Vancouver Estimates

Sharing works of trades around the world.

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Construction Material Price

Construction material cost soon can have a huge effect on construction pricing for contractors, subs, and owners. From material costs to equipment fees, price changes can occur rapidly. To avoid surprises, it’s very important that construction companies stay on top of any material price changes or forecasts. Or else, your profit margins can be minimized or even disappears.

Prices paid for building materials increased across the board in February. The indexes for softwood lumber (+5.6%), gypsum products (+4.2%), OSB (+3.1%), ready-mix concrete (+0.4%), and inputs to residential construction less labor (+1.0%) all increased, according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the last two years, we have seen a steady increase in the cost of many different materials. The biggest increases were seen in concrete block, ready-mix concrete, precast products, flat glass, and gypsum. The percentage increase in softwood lumber prices was the biggest since 2012 according to PPI historical data. The last time prices rose nearly this sharply was February 2017 (+4.7%), which marked the first month of price increases after the last softwood lumber agreement expired.

To optimize profits and prepare for the future market, it is important that you look forward. Predicting future trends will help your business stay on top of any changes.

BLS also reported that prices paid for gypsum products rose 4.2% (seasonally adjusted) in February, the largest increase since April 2016. Although prices increased substantially in February 2017 as well (+3.2%), the average monthly increase during the intervening 11 months was 0.3%. During that period, prices advanced more than 1% only once (+1.6% in June 2017).

Overall, construction costs are expected to continue to grow about 2-3% through the end of 2017. Most of these increased costs will be due to rising labor wages. With the plethora of labor shortages within the construction industry, higher wages will help attract new workers. Material costs are also expected to grow about 2-3%. Some of the most significant material costs increases are within softwood products, with huge jumps in softwood lumber.

While some costs are expected to rise, there are also many materials that are expected to stay more stagnant. While gypsum and ready-mix concrete prices have risen, they are small increases at around 0.2%. In the past, gypsum experienced steep price hikes at the beginning of each year in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Since then, gypsum has experienced much smaller increases indicating better price stability. Equipment is also expected to remain flat with very little growth predicted.

Besides normal inflation, there are many reasons for price increases. The biggest reason for increases in softwood products is because of the current dispute between the U.S. and Canada. This dispute threatens prices because of higher tariffs that can be imposed by Canada.

Trump has also been seen as a trigger for price hikes. One of Trumps biggest platforms was to keep business in America. This means limiting imports which have caused steel mills to increase prices.

These reasons are only a few of the several factors that have led to construction cost increases. While you can’t change the market, staying up-to-date on construction news will keep you informed and prepared for whatever the industry throws at you.

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Permeable Concrete Can Absorb a Flood

Urban areas are particularly vulnerable to flash flooding. Manmade surfaces, such as asphalt, absorb much less water than dirt, and heavy rain can quickly overwhelm cities’ storm-water drainage systems. As the world continues to urbanize and the amount of the Earth covered in impervious surfaces increases, flooding is likely to become more of an issue.

This may be why a new product from a UK company has been generating so much buzz. Topmix Permeable, a fast-draining concrete, can absorb up to 1,000 liters of water per minute per square meter. Tarmac, the company that created Topmix Permeable, recently released a video of a truck pouring 4,000 liters of water onto a parking lot surface. The water is absorbed instantly as if draining into a hidden hole.

Typically, road paving material is made of a mix of large and fine crushed stone held together by a binder. With Topmix Permeable, the fine crushed stone or sand is left out. This makes the resulting material porous enough to accept large amounts of water. A layer of Topmix Permeable concrete is installed on top of an aggregate sub-base of crushed stone, which generally sits on top of the soil. Rainwater drains through the top surface, collects in the aggregate layer, and is slowly released into the ground.

“We believe that the capacity is several times more than enough to deal with the heaviest rainfall we’ve ever experienced in the UK,” says Richard Stares, commercial director at Tarmac. The product’s price, he adds, is similar to other concretes on the market. 

The product can be used on roads, parking lots, walking and biking pathways, driveways and more. Tarmac says the material could help reduce flood damage, take pressure off aging stormwater drainage systems and even reduce the risk of water shortages by redirecting rainwater into natural aquifers. In times of extremely heavy rain, the pavement acts as a reservoir, its under-layer holding on to water and releasing it slowly at a pace the ground can handle. The system can also help filter contaminants. The multiple layers of porous stone essentially act as a giant filter.  

Topmix Permeable isn’t the first pavement system of this kind. Permeable paving blocks have become an increasingly popular choice for driveways and pedestrian paths. Porous asphalt has been used with success in cities, including Portland, Oregon, where some parking lanes have been paved with the material. But porous asphalt is limited: it’s too weak for high-traffic areas, it needs regular cleaning to keep grit from clogging the surface (making it not suitable for places where sand is put down during snow and ice storms), and it allows oil and other pollutants to drain into the water system.

Topmix Permeable has some of these issues. It’s not a good choice for high-traffic areas, as heavy use will eventually start breaking up the surface layer. But it’s stronger than other products on the market, Stares says, due to the process of mixing the cement and the nature of the binders.

“We’ve been able to get this bond so strong,” Stares says. “We’ve been able to make this product that has a very high void space.”

“Void space” is the industry term for the amount of air space in a paving product. Typical permeable concretes have void space around 20 percent, while Topmix Permeable’s is as high as 35 percent.

Tarmac’s material has been used in several projects already, including a parking lot. Unfortunately for us Americans, especially all those South Carolinians who saw their cars inundated on roads full of standing water, it’s not yet available in the United States.

“In an ideal world it would be nice to get this technology to other parts of the world,” Stares says. “But it’s probably some ways off.” 

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Top 10 Common Construction Estimating Mistakes

Often, it’s not until a project is complete that one determines its profitability. And profitability at the time of completion can vary significantly from expectations at the time of the bid. The ideal scenario is that a construction business owner can gauge profitability before the project even gets underway. Otherwise, you’re not only losing money on jobs; you’re putting your business at risk.   

Still, a common misconception is that when profits are lost, the loss occurs after the project is started and is due to circumstances beyond one’s control. The reality is that when contractors lose money, the loss is most often borne out of the cost-estimation process. 

To help you more effectively navigate this process, here are 10 of the most common cost-estimating mistakes putting your business at risk, and what to do about them:

 1. Lack of transparency. The estimate should provide a top-level view of the project as well as each line item’s most granular details and their associated costs. This way, you eliminate the black-box approach, and anyone can easily understand the process for determining cost, regardless of his or her level of experience. Transparency also invites collaboration and the sharing of best practices throughout the company. 

 2. Last-minute changes. Late changes result in simple mistakes such as forgotten line items and formula errors from cutting and pasting. Such errors can quickly turn a profitable project into a loss. Accurate cost estimation systems with built-in formulas and assembly libraries, however, can eliminate most, if not all, of these errors. 

 3. Focusing on strengths alone, ignoring weaknesses. You likely have depths of expertise in certain areas and more moderate proficiency in others. For example, you may know everything about roofing, and your estimate for that part of a project would be highly detailed. Yet, there may not be as much detail in your estimates for windows or floors. The areas in which you have less expertise will, thus, also have the greatest margins of error. That’s why templates and predefined modules come in handy. They work well with information from reliable sources, such as your own employees and third-party pricing databases, so you can fill in your knowledge gaps.   

 4. Underestimating Labor Costs. Labor is one of the most difficult costs to estimate because it’s not as simple as applying an hourly rate per employee. Examples of other factors to consider are experience and whether subcontractors will be needed. 

As you’re performing your cost estimate, be sure to include as much detailed labor information as possible and capture it in assemblies. This way, you ensure that any quantity changes will automatically be reflected in labor costs. The added benefit is that you have documentation of deviations to the original plan and how they affect the project. Another tip for estimating labor is to look at similar projects and compare the cost per square foot using key figures. 

 5. Lack of margin calculation algorithm. If you base profitability solely on a flat sales price, such as a 10-percent profit across every aspect of the project, your final cost will differ from your initial bid. Instead, determine how much each of the critical factors, such as labor, materials and supplies, should contribute to profit and estimate accordingly. For example, if labor is 40 percent of the cost and materials is 8 percent, the sales price should reflect these differing percentages. 

 6. Pursuing every project. There is a great temptation to pursue every opportunity to keep your crews busy and expand your expertise into new areas. However, you should know up front which projects are going to require more work and, therefore, deliver less profit. This isn’t to say you should bid on only projects perfectly aligned with your business; rather, you should know the real costs of each project before you begin so there are no surprises later. 

 You will want to use cost-estimation software that gives you a detailed scope of the project and its related costs across a variety of dimensions, including labor, materials, margin, equipment and financing. Once you understand the costs of each project element, you can arrive at a more realistic profit margin. Keep in mind that sales price is the result of knowing the cost and using a strategy for calculating a desired margin. 

 7. Allocating resources incorrectly. Invest the most time in the areas of the project that will contribute to the greatest amount of cost in the project. 

 8. Not taking a top-down approach. While it may be easier to start the cost-estimation process by plugging numbers and line items into a spreadsheet, this bottom-up approach lacks a strategic view and is time consuming. It’s best to start by looking at the entire project. Then, break it down to see how costs are distributed. This way, you can make adjustments and see how each adjustment affects overall profitability, as opposed to manipulating the costs for different line items until you arrive at a healthy profit margin 

 9. Lack of successive risk estimation. To determine risks and minimize uncertainty, analyze what has gone awry on previous projects. For example, it may not be the materials or the crew that drove up the cost. It could just as easily be the fact that the project didn’t factor in that the city had only one lane of traffic, making construction challenging. 

If you don’t consider and estimate all the risks of a project, your projected costs won’t be accurate. Cost-estimation software can guide you by providing uncertainty fields to address similar issues to those cited above. As you perform the estimate from a risk perspective, remember to account for standard deviations, and make sure you’ve set cost parameters so you’re alerted if the cost is escalating beyond your profit margin.   

 10. Limited views of the project. During the cost-estimation process, you should be able to see your spreadsheet data automatically regrouped and filtered to display information according to activity, phase, crew, classification, or any other aspect of the project. Along with providing

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A San Francisco startup 3D printed a whole house in 24 hours

San Francisco-based startup Apis Cor built a whole house in a Russian town within 24 hours. It didn't repair an existing home or use prefabricated parts to make that happen -- the secret lies in 3D printing. The company used a mobile 3D printer to print out the house's concrete walls, partitions and building envelope. Workers had to manually paint it and install the roofing materials, wiring, hydro-acoustic and thermal insulation, but that didn't take much time.

The result is a 400-square-foot house that's around as big as a standard hotel room. It's no mansion, but it could prove attractive to the growing contingent of people who prefer tiny homes. Apis Cor says the whole house cost about $10,134 make, with the door and windows eating up the largest part of the budget. That sounds about right for a tiny home, though that probably doesn't account for the cost of land.

The company uploaded a video of the process you can watch below. It even shows what the interior looks like with appliances, including a curved TV that fits the house's curved wall, provided by Samsung. If Apis Cor does start 3D printing houses, owners can choose any shape they want and even choose to make one larger than this compact abode.

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NI economy records growth and surge in construction

New figures shows positives for the Northern Ireland economy, including construction output hitting a five-year high.

Activity in the construction sector rose by 7% in the final months of 2016.

The figures, published through the Department for the Economy, partly reflect a boom in hotels and student accommodation in Belfast.

The rise in output began two years ago - however, house building slipped back in the final quarter of last year.

The department has also published figures for the wider Northern Ireland economy.

They reveal the economy grew by 2.1% between the second and third quarters of 2016, largely driven by performance in the services sector.

The statistics are measured using the Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index (NICEI), which is roughly equivalent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

They are the most up-to-date figures for the economy.

Statisticians said that, looking over the last three years, there is "some evidence that the rate of growth has increased".

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330' laser distance meter by @milwaukeetool

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Built-in storage concept by @loiselleadam

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Floating barn beam shelves by @steelandgrain

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Hand scribed hardwood + hex tile by @clevelandwoodbee

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Cedar fence by @stonehaven.bc

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Custom floor grill by @risingerbuild

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Heritage house exterior restoration by @exteriorworxsiding

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Handmade copper shingles by @mintexteriors

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Framing perspective! @northernwooddevelopment

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Hand made solid brass shower bath filler by @chadderandco

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Exterior cladding by @worksmarternotharderig

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From concept to form by @cosinestudio