How One Family Business Became a One-Stop Shop for Mobile Home Setup in Florida – with Mike Chaffee

Quinton Comino (00:01): Hey, welcome to Builder Buzz. I have today with me Mike Chaffee. Mike, do you just want to go into a little bit of your company, your mobile home installer? Just give us an idea. You do a bit more than just installing homes, it sounds like. So if you just give our listeners an idea of what it is that you can provide.

Mike Chaffee (00:19): Yeah, absolutely. My dad started American Mobile Home Services a little over 20 years ago. It's morphed from just siding and basic mobile home maintenance stuff all the way into mobile home setup and installation. I started helping him after Hurricane Ian when things got crazy down here—helping with permitting and backend stuff. We realized we could create a one-stop shop for mobile homes. I'm a licensed realtor of nine years, so we could help people buy and sell land and coordinate with companies like yours to get homes produced, shipped, and set up.

Quinton Comino (01:00): And?

Mike Chaffee (01:12): Then it turned into even more full service. We can do aluminum add-ons like carports, sheds, driveways, steps, stairs—you've seen homes that look like houses now with wraparound decks. A big trend is raising them as high as they can go.

Quinton Comino (01:24): Yeah.

Mike Chaffee (01:41): There are a few right on the water here in Sarasota. One's going up 10 feet on a permanent foundation so they can drive cars underneath. Some just want to meet the county's elevation requirements to stay out of the water. And the way they're built now—they're strong enough to handle storms if maintained, but you can't outrun water.

Quinton Comino (02:12): True. So was that on the West Coast? Where do you work?

Mike Chaffee (02:20): Primarily Pinellas County down to Naples. That's our core market. We can travel outside that, but logistically it's more complex since we're a smaller company. But that core area, we can handle easily.

Quinton Comino (02:26): Okay. Southwest Florida. How many crews do you have?

Mike Chaffee (02:49): Right now it's three trusted crews for home raising. Dad's in contact with two other crews that can operate cranes and the halo lift system around the house for severe flood zones—like the ones going up 10 feet. You have to crane them onto the foundation.

Quinton Comino (03:34): Wow, so you have to crane these homes in some areas on the west coast.

Mike Chaffee (03:57): Yeah, especially at 10 feet. Even with a trans lift or standard lift system, it's just too high. Not enough machinery. Dad's looking into buying something called the Phoenix Lift that raises everything including the AC, but he hasn't gotten it yet.

Quinton Comino (04:08): Is that a variation of the Trans Lift? A different approach?

Mike Chaffee (04:28): It's like a Trans Lift on steroids—a hybrid between a Trans Lift and a crane. Dad's really into it right now.

Quinton Comino (04:44): So inland sets at three or four feet don't need a crane, right? You can do that with a Trans Lift and blocks. At what height do you need a crane?

Mike Chaffee (04:51): I'd say around 7 to 10 feet. Unless you have a really solid system in place, craning is the safest option if the park allows it and there's room to maneuver. It's better to avoid tilting and falling—less anxiety just dropping it straight down.

Quinton Comino (05:38): How does it work getting a home up to seven feet without a crane?

Mike Chaffee (06:00): The homes come in halves. For example, the kitchen side might be over 19,000 pounds and the living room side over 16,000. You lift the heavier half first and place it on the engineered, county-approved blocking. Then you bring in the other half. When it's that high, there's a lot of scaffolding and ladders to get everything connected properly.

Quinton Comino (07:22): So that's a crane set. Your guys are on scaffolding 20 feet in the air sometimes—that's wild.

Mike Chaffee (07:34): Yeah. But you're definitely out of the water then!

Quinton Comino (07:54): So if you're going seven feet tall without a crane, how do you do it?

Mike Chaffee (08:12): Two ways. If you have a good lift system, you can do it in one shot. Otherwise, it's slower—raising it a foot at a time with jacks, adding blocks all the way around, adding pads and ties. It's slow, but it works.

Quinton Comino (08:39): When you say little by little—you mean a couple inches at a time with the jacks?

Mike Chaffee (09:01): Yep. Block by block. Most are 12-inch blocks, so a foot at a time.

Quinton Comino (09:12): And what's a lift system exactly?

Mike Chaffee (09:17): Like an "L" shape around the house, lifting each end. The Phoenix Lift has four powered pillars at the corners lifting simultaneously. Another system handles the AC.

Quinton Comino (09:48): Wow, that's crazy.

Mike Chaffee (09:57): There's also the halo system—a big frame that cranes use to lift the entire house.

Quinton Comino (10:08): Who builds these things?

Mike Chaffee (10:11): The Phoenix Lift is patented in Texas. The guy who invented it owns a lot of mobile home parks. The Halo Lift—I'm not sure who builds that. Otherwise, the old way is just using jacks block by block like leveling a home.

Quinton Comino (10:57): And you have to know what you're doing. This is people's biggest investment.

Mike Chaffee (11:09): Absolutely. Especially with Florida storms and winds. You can't have a house halfway up when a storm comes.

Quinton Comino (11:34): Do you have special crews for those jobs?

Mike Chaffee (11:39): We do. Only experienced people handle the high-raising jobs. You need masons for foundations, crane operators, and then the installers who know how to tie everything together. Anchors and ties at that height need a specialist too.

Quinton Comino (12:10): How do you anchor that? Just long straps to the ground?

Mike Chaffee (12:27): Right. The blocking is all engineered to Florida specs for wind zones. But you still have longitudinal ties and anchors on the sides as required by code.

Quinton Comino (12:39): So you'd have 10 feet of strap from the anchor to the home?

Mike Chaffee (13:11): Yep. Unless the engineer designs the foundation to be sufficient without it.

Quinton Comino (13:42): So you don't want straps everywhere if it's being used as a carport underneath.

Mike Chaffee (14:02): Exactly. We have three crews. Some handle basic 3-4 foot setups. Others handle the high setups with cranes. We do about 2–3 homes a month because some jobs have multiple phases and can drag out with engineering delays.

Quinton Comino (15:21): So when you say 2–3 homes per month, you're doing most of the work except electric and AC?

Mike Chaffee (15:40): Correct. We do water, sewer, anchors, ties, and set up. Electrical and AC are specialist trades. We leave that to the owner to source directly so they get the best deal. In raw land, we'd have no idea where to start quoting that anyway.

Quinton Comino (16:47): Makes sense. Is your dad still involved?

Mike Chaffee (16:56): Yeah. He handles sales and installation. I handle back-end stuff like permitting. He's Mike Sr. I'm Mike Jr.

Quinton Comino (17:28): Is there a Mike the Third?

Mike Chaffee (17:28): There is—but he's only five! No jobs for him yet.

Quinton Comino (17:45): When did your dad start everything?

Mike Chaffee (18:10): He got his mobile home installer license in 2014, but before that he did siding, carports, standard repairs. He saw a big need after major storms wiped out older homes. It was hard to find someone to do the work, so he got licensed. I added the real estate side to make us a true one-stop shop.

Quinton Comino (20:29): That's awesome. Just one more time—what exactly do you guys do?

Mike Chaffee (20:54): We're American Mobile Home Services of Southwest Florida. Core area is Pinellas to Naples, but we can travel. We buy/sell land, buy/sell mobile homes, set them up, and do accessory structures like carports, sheds, lanais, sunrooms. Basically everything except electric and AC. We're small but mighty and would love your business.

Quinton Comino (21:48): Awesome. Thanks for your time today!

Mike Chaffee (22:06): Thanks for having us. Send us another customer!