Questions for home builders/custom ..Please advice...

[look 171]

[QUOTE=Groesbeck Hurricane;5427522]SWT,



We had custom cabinets made from wood harvested locally to cut costs. We used wood that was over 100 years old for the flooring.


I used re-claimed lumber for my cross bars. I bought 2x4 and 2x6 by 8-14 foot for $1.00 per piece. They had been used as forms for foundations and I had to remove nails.




That's cutting cost???? Harvest local lumber should cost a lot more then already milled lumber from the yard. May be in your neck of the woods, but not here, no way. 100 year old floors will cost more then new flooring of the same type for sure. To many home owners, their time isn't worth anything, but to a contractor, their time is ALWAYS worth something.

I have done one remodel jobs 3 years back which the owner require us to use old lumber from the tear out and purchase from the local salvage yard. They are so green with not so deep pocket books. I gave them two numbers. One for standard lumber from the yard, the other, on a hourly for some one to get the POC old materials and clean it up. After one week, and he helped also, and decided it was too much work and a lot of extra money. Thankfully he stop so finished the house with a smile on everyone's face.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Obviously, results vary. Our guy had a portable mill and access to a small kiln. He had a supply of dried wood that had all been harvested locally. The end costs for solid wood cabinets made from local source wood were less than buying melamine cabinets from anywhere within ~80 miles. The guy also underbid everyone else who wanted the work. Three bathrooms and a very large kitchen.

The wood for the flooring came from a man in Texas City who had taken apart the old Moody cotton gins on Galveston Island. He had an interesting mill! He cut down posts from the harvest into about 3.5" wide strips for us to use as flooring. He even added the tongue and groove! We bought ~2,100 sqft total plus enough without T&G to use for the trim and some true 1"x8" pieces to use for window sills. The 1x8s were VERY expensive!!! I went to his facility and picked up the cut wood. It came out to ~$2.75 sqft for 100 year old heart of pine. I could not touch the deal anywhere else! And the colours and the smell!!!! And yes, I saw the wood and new it was old wood. And it was hard as I was cutting it during installation!

My time was worth the ~$15,000 savings in flooring cost on having someone else install the hardwood floor. I also did the ceramic tile. I used clearance tile with a total cost of all materials at less than $1.00 sqft.

On the used lumber, I did the work and I bought the wood. Again, the cost savings was worth the time I spent on it. removing nails or cutting out sections that were bad was not that difficult. And I was shooting for short pieces anyway.

Not for everyone! I agree with you, MOST homeowners want to save money, FEW are really willing to do what it takes. How many people have you worked for who actually policed and cleaned up after the end of the day so you did not have to? I did that also! HUGE money savings! And everything was ready for the crews the next day!

[turbo6bar]

Originally Posted by notfarnow

um, OK

maybe I need to be more careful when hiring people to work on my house. Last week my guy with an excavator was an EXPERIENCED BLACK GUY. If only I'd known!

Get back with us after the Mexicans have invaded your nation's construction industry.



look171, don't forget you live in a place that is not like elsewhere. In parts of the country with abundant timberland and raw material, one can get flooring milled from locally-sourced timber at better prices. Same goes for some types of lumber. If we're talking about run of the mill dimensional lumber, the game is all about the price of a commodity.

Groesbeck, $2.75/SF for heart pine? Wow, that's awesome. Wish I could get a deal like that.

[Evans, Marv]

I could only take advantage of a couple of money saving things when building my house, other than dealing with the subs directly, doing some things myself, & shopping for some of the materials myself.
One was the oak flooring - kind of an interesting story (maybe). I bought it from an elementary school friend of mine who was building a house in a desert area in 1977. He decided to put in carpet instead. It was 2K s.f. which I paid him $1,600 for delivered. The only thing was that I had to carry it around with me for over 30 years. According to the flooring contractor, it was quarter cut (whatever that means) and couldn't be bought anymore - at least in this area. They nailed it in for $2.00/s.f. and finished it for $2.75/s.f. It came out beautifully.
The other things were my doors, cabinets & counter tops came from Mexico. I couldn't get the kind of doors my wife wanted from anybody here. I just had to order what they had available from the factory. My wife wanted arched, two panel, 1 3/4 in. thick, 6'8" and 8 ft. interior doors made out of knotty alder, & 8 ft. high, arched entry & patio doors with sidelights. I had met a guy with a factory in T.J. who had a display at the Del Mar Home & Garden Show a few years before & kept his card. I finally called him & they custom made all of the doors just as we wanted them & for less money than here. Actually I wouldn't have even been able to get the doors we wanted here (well the entry door for $10K). Another thing was cabinets. I got pricing from H.D. & Lowes just for a starting point - which was around $22K. I also got pricing from two independent cabinet shops for $25K to $27K. Then a guy living down the road who has a shop gave me a price for $38K !!!!! So I said I was just going to call my door guy since I had seen some very nice cabinets in their shop when I was down there when they were building the doors. So I called him. He took measurement & made a template and came back with a price of $10.7K.
Since we had become sort of friends, he told me he would hook me up with a granite counter company there. I had gotten 3 estimates in the U.S. All of them were $4K for labor and between $1.2K & $3K per slab, depending on the granite I chose, for three slabs to do the job. Down there I picked out whichever granite I wanted ($600 to $1.5K), got the choice of edges (here you only got bull nose unless you wanted to pay additional for something else) and installed for $3.8K. One thing I did learn going through the process was the importance of taking time to shop around. Getting 3 or 4+ quotes for almost everything was good advise from almost everybody.

[Evans, Marv]

Also, I don't know if grading, well with 10K tank, pumps, etc., septic, sprinkler systems & drainage are usually included in the s.f. cost, but that is all included in mine.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

I could only take advantage of a couple of money saving things when building my house, other than dealing with the subs directly, doing some things myself, & shopping for some of the materials myself.
One was the oak flooring - kind of an interesting story (maybe). I bought it from an elementary school friend of mine who was building a house in a desert area in 1977. He decided to put in carpet instead. It was 2K s.f. which I paid him $1,600 for delivered. The only thing was that I had to carry it around with me for over 30 years. According to the flooring contractor, it was quarter cut (whatever that means) and couldn't be bought anymore - at least in this area. They nailed it in for $2.00/s.f. and finished it for $2.75/s.f. It came out beautifully.
The other things were my doors, cabinets & counter tops came from Mexico. I couldn't get the kind of doors my wife wanted from anybody here. I just had to order what they had available from the factory. My wife wanted arched, two panel, 1 3/4 in. thick, 6'8" and 8 ft. interior doors made out of knotty alder, & 8 ft. high, arched entry & patio doors with sidelights. I had met a guy with a factory in T.J. who had a display at the Del Mar Home & Garden Show a few years before & kept his card. I finally called him & they custom made all of the doors just as we wanted them & for less money than here. Actually I wouldn't have even been able to get the doors we wanted here (well the entry door for $10K). Another thing was cabinets. I got pricing from H.D. & Lowes just for a starting point - which was around $22K. I also got pricing from two independent cabinet shops for $25K to $27K. Then a guy living down the road who has a shop gave me a price for $38K !!!!! So I said I was just going to call my door guy since I had seen some very nice cabinets in their shop when I was down there when they were building the doors. So I called him. He took measurement & made a template and came back with a price of $10.7K.
Since we had become sort of friends, he told me he would hook me up with a granite counter company there. I had gotten 3 estimates in the U.S. All of them were $4K for labor and between $1.2K & $3K per slab, depending on the granite I chose, for three slabs to do the job. Down there I picked out whichever granite I wanted ($600 to $1.5K), got the choice of edges (here you only got bull nose unless you wanted to pay additional for something else) and installed for $3.8K. One thing I did learn going through the process was the importance of taking time to shop around. Getting 3 or 4+ quotes for almost everything was good advise from almost everybody.

Merv,

YOu could still get quater sawn oak floor. Not many people have it in stock but it still doable. Some companies / sales people just don't want to deal with it because it is so much more money they just assume not deal with it. Generally people are shopping for price and not products. Most contractor do not even know what quater swan lumber is.

They just drive it through the border with all of the cabinets and granite pieces? Did They install it?

Not true about the bull nose. My grainte fabricator charges the same for sq edge of bull nose. If its a built up, then of course it more because of the additional work.

How the heck do we compete with Mexico. Do they even pay workman's comp or anything other bull $hit that comes with running a business. What's their shop rental like? I am sure isn't $.75 to $1.00 per foot.

[Evans, Marv]

These companies in Mexico deal a lot with companies here. When I told the guy some people here were appalled I was buying from him (because I might get ripped off), he said,"Pffft, we make doors, cabinets, gates(when I was at the shop he showed me a wood gate they were making for a gated community here. it was about 8 ft. high & one half was 12 ft. wide), etc. for lots of companies across the border, and they don't even tell their customers its from Mexico." I bought the doors from him because I just couldn't get what I wanted here - at least for a fair price. I would have had to pay two + times more to have them made. They go through an import/export agency when they cross the border. They have to declare the value of the items at that point. Then later on, the State contacts you and you have to pay an import tax on it. If I remember correctly, it was around 8%. If you're a business, you pass it on to your customers. I had the granite guys from there install the counter tops, but I paid guys here to put in the doors & install the cabinets. His business was started in 1982 by his dad & he has been taking it over for the last few years. Don't know what their operation costs are, but they're definitely lower than in the U.S.