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building costs
For those of you in construction, what are you seeing in price increases due to the hurricanes. In my area, Kentucky, the 2004 hurricanes in Florida pushed up the lumber and drywall prices during the winter and early spring. They dropped back during the summer.
Another issue is material shortages. Have any of you experienced this. I work for an electric utility and some material deliveries have been pushed back for a few months, but this should improve by winter or early spring.
From what I have read the housing starts in July and August where down considerably from earlier in the year and in 2004. This should help on the supply and demand.
I hope to build in the spring, but not if lumber costs are considerably higher and materials are in short supply.
Dave
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Beagle,
Most of the materials we purchase are by competitive bids and in the last year or so the bid responses have an adder for metals and now fuel surcharges.
We have an annual contract with a manufacturer of single phase pole and pad mount transformers. Last year I received an email about adding a surcharge to our current order. I refused to accept the surcharge because the contract didn't allow for surcharges. The current contract has a metals surcharge statement.
It's wrong for you and I as the consumer to pay higher costs because the Chinese want our metal and in turn create shortages resulting in higher costs. I feel this is a fault of the Republican administration, as generally speaking the republicans support and cater to big business.
However, the situation with the hurricanes and the shortages related to the rebuild would have happened anyway.
As a local utility we haven't increased our rates nor do we add adjustments for metals and fuel. However, we do pass on fuel adjustments from our supplier and surcharges in some instances are passed on to the customer.
I should have built a couple of years ago, but hindsight is always 20/20.
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We are in good shape on transformers today, however, that could change in a couple of weeks. This morning I had my engineers go over all potential projects we know about and summarize the material we need to provide service to those projects. We will go ahead and place orders for conductor, transformers, poles, and associated hardware, because almost everything is placed on backorder.
Iowafun, I understand your concern, as an outage anytime is no fun, but during the winter it can be life threatning. Do you have any type of backup heat or generator?
We recently lost a 8mgd water pump at our treatment facility. We have three pumps and one was at Peerless for repair. We acquired a 5mgd backup pump that runs on a diesel engine. Even though we can purchase diesel at discount the pump is costing us about $900 per day for fuel.
With natural gas prices going through the roof and a potential shortage of electric materials, an abnormally cold winter nationwide could be devastating.
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My neighbor and I are in the process of installing a joint use electric/telecom 270' ditchline with conduit. A couple of weeks ago we brought schedule 40 2" PVC for $4.30/10ft section. Yesterday, we brought the same 2" conduit to complete the telecom part and paid $8.00/10ft section.
I have also heard that plywood has increased in price about 50%. I guess this is to be expected. Dave
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Our diesel is $3.15 and has held this price for a couple of weeks while gasoline has dropped to $2.56.
I assume you have been keeping up with Wilma, she became a cat 5 hurricane overnight and is projected to hit Ft Meyers, Florida on Saturday. About the same place as Charley last summer.
However, not much timber there to destroy. Just rebuilt homes and businesses.
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Peters, I don't know anything about ICF but I am going to research the product. I don't know if builders are using it in the local area, if not it maybe be too costly. Thanks for the info. Dave
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