WASHBURN - A company here is manufacturing an unlikely product for shipment: houses.

In parts of the state where an influx of workers has created a housing crunch, Dakota Custom Homes has found a niche building houses at its Washburn site and trucking them to customers living where homes and contractors can be hard to find.

"Over half are sold directly to people in the energy field," said John Walen, who sells houses for the company and has a background in home building. About three-fourths of their sales have direct or indirect connection to the energy economy in the state, he said.

The natural result for the oil boom and its demand for workers is a demand for housing and its effect on home prices and rents in the towns and the rural areas of the Bakken Formation. One oil production company has even built something called a "man camp" made of sturdy portable homes to house workers around Stanley. Other workers are living full-time in recreational vehicles in new camps that have sprung up in the area and rental properties are housing double their usual occupancy, Stanley City Coordinator Ward Heidbreder said.

"Things are tight up here," he said. "The value of homes went up and the value of rental properties has escalated."

Considering those options, a more comfortable and permanent solution is building a new home. But that is complicated because, again, workers available for housing construction are going to energy jobs and the area has a shortage of contractors.

By separating home building from the site where it will eventually sit, Dakota Custom Homes avoids the hold-ups and shortages that make construction difficult in the Bakken area, the business' owners said. Sitting on its lot last week were seven homes in all stage of completion, from a stack of trusses to ready-to-be-moved units. The company contracts out the building, which is all done on the lot before the houses are loaded up and moved to buyers' property.

Dakota Custom Homes characterizes its products as stick-built homes and differentiates them from other housing, such as modular houses or mobile homes. Though they follow certain design patterns, the houses, which are usually around 2,800 square feet, are essentially built from scratch following buyers' preferences.

"They come in with a sketch or a plan they like and we'll work with them to design a home that's exactly right for them," Walen said.

The company is helped by partners related to the home industry. The custom homes business is an offshoot of Wagon Wheel Lumber and Hardware in Washburn, which is part of an employee-owned group of businesses that includes Truss Systems Inc., Front Street Millwork & Lumber and Miller Insulation in Bismarck, and Minot Lumber and Hardware.

"It's been pretty good for both of us. They've kept us pretty busy," said Wayne Friesz, manager of Truss Systems, which supplies frame pieces for the homes. Usually dependent on local building projects, the custom home business has expanded the area where the Truss Systems does business and has increased the demand for its floor and wall trusses and wall panels.

"We wouldn't be there if it weren't for Dakota Custom Homes," Friesz said. "There wouldn't be homes built up there."

Wagon Wheel Lumber went into the home building business about a year ago but was not counting on the oil fields as a major source of their business. Sales for the year have been about double expectations, said manager Newly Voigt, and have gone to places across the western and northwestern parts of the state such as like Stanley, Kenmare, Mohall, Dickinson and Golden Valley.

"There's always going to be a need for housing in rural areas," Voigt said. "Next year looks fairly promising."

(Reach reporter Christopher Bjorke at 250-8261 or chris.bjorke@bismarcktribune.com.)