Prefab Walls

[roadman65]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52218379825/in/dateposted-public/
What is up with the walls on Office Buildings and Warehouses being already fabricated when brought to a building site?

I noticed these are quite common nowadays.  They bring em out and then brace them (as they need to be held up temporarily until the roof goes up) and then install the ceiling.   Most of all the tenants only use one story even though they are two stories high.  Yes, if its a warehouse, I can see it being that high for obvious reasons, but many are used as offices in which do not need the high ceiling and could use a second floor to perhaps collect more rent.

Is it for convenience?  Being block by block walls take longer, I would assume that, but how do they transport the bulky walls to a site.

[Brandon]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54480415@N08/52218379825/in/dateposted-public/
What is up with the walls on Office Buildings and Warehouses being already fabricated when brought to a building site?

I noticed these are quite common nowadays.  They bring em out and then brace them (as they need to be held up temporarily until the roof goes up) and then install the ceiling.   Most of all the tenants only use one story even though they are two stories high.  Yes, if its a warehouse, I can see it being that high for obvious reasons, but many are used as offices in which do not need the high ceiling and could use a second floor to perhaps collect more rent.

Is it for convenience?  Being block by block walls take longer, I would assume that, but how do they transport the bulky walls to a site.

They're transported on a flatbed trailer.  Each section is about 8-10 feet wide, just narrow enough to fit within one lane of traffic on a freeway.  The same is done for soundwalls as well.

[jeffandnicole]

Modified flatbed trucks. The panels are often on slanted brackets, allowing for approximately 10 foot tall walls to be tilted to fit in both regular lanes and under standard bridge height restrictions.

[GaryV]

Also, as with pre-fab walls and rafters used in housing, they can achieve better quality control.

[Scott5114]

This is called tilt-up construction, and it's done because it's cheap and fast. However, the resulting buildings easily fall apart in a tornado or earthquake. A bunch of people died in the Joplin tornado when a tilt-up building got hit and the walls collapsed onto people. The Tilt-Up Concrete Association claims that tilt-up construction had nothing to do with that, of course.