The Expert Podcast

As lumber prices continue to go through the roof builders homeowners contractors are looking for ways to alleviate that cost and here's an article from bloomberg where builders are scouring for cheaper lumber as futures prices tumble there was actually a blip in the market last week where the prices went down a little bit and some builders jumped into the market to try to get some cheaper lumber so what are some of the alternatives that you can use as a builder in order to get possibly a cheaper lumber or even as a homeowner.

There's five things that are possible to use as alternatives to higher priced lumber one is you can mill your own right here's an article from npr that came out a few days ago diyers cut out the middleman and mill their own there's a couple companies one is wood mizer one of the top builders of sawmills you know they have sawmill starting at a few grand where you can buy this and if you can obtain raw logs which in some parts of the country you can actually get pretty reasonable to get them off somebody's property or for tree companies that don't need them and you can saw your own lumber.

Now there's a downside you may not be able to use all this for framing for load-bearing lumber because you have to have tags proving that the lumber is adequate for that but you may be able to use it for trim maybe interior knee walls things that aren't load bearing partitions that kind of thing and even for other types of construction maybe a deck or a shed that doesn't need tagged lumber.

Another option people are looking at is steel framing here's a company design everest which has an option for steel framing you may find that the cost initially of the actual steel might be slightly higher than metal although other than wood although now with the lumber market as high as it is the gap is narrowed however the construction cost may be cheaper because you normally you take your wood plans send them to a steel company and they'll design you a kit like an erector set where you can build that house with the kit without having to cut lumber so your labor costs are much lower.

All the parts of the kit will have tags on them where they go and it'll be pre-cut pre-milled so that you can just put it together like an erector set in addition you may be able to get a discount on your homeowners insurance because it's not flammable there may also be other advantages to that steel um framed home because you'll need less material you can normally frame them a little wider on center 24 rather than maybe 16 and in some cases you may be able to do different design elements because you won't need as many load-bearing walls or headers or beams because of the weight carrying.

Another way people are looking to alleviate some of the cost for lumber prices is to buy a head if you think the lumber prices are going to go up and you have a project that's going to hit in the next three four months maybe you buy your lumber package now if you have a place to store it you'll save some money if the price goes up in three months we were at a lumber yard just yesterday and one of the reps at the counter was talking about that three-quarter plywood four by eight went up eight dollars in the last three weeks for per sheet so if you need 50 sheets you know that's hundreds and hundreds of dollars more that just that part of the lumber package has increased.

So if you know you're going to build and you know what your lumber package is you can buy it from the lumber yard now sometimes a lumber yard will even store it on site you probably want to get it on your site just make sure that it's secured it's out of the rain and it's also out of view so you don't want people stealing it or having it get damaged while you're putting your build together.

By the same token most cities and towns have a discount lumber yard that maybe are a little bit slightly lower grade maybe not quite as aesthetically pleasing if you're using it for framing it doesn't matter but sometimes those prices are 30 40 percent less than premium lumber that you get from a major lumber yard.

So those are four or five ways you can maybe cut some costs and get availability for framing lumber or for building lumber that might help you save money on a building project or a remodel project or if you're a builder ways that you can possibly offset some of the increased costs to help get your clients a lower price for the project.