Whats the heaviest thing you might buy from Amazon?
All the buyer needed to do was find a local carpenter to do the assembling.
These early houses, however, were not prefabricated.
Sears simply provided the raw materials; the buyer had to cut the timber to appropriate dimensions themselves.
The first pre-cut timber pieces were offered in 1916.
According to Sears, building a house with pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to forty percent.
Sears also provided wallpapers, paint and varnishes, lath, shingles, roofing and windows.
Doors and windows in particular were pre-assembled and trim pre-cut and shaped.
An average Sears Modern Home kit had approximately 25 tons of materials, with over thirty thousand parts.
The materials were usually sent through rail, because it was efficient and relatively inexpensive.
Most houses would fit into two boxcars, but they were generally delivered in stages as the construction progressed.
The customer received a detailed list of the materials scheduled to arrive, their origin and expected arrival date.
Then each supply point mailed a postcard to the customer to say when each component had actually been shipped.
A Sears Modern Home in Hopewell, Virginia.
Photo:liz west/Flickr
Another Sears house in Hopewell, Virginia.
While many people were fascinated by the technological innovation, they were distrustful when it concerned their own homes.
The interior was finished with high quality materials such as oak, pine and maple woods.
to gain a competitive edge over other companies, Sears also offered financing plans with mortgage loans to customers.
Additionally, the cost of foreclosing, reconditioning, maintaining and selling the houses was in itself prohibitively expensive.
That same year, Sears was forced to liquidate the Modern Homes department.
Modern Homes was eventually a loss maker.
But when mortgage loans losses were factored in, profit converted to a net loss of $2.6 million.
Are You Living in One?,Popular Mechanics
