent to the job site. In the near future, wall panels will be sent to job sites with wiring and siding preinstalled, and eventually completed bathrooms will be delivered as “pods”, or pre-built volumes. Now that the new production facility has opened, the company expects to create 15 to 20 new jobs, said Benson. The new jobs are more than manual labor positions, he added.
BENSONWOOD & UNITY HOMES now offer
Public tours of our facility
Sign up to take a tour of our new 110,000 sq ft. panel fabrication facility.
Our expanded vision
This new facility is part of an expanded vision for the company that includes concurrently launching a brand to serve the industry more broadly and initiating a joint development agreement with a multinational company to develop new technology.
