Framing Bids

by J Scott on January 8, 2014

Along with foundation, framing is another area where I’m willing to pay a bit more for turn-key installation. You see, with framing, there is a lot of coordination required between the guys doing the work and all the suppliers. If your take-offs (the detailed list of materials needed) are wrong, you can end up in a situation where the crew is sitting around unable to work; if your suppliers deliver the wrong materials, it can take hours to sort out and you can end up losing days of work. Additionally, because the various aspects of dry-in (which just means getting the house weather-tight) can involve several different trades, you really want a team that works well together to ensure things get done quickly and correctly.

In Atlanta, we used a large, national lumber and framing materials supplier (ProBuild) for both framing materials and installation. They did all of the dry-in work for us (framing, sub-floor, sheathing, house wrap, interior stairs, windows, exterior doors, etc) along with siding and roofing as well. While we paid a bit extra for the turn-key service, work got completed quickly and correctly. ProBuild also has a big office here in Maryland, so we naturally contacted them for a bid on this job. We also contacted another large, national supplier that does turn-key work (Builder’s First Source) to provide a bid for the dry-in work, as well as some other stuff.

Framing bids typically take a while — they need to run the plans through engineering to determine the most cost-effective structural design, do the take-offs and get the material numbers together. Then, given that they’d be doing the installation as well, they need to send that information to their installation department for a labor bid. The process can take a couple weeks or more.

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