And they say that lumber is cheap now (Day 33 of 273)

The newspapers say that lumber prices are down about 15% and I believe it. The only problem is we need to buy a lot of it for this little house. We put the building plans out for estimates with two local lumber yards about 3 weeks ago and got the last of them back on Friday. Our favorite yard (Carls) came in pretty high ($58k), whereas the other local yard (which will go unnamed) was way lower at $30k. You have to take a close look to see what happened and you won't believe it, but the higher estimate was the better one (what are you nuts ? Machette).

Here's what happened. Carls uses a take-off company called "Estimates NW" in Vancouver, WA, whereas the other company didn't specify who prepared the materials list (I suspect they may have done it inhouse). Carls came back first, and after the shock, a couple bourbons, and a few days of ignoring it, I took a close look at their proposal. Their take off list is organized from bottom (basement) up. For example, the "Under Floor" listing included plastic for the crawl space, pressure treated hemlock/fir for the sill plates, some hardware, a Versalam post, and misc. large-dimension wood. So it went for each floor, the exterior, and the roof sheathing. (That's where the framers stop, and the roofers start.) Seven pages of materials, probably about 450 items althogether. From this materials list, Mike at Carls priced each item in the same order for their estimate. So, for example, you could see that the sheathing for the sides of the house (line 340) was going to be $1890 (140 sheets of 19/32" 4x8 OSB). Upgrading to plywood would be an extra $315 (ca. 20%). Pretty easy to understand with a few minutes of study. In addition, since each floor and each type of material (wood, hardware, siding, etc) was broken out you could identify where all the big bucks were going. They even included adhesive for gluing down the plywood flooring. Pretty darn complete.

By comparison, company B split out the estimate by floor but lumped similar lumber items together. Seventy items in all. No Simpson tiedown hardware was listed, nor any of the exterior trim or soffit materials. The truss estimate came as a separate item ($4500). Pretty hard to use, but I managed to identify some functionally equivalent items to compare the two estimates.

In general company B was 5-10% cheaper on some items. However, for studs and joists they would specify 2x and 4x lumber as KD Std&Btr (Kiln dried, standard and better quality). So by this bid they can supply standard lumber and that is what you get. Carls specified KD select (premium), which is better, straighter and less knotty wood. So you get apples and oranges for comparison. Even the floor joists are hard to compare. Our architect prefers Boise Cascade engineered lumber which Carls bid (BCI 5000, 2" x 11 7/8"), whereas the other lumber company bid Georgia Pacific (11 7/8"). The price was comparable, but I have to believe that Richard Berg has a reason to favor the BCI joists.

Terry at Carls re-bid the other lumber company's material list and Carls came out about $500 less (2%), which is surprising since Carls will supply a better quality of lumber. So this analysis is done (thanks Terry). Carls is comparible (or better) for price, quality, and delivery. In the end I may cherry pick a few generic items that are cheaper at the other local yard (like Hardiplank and house wrap) but buy the bulk of the framing package from Carls. Interestingly, the sawn cedar shingles for our siding were $70 a bundle at the other yard (est. 28 bundles), $56 a bundle at Carls (est. 100 bundles), but I can get them delivered from a mill in Forks, WA, for about $45 (a bundle). I figure I need about 95 bundles. There are 4 bundles in a square, which covers 100 square feet (just like roofing materials). So, by using the mill we might save about a $1000.

I normally would have got a third bid, probably from Kingston Lumber, which is about 30 miles away. However, they don't like to deliver in small lots and we don't want all the lumber on site at once (theft, weather, no place to park trucks, etc). I asked a dozen locals and 80% of them preferred Carls, so that's who is going to get the bulk of our lumber purchase.

You know what they say: You get what you pay for, sometimes less.

PS (Nov. 24th) The 64 sheets of Warmboard arrived in perfect condition this morning. They came from Willits, CA (near Redding) by flatbed truck. I was impressed with Carls' yardman (Kevin?) who unloaded the 3 packages. He told everyone that only he and another yardman were allowed to touch or move the Warmboard, and don't even think about getting another forklift near them. At $200 a sheet, they don't want to do any damage to our little radiant-heat bundle while they store it (then deliver it, all for free).