The Swedes Are Coming - The Swedes Are Coming.......Maybe

I had the pleasure of meeting Stefan Lindbäck a few months ago when we toured the Excel Modular Home factory in Liverpool, PA. Since then I have been watching what his company is doing in Sweden and Europe and I have to say, it’s very impressive. 

Today I saw this article and now I’m wondering not if but when he will bring the Swedish method of housing to this country.

Enjoy the article:

Everything Just Fits Together Naturally

By Aaron J. Brown in Minnesota Brown website

Stefan Lindbäck’s family has operated a lumber business near Piteå, Sweden,  a port municipality of about 40,000 people, since 1924. Lindbäcks Bygg, now in its fourth generation, has become far more than the sawmill Stefan’s great-grandfather Frans started between world wars. Twenty years ago, during a recession in Sweden, Lindbäcks fell from 100 employees to 25.

The lumber and construction trusses they made weren’t selling. They encountered the same problem our wood product and mining industries now face here in Minnesota: lower demand and lower prices.

A worker at the Lindbäcks plant in Piteå, Sweden, where sophisticated modular apartment buildings are built from local lumber and sold in the nation’s largest city of Stockholm and other European cities.PHOTO: Maria Fäldt for Lindbäcks.

At the same time, however, Sweden’s entry into the European Union loosened construction regulations in the Nordic nation, allowing taller wooden structures. Sweden, like some European nations, had for many decades banned wooden construction taller than two stories because of the risk of fires in densely populated cities.

Left to Right: Stefan Lindback, Gary Fleisher (Modcoach), Lars Stehn touring the Excel factory

And while his company is focused on its meteoric growth in Sweden and Europe, Lindbäck hopes that the environmentally and cost-conscious ideas his company is developing spreads to our corner of the world.

“I would love it, though I can’t promise it, if in a year or two Minnesota will see things we do done by companies in your area,” said Lindbäck. “We have decided to do technology transfer to show other companies to build in our manner. So, maybe, Swedish houses in a couple years.”

CLICK HERE to read the entire article. It's worth it.