MillBuilt modular homes

By Emily Friedel

Nestled in Toolangi’s bush at the old Demby Sawmill site, MillBuilt is breaking the mould for modular homes.

MillBuilt owners, Daniel and Jamie Pobjoy, spent over a decade in the building industry witnessing the countless problems that come with one-off builds. Among these issues was the proliferation of oversized, inefficient dwellings that created more consumption and more work for their inhabitants. “We were building one-off new houses, essentially a lot of them were designed by the client, and we just found houses were getting bigger and bigger. Clients thought they needed a lot more than they actually did. We were finishing houses and thinking there is so much wasted space here. It’s space that you’ve got to clean and space that you’ve got to cool, but it’s also space that you’ve got to fill. So we thought, there’s got to be a better way,” Daniel says. At the other end of the spectrum, modular homes are a quick and easy option but have a reputation for being slapped together and somewhat lacking in the aesthetics department.

“We saw there was a gap in the market in terms of the higherend modular buildings that can be 99% finished. I’m not aware of any modular builders that do it to this level,” Daniel says. So, the Pobjoy brothers decided to take their extensive building experience and solve the problems they saw in the building industry by designing and constructing superior-quality, eco-friendly modular homes. This led to the establishment of MillBuilt around 18 months ago. “We’ve gathered everything from our experience – all that knowledge and information – and put it into small buildings, which works really well,” Jamie says. Daniel says that in one-off builds, design issues often emerge when there is nothing that can be done to remedy them. However, with MillBuilt’s prefabricated homes, they can take advantage of accumulated knowledge to generate homes that are practical and highly livable. “The problem with niche, one-off homes is that every job is different; you’re approaching every job differently and there are different obstacles. But here, once we’ve done one, we know what hurdles there are and we can refine all those things,” Daniel says. “These modular houses that we’re building, I feel like they’re aesthetically pleasing, but because they’re based on squares and rectangles, they’re really functional. And with clever design, you can have a house feel a lot bigger than it actually is,” he adds. Now, getting a MillBuilt home is as easy as popping down to their display home, choosing a design, picking from their range of fittings and fixtures, and then sitting back while Daniel and Jamie take care of all the hard work.

“We work the opposite to a normal modular builder; everything you see is included and if you don’t want it, we work backwards from there,” Jamie says.

Brothers Daniel and Jamie Pobjoy have taken their many years of combined building industry experience and condensed it into highquality, eco-friendly modular homes. The whole process is streamlined so that it is possible to have a completed house on site within a matter of two or three months, depending on how busy it is in the MillBuilt factory. And while they do not provide planning permits, they now provide building permits, so there’s even less for customers to do.

“Building a home should be an enjoyable experience, and we want to give that to people,” Daniel says. Another benefit of the MillBuilt method is the fixed building cost – customers know exactly what they’re getting for their money with the only variables being the cost of transport and whether a crane is needed. This is in stark contrast to many one-off builds where budgets often get blown out by unexpected expenses. And contrary to the idea that modular homes are on the flimsy side, MillBuilt homes are made tough to withstand transportation and have made journeys as far afield as Torquay and Foster. “They have to be way stronger than conventional buildings to be able to move and withstand the vibrations of transport. I think we’ve actually got the strongest building on the market with our steel portal frame, and I think our buildings probably transport the best,” Daniel says. They are also made to a Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) of 29 as standard, which is as high as you can get for anything with external timber.

“You won’t find that anywhere, most homes across the board are built to a BAL 12.5 or BAL 9 as standard,” Jamie says. Daniel and Jamie also take energy saving seriously, so their designs are inherently energy efficient, but they will also assess the building site for positioning and can alter the configuration of their designs to optimise energy efficiency. “We feel like we’ve come up with designs that can be suited to any site, it’s just a case of juggling window positions and we can also juggle bedrooms. So we look at the site and try to orientate living areas to the north so they’ll perform better in terms of energy rating. We aim to achieve a minimum rating of seven stars,” Daniel says. In the spirit of sustainability, MillBuilt also utilises recycled materials wherever possible, including revitalising old house studs that would ordinarily end up in landfill to use for architraves, skirting and door frames. Reclaimed timber is also used for features such as benchtops and sliding barn doors. Other materials are sourced for their environmentally sensitive production, such as Australian plantation wood, or their ability to be recycled when no longer needed. While demand for their buildings is increasing, especially among locals, the Pobjoy brothers plan to take things slowly and focus on providing homes within Victoria.

“We want to grow the business sustainably, that’s really important to us,” Jamie says. With their environmentally mindful and quality conscious spin on modular homes, MillBuilt combine the best of both building worlds: small, transportable homes that are built to last. They have not only broken the mould for modular buildings, but they have also created a new one.

“I think this is going to become the norm – it’s just such a good way to build,” Jamie says.

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