Is now a bad time to build garage?

He's a pretty good salesman.

Jim

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On 23 Apr 2004 05:32:17 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Don) brought forth from the murky depths:

Buy now from one of the guys discounting pre-kitted buildings to half their retail price, or buy a used building.

page also has links to steel building suppliers.

Otherwise, Fall might be better for prices. (SWAG, not fact)

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He is a crook find another contractor.

Steel prices have been high for months now and my suppiler seems to think that as supply gets more inline they will start falling some over the summer.

Plywood is be> As many of you know I have been planning on building a garage/shop for

I seriously doubt that steel will go up FIFTY percent, but undoubtedly it will go up -- -- as will everything else. The longer you wait - the more it's going to cost you. It seems that is just a fact of life. Build a shed now - guaranteed it will cost you more to build the same shed a year from now. OTOH, if you are borrowing money to pay for the construction/materials, etc., the interest is low at this point but that also is probably going to go up. Looks like the sooner the better - besides, you will finally get your shop Ken.

Some steel used in production has gone up 35% if it's on the supplier's warehouse floor. If they have to acquire it from the mill, it's up 45%. One steel building I priced in December has gone up 20%. Sheathing grade plywood here went up $3 a sheet last week. That was also a 20% increase. The damn plywood is made in two places less than 40 miles from me. I wonder if the factory will give local use discounts?

RJ

I was at a home show recently. One exhibitor was promoting use of precast concrete panels for building. He said building garages has been one of his more common projects. I haven't checked his prices but concrete probably hasn't gone up as much in price a many building materials. This has to one of the most durable ways to make a building.

Scp

you just have to buy box car of wood.

Scp

A while back I had read a book on building projects. One guy was replacing the wood 'retaining wall'(?) which kept the canal from swallowing his property. He built 2 frames out of 2x12s installed some rebar and pvc, then poured concrete in each. When they set, he removed the forms, slid them on top of the pour and did it all again until he had enough sections to replace the wall. Then he used a crane to lift each section and attached a garden hose to the pvc which displaced the mud as the section slid into place. After seeing the pre-fab foundation systems on this old house and local commercial buildings built with 2 story prefab walls, I thought it would be a neat idea to build a house on the lot, a section at a time as you had the time.

Joel. phx

I once toured a housing project being built in South America. They were using tilt up stacked forms similar to what you described. Poured the slab in the more or less usual way with a trowel finish. Then they laid forms on top of the sealed slab and poured the walls. After a week they tilted the walls up and bolted the edges together. Sealing forms were placed over the joints and corners and filled with more concrete. They had 8 or 9 units going at any one time and were finishing out about three houses a week. Very impressive for a relatively low skill crew of

10-12 men.

|| ||I was at a home show recently. One exhibitor was promoting use of precast ||concrete panels for building. He said building garages has been one of his ||more common projects. I haven't checked his prices but concrete probably ||hasn't gone up as much in price a many building materials. This has to one ||of the most durable ways to make a building.

Are we talking tilt-wall? I've considered that in planning a 20x25 garage.

*looks* easy. Rex in Fort Worth

Yup, the steel is maybe 25-30% of the total cost of a pole building, erected. Even if a 50% rise in the finished steel is on the level (most of the cost is in the processing and coatings), that translates to only a

10-15% increase in the total cost.

The tilt-up wall is very cost effective and useful in design of a building. In Earth Quake country, the walls are setup such that they fall outward from the core so they don't squish workers :-) - just lurkers outside the windows :-) So the rally points are more than the height of the building away - sometimes that is tough.

One thing about them - solar mass. or Ice mass. The thermal mass tends to stabilize but it is best to have insulation and an internal wall - to run wire and pipe behind ....

If you heat your slab, you might want to insulate the wall from the slab.

Martin

the only problem with that is fire. Fire burns, destroys the roof framing and the walls fall out and squash the firefighters. Here, teh foundations have to be such that the wall lcan remain standing without the framing, by having a long lever arm on the foundation. Geoff New Zealand (where we have the occaisoanl earthquake as well)

-- Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam. I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head

Don,

I don't think there's ever going to be a perfect time. I'm building one now, and yes lumber and steel are pretty $#@^! high. But there's always going to be some obstacles and the price of something else will probably go up to compensate if you wait. I'm biting the proverbial bullet (doesn't help much) and just building the darn thing.

Bob