The History of the Prefabricated Garage

The history of the prefabricated garage (Fertigteilgarage) is linked to the history of the entire prefabrication industry, which has been with us since ancient times. While it may have been very different to what it is today, humans have always used some sort of prefabrication process for the many advantages that it provides to the construction process. Prefabrication is heavily used in the modern garage industry, due to the advantages it provides in terms of cost, time, and management. It is also heavily used in the wider building and civil engineering industries, especially with concrete and steel structures. However, long before humans were using steel and concrete, they were using the processes that lie behind prefabrication.

Prefabrication has been in use since ancient times, with evidence of prefabricated materials found in the construction of the world's oldest known engineered roadway. The Sweet Track roadway was constructed in England around 3800 BC, although it is likely that humans were using prefabricated processes even before this time. In the construction of this roadway, prefabricated timber sections were brought to the site rather than assembled on site, for much the same reasons that they are today. Prefabrication provides a number of benefits to the garage and wider manufacturing industries, such as lower costs, better quality control, less waste, and better economies of scale. There is also evidence of the Sinhalese kings of ancient Sri Lanka using prefabricated technology to erect giant building structures.

Prefabrication was widely used in the construction of many prefabricated housing projects in the 20th century, which gave birth to the modern prefab garage industry. This way of working was popular in the United Kingdom after the Second World War, due to the benefits it provided builders who were trying to replace houses that were bombed. Many of the practices used by the modern prefab garage industry originated during this time, including assembling sections in factories and transporting them to their final location. Advances in steel manufacture and assembly have also influenced the prefab garage sector, helping to make it the huge viable industry that it is today.