re: Crazy construction materials news I learned today

New builds won’t be the only problem.

I have family which took a lot of damage in the ice storms for various reasons. My BIL got a contractor to come out and look at the damages and he says the quote for repairs was more than he makes in a year. And I’m sure materials are a huge part of it.

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bid a structural steel project last week. steel suppliers holding their prices only 7 days before a re quote. They cannot even provide a educated escalation right now because of all the unknowns. Lumber when up came down a hair and when back up. suppliers are bitching again about shortages of fly ash which requires more cement in a mix design. Fuel going up across the board. its going to get interesting real soon.

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Be prepared for steel to keep climbing. Imagine if an infrastructure bill is passed in the next year. Steel will soar. The closest comparison we have to this market is back in 2004.

I am no longer offering validity on most quotes. Prices are current from stock subject to prior sale. On larger jobs prices are current and subject to increase from the mill.

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Sears used to sell house kits in their catalog

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My wife's grandparents live in one on their ranch in Montana. It has seen a lot of work and remodel over the years, but still a fine house.

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Banks could put on the brakes and control it, but they won’t.

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Only the Fed really has to power to do that but they're the ones expanding the money supply.

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Plastic houses.....the future.

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3D printed concrete houses! It could be transformative technology.

I have a friend who basically has a concrete house. The roof and exterior are aesthetic only so you can't see that the structure is essentially concrete. It is hurricane proof. If a storm comes, once the storm shutters are closed, it literally can only blow the veneer off his house. It's flood-resistant (though definitely not flood proof) because there are no real joints for water to come in at. If the doorways are sealed up, water can seep through the walls slowly, but that takes a while. The walls of his house basically act as sandbags themselves, so his interior stays nice and dry. Short floods likely won't harm his house. The sound-proofing qualities are unreal. His home theater is a no-joke professionally installed sort of setup with gobs of amplifier power. You cannot really hear it from outside the room. His power bills are nearly zero because the insulative properties are way better than your typical finish-over-stud construction. With the whole house generator he has, he's got a nice little fort for his wife and himself.

There are all kinds of advantages. The giant downside is that his house was significantly more expensive to build than a comparably sized stud based house because of the relatively specialized labor required to build it. A robot like this one, though, would bring that WAY down and a customized floor plan is as simple as feeding it a drawing file with exactly what you want.

Aluminum is sky rocketing as well. I believe glum is up around 30% this year. Kynar is up 24% or so.

The Chinese shipping routes got bought up a while back and nails are up significantly.

I don’t see how this doesn’t continue through at least Q4. I suspect a few natural disasters occur and will only further complicate the supply chain.

I’ve got some material that came with December ship dates on January PO’s. It’s just silly.

This is the Great Reset. It's happening. FRICK I hate the people that made all of this happen.

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It's almost like something happened around March 2020 that caused material prices to rise, can't put my finger on what it was though

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It was the got damn Irish's fault.