February 11, 2025

Baufritz – Built on over 115 years of experience

Germany-based Baufritz can date its origins back to the 1890s and today over 115 years of experience and science make their way into each of its homes, helping cement its reputation as one of the most innovative eco-home building companies in Europe. This high-standing within the marketplace is apparent from its successful entry into the UK sector in 2006, as well as the wide-ranging award recognition it has received over the years, including its recent 2019 Infrastructure Award from Build Magazine.

A major part of Baufritz’s success is based on its ability to deliver all aspects of its clients’ building projects. It starts by taking some of the conceptual ideas and developing these into architectural designs. The company supports its clients throughout the planning process using its in-house architectural teams.

Once planning is approved, Baufritz is able to manufacture and erect the building using its own manufacturing and construction teams. The company is therefore able to deliver either a fully turnkey solution managing all aspects of the client’s construction or just the shell made up of walls and roof, with the client being responsible for the internal fit-out.

Baufritz is always pushing the boundaries of innovation and design. Its in-house design team is looking to continuously develop its house designs, materials and manufacturing methods. The company currently has 400 employees, with a dedicated UK team of eight based at Girton near Cambridge. It provides sustainable house support advising on photovoltaics, heat source pumps, low energy buildings supporting the creation of carbon neutral and energy neutral houses.

The way Baufritz designs and builds means that no two of its houses are the same. It has developed its six-step process that allows customers to control their house building journey and the company believes this is a continuous work in progress as it is always looking for new innovative ways of delivering its houses.

At its heart Baufritz is a family company; it has grandparents, parents and grandchildren all working in its factory to deliver quality houses. It strongly believes in supporting the family and has a crèche onsite to help parents return to work after parental leave. It strongly believes that a happy and content employee will be motivated to create the highest quality finished product.

Thanks to the strength of its offering, Baufritz’s customer base comes from a wide variety of backgrounds. This includes young families building compact well-designed dwellings needed to meet the needs of a growing family, while at the other end of the spectrum it has clients wishing to downsize for retirement and construct easy to maintain houses suitable for old age. It also has a number of clients creating grand luxurious mansion buildings that Baufritz has become known for, while it can also provide much smaller functional designs to meet specific size and budgetary requirements.

If there is one common theme motivating all of Baufritz’s clients, it is a desire to construct sustainable, natural, high quality prefabricated houses manufactured to a very high standard. Most of its clients understand the benefits in relationship to build quality and speed of construction one finds from a prefabricated house. The fact that all its houses are constructed from natural materials and do not contain any harmful chemicals has been a significant driver behind its success.

With the UK having woken up to the benefits of using prefabrication to deliver modern houses, and as building standards become stricter in relation to energy efficiency and sustainability, Baufritz is in an increasingly advantageous position within the marketplace to meet the growing demand. Having been manufacturing for over 115 years and seen many economic cycles in this time, the company believes in the long run there is demand for sustainable energy efficient prefabricated buildings in the UK.

As a German manufacturer that exports to Britain, Baufritz has obviously been concerned about the nature of the future relationship between the UK and the EU, but given the growing demand for its offering, the company is confident that the British market will continue to provide plenty of opportunities for further expansion in the years ahead. At the same time, it will continue pushing forward with further investment in technology to reduce manufacturing cost and increase level of prefabrication, reduce travel, CO2 emissions and the amount of on-site work; while also utilising more local resources for professional services and construction work, training local skilled staff and controlling building costs to ensure competitive rates.