Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 553 posts

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#411

Post by TeMPOraL »

hutzlibu wrote: post #278
headmelted wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a web developer in 2019 building your own office that never collapsed I have to assume that's only up until the last thing you can remember. May you rest in peace.

2 years uptime without major technology change, is quite amazing in the modern fast paced web dev world ..

They said they were building it. Not that they completed it.

I'm guessing they just left the industry to do something less mentally damaging than web development - perhaps started a spider farm or something.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#412

Post by muttled »

Bombthecat wrote: post #203
throwawayffffas wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether etherium finally moving to proof of stake will actually have an impact on gpu prices.

No, those people will move to a new coin

As ETH is the biggest ship in the sea by far, they'll flood those other coins and subdivide a much smaller remaining market.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#413

Post by shados »

10GBps wrote: post #6

I don't think prices are "cratering" so much as just returning to normal rather than price gouging. Now if I could just buy a GPU for a normal price...

I bought a GTX 1080 Ti back when they just came out. It was absolutely overkill for my needs, but I got it for fun.

I'm kind of glad I did now, since I'm still unable to upgrade. The extra oomph is ensuring new games still run decently for a bit longer...

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#414

Post by Steltek »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #229
otikik wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The channel "Essential Craftsman" is finishing building a spec house. It's an American-style house, with timber framing. The host, Scott Wadsworth, knows a lot about contracting, and gives a lot of details and advice. The playlist currently has 126 videos. It's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCC-_Cuhhw&list=PLRZePj70B4... My impression after watching most of it: It might be "easy" to build your own house once…

As a former builder and current handyman (now cloud architect) I can wholeheartedly recommend this channel. That guy knows his stuff. My only warning is that he's a perfectionist and purest. If you do things his way without any experience it will take you 10x as long.

Is he really though? His non-spec-house videos talk about allowable tolerances and he free hands beveled cuts on a Skilsaw. Granted, those free hand cuts look better than my 90deg ones done with a saw guide but still, would a "perfectionist" do that? I'm specifically thinking of that weird looking shed video.

I think he only really goes over the top with concrete.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#415

Post by ransom1538 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #196
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common practice in construction industry is to overcommit to too many projects, then raise prices until the most cost-conscious customers drop out. Now you’re only left with the customers willing to pay the highest prices. It’s not really about lumber prices. It’s about finding the highest construction prices that the market will bear. Can’t find the limit until you push so hard that some customers start dropping out…

Ah, another type of market assholery. Price discovery mechanism that's free for the builders, but very expensive for the would-be customers. About as nice as grading on a curve. I wonder if there's a space for business for an intermediary who would take on multiple builders for your single home, wait for them to do their price discovery dance, and then drop every one of them except for the cheapest one. Disrupting sc…

"I wonder if there's a space for business for an intermediary who would take on multiple builders for your single home, wait for them to do their price discovery dance, and then drop every one of them except for the cheapest one."

Having worked with subcontractors a race to the bottom is not a good plan. IMHO subcontractors cost is directly proportional to experience. Simple unseen things will get missed eg: wrong type of drywall in the bathroom.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#416

Post by mohaine »

j2bax wrote: post #338
ryanackley wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with being an owner builder is you don't have an ongoing relationship with sub-contractors. Which means that for any subs you hire, you will be their lowest priority and their smallest concern. Also, you don't really know what you're doing so you will think they made a mistake when they didn't and you won't always recognize real mistakes. I did this for my new house that was being built before, du…

My friend had a house built by a company and he had many issues left over even after getting all the issues he noticed taken care of. I just had a full house remodel done by a good friend who is a contractor and am noticing things that aren’t perfect. I guess I’m just wanting to point out that my experience is that getting perfection is hard no matter which route you take.

This. Contractors _mostly_ only care about things that will require rework. Anything that is cheaper to hide and will not be a problem for years if ever will just be hidden.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#417

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

Steltek wrote: post #414
d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former builder and current handyman (now cloud architect) I can wholeheartedly recommend this channel. That guy knows his stuff. My only warning is that he's a perfectionist and purest. If you do things his way without any experience it will take you 10x as long.

Is he really though? His non-spec-house videos talk about allowable tolerances and he free hands beveled cuts on a Skilsaw. Granted, those free hand cuts look better than my 90deg ones done with a saw guide but still, would a "perfectionist" do that? I'm specifically thinking of that weird looking shed video. I think he only really goes over the top with concrete.

Framing he's not too bad but I was cringing watching him perfect the sill anchor bolt placement on the spec house.

His finish work is finicky. I'm thinking of those craftsman columns on the spec house. Most people would just caulk and be happy with it.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#418

Post by at-fates-hands »

titzer wrote: post #346
hellbannedguy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wait. I'm an licensed inactive General Contractor. If 14 months ago, they were building them for $450,000, I'd wait. I'd shop around for another contractor too. A young guy starting out, might save you a lot. (There's no way to verify he knows what he's doing though.) If you are some what handy, it's not that difficult to owner build your own house. That is if you get the blueprints past the town's council. G…

> If you are some what handy, it's not that difficult to owner build your own house. I'm not sure what you have in mind here, but my brother did an "owner build" in the true sense of the word and sunk every nail into every piece of wood, every pipe, every wire, every window, floor, staircase, insulation, lighting, built all the cabinets, everything. That was 8 years of his life. Two of those years he literally quit h…

>> Caution, it is easy to seriously underestimate how much work it is to build a house.

I used to work at a bike shop and thought it would be easy to build a bike from the ground up. Easy. Get a frame, fork set, and some other parts. Easy, right? I had no idea the amount of small parts one needs, including all the other minor stuff you have to buy like brake lines, headset, etc. Instead of a few week process, it became a few month process because I had to keep buying all these things I had forgotten about and didn't know I needed.

Now scale that up a house. I can't imagine the amount of things one could easily forget about on a project that scale and not realize until it was too late.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#419

Post by at-fates-hands »

okuboheavy wrote: post #170
satya71 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unconventional, a St Louis entrepreneur built a container house. Few things to go wrong there.

Unfortunately a container house will always end up both more expensive and worse than a traditionally built house. Containers are fantastic as containers but terrible for making a house with. As soon as you start cutting holes in them they lose a great deal of their structural strength which is their main advantage. Terrible to insulate and for condensation as well. The exception is if you’re happy with a single cont…

>> Unfortunately a container house will always end up both more expensive and worse than a traditionally built house.

I remember when this became popular and also remember plenty of articles deriding the fact by architects and engineers both agreeing this was an incredibly poor idea for a number of reasons.

You'd be a thousand times better off just hiring an architect and doing a prefab or modular home.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#420

Post by rootusrootus »

datavirtue wrote: post #376
magicalhippo wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realize too, the General Contractor just hires licensed subs, and takes a healthy cut off your nut. Some close relatives bought a plot in a newly developed area, and tried to find a contractor to build their home. After listening to others in the area, it was pretty clear there was a couple of good, reputable ones and one avoid-at-all-costs. So they went with one of the reputable ones. The guy decides at some point…

LMAO!!! This is a perfect example. Not surprised, in fact this is what I would expect to happen. People have no idea how difficult it is to become a good builder and make money. It rarely happens. Stick to buying spec houses. They will always be better than a custom home because people get to examine the house before they agree to buy it. Whole world changes when you are under contract for a build/remodel.

We bought a spec house, but it was just getting underway when we signed the contract. I like that option, it worked out well for us. Got to pick all the finishes. Made some minor changes along the way to the plans, changed the appliance choices to fit my preferences, etc. So I got the upsides of a spec build, but I also got to make sure they put in a properly large kitchen island, double ovens, and other improvements that usually get left out of a pure-spec build.

I also got to visit the site every day and take pictures, which is really nice to have. Especially the day before they did drywall, I went nuts with pictures and now I can tell you exactly what the inside of every single wall looks like, what the electrical looks like, the plumbing, conduit, smurf tubes, etc.

Also, if you are nice and polite, you can talk directly to the subcontractors in some cases and get even more customization at a great price. E.g. the electrical guy offered to run cat5 throughout the house for a few hundred bucks. He couldn't terminate it, because he's not licensed for low voltage, but he could run the wire itself and leave it coiled up in a single gang box in every room. The builder didn't think to offer that, but having a chat with the electrician when he was on site gave us that option.

Post reply on HN