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New Building in 2021: material prices!

thunderskunk

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 13, 2018
Location
Middle-of-nowhere
BLUF: What’s the sensible way to build a shop in 2021?

I’ve got a spreadsheet from 2019 listing 2x4’s at $2.60 a piece. They’re now $7.49! My estimate went from $13k to $34k for the same size building.

Looking at down-sizing; focusing on a smaller line of products and getting out of the place I’m renting. 1x VMC, 1x Swiss turning center with bar feeder, small packaging bench, an Equator, and someday it’d be nice to have a global CMM of the smaller variety. I’d only need a 20x20, maybe 20x36 building with upstairs storage. Should I go prefab? Steel structure? Stick frame? Hang tight until 2022?
 
Steel prices must also be well up as scrap is now $530/ton (according to ABC).I just got a steel building(30x50x12) finished ,six months after paying for it....labour shortages ,claimed ......cost $50k,and have still to put in mandatory roofwater drainage structures est $3k......if Id gone ahead and done it a few years ago ,it would have cost $35k,and no drainage costs.
 
I'm in the process of putting an addition on my shop. I have cut down trees, dragged them out of the woods, and brought them over to a friend with a wood miser saw mill. Many years of small little jobs are being traded for milling my logs into the dimensional lumber for the addition. Hopefully enough will be saved to pay for roofing.
 
I'm in the process of putting an addition on my shop. I have cut down trees, dragged them out of the woods, and brought them over to a friend with a wood miser saw mill. Many years of small little jobs are being traded for milling my logs into the dimensional lumber for the addition. Hopefully enough will be saved to pay for roofing.

Hopefully it won't warp all into a twisted mess.....:D
 
If its legal where you live, its almost always cheaper to just pay to have a pole building put up.
Much like insulating, you can usually get them to do the whole job for less than you would pay for materials.

I have had 3 built over the years, and they get em done quick, will do whatever you want in terms of size, windows and doors, and they usually even can finance.

As far as lumber prices coming down- I cant see it happening this year. And if some big infrastructure bill passes, probably not for a few years- by which time, inflation will have caught up, and then they wont come down much at all.

Every year is always the cheapest time to buy most things.
Very few things will actually get cheaper in the future.
 
Maybe Im lucky I did pay for a shed six months in advance.....although it didnt seem that way when the delay was causing me all kinds of problems....Fixed the price before all the post covid increases kicked in.....At $50k ,it was still $15k more than I was quoted about five years ago......Its funny how in the alleged zero inflation environment we are in that prices are rising so rapidly on anything of real usefullness.
 
The forecasts that I have seen have wood prices staying high at least through the middle of next year. I am in the middle of building a new building and it is pretty ugly right now. Building steel prices are up about 20% from last year, electrical and plumbing materials are hard to find, and good luck finding labor.
 
I’ve recently looked into a Miracle Truss building. It’s a hybrid wood/steel structure that you’re supposed to build yourself. The columns/trusses are bolt-together, clear span, free standing units with brackets welded on the outside. Girts and purlins are 2-by’s stood on edge in the brackets. Believe a typical kit comes with trusses, siding, roof, & trim. Customer supplies girts, purlins, doors, etc. The “hybrid” approach helps level the price fluctuation of each material.

They have some neat options like cantilevered overhangs that require no other support so the “porch” is wide open. And the building is fairly customizable as far as width, height, roof pitch, and the like.

Though I haven’t had a building officially quoted, they have “specials” listed on their site of common buildings that get a better price so you can ball-park based on those numbers.

A company by the same name went out of business in the early 2000’s. The current company was established in 2015 and seem to have a better reputation. I don’t know any one personally that owns one but there are several in the area. If I speak to the local rep and he asks the customer for permission, I might be able to tour one or two, which I may end up doing.
 
Maybe Im lucky I did pay for a shed six months in advance.....although it didnt seem that way when the delay was causing me all kinds of problems....Fixed the price before all the post covid increases kicked in.....At $50k ,it was still $15k more than I was quoted about five years ago......Its funny how in the alleged zero inflation environment we are in that prices are rising so rapidly on anything of real usefullness.

I've got enough material stashed to build at least one more building 12m x 6m x 2.7m high and a shed extension of 13m x 4.2m x 2.4m high. Except for roofing which is running at ~$15/linear metre for colorbond ATM.

Not sure I'll ever need that much extra room but I got all the timber etc while I could for a never to be repeated low price.

And yeah I don't believe the prices will ever drop much. This is at least partly due to the flow through of massive amounts of fiat money dumped into the system. Hard goods always get more expensive.

PDW
 
So true!

Build now if you have the need. Timing the market is a fools game.

L7

Most of the time I’d agree. Playing the mortgage game for .5% on an interest rate seems silly to me. This is just excessive though. 300% increase...

I’m playing with some of these ideas though. Hadn’t thought about a pole building.
 
My metal shop is a 20' sea container; a bit cramped in there but it sure was cheap + fast.
But where I live, the weather is good enough to use it uninsulated.

I intend to build a larger pole structure soon, with a 1 ton capacity powered gantry hoist that can cover the whole thing.
Due to the hoist, the structure will have heavy steel channel beams set on the wooden posts that will carry the roof.
No snow or ice here to worry about, but we do get strong wind off the sea. the roof will be metal sheeting, which is reasonably priced here and the low weight saves structural cost too.

We get a some salt as we're jus a mile from the Atlantic coast, so I use stainless screws, which add some expense.

This is a similar structure I made a few years ago, a camper shelter, and it's withstood some fairly heavy weather.

trailer supports.jpg

I tried to use as little wood as possible, as it's expensive here. most all the wood used is load bearing. I prefabbed the trusses and cut notches into the pressure treated poles after they were placed, so as to get the roof lined up even though the poles aren't precise.

I made a jig and used a router for the notches.
 
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