Didn't want to derail DM's thread on heavy truck parts availability so let's start a new thread. For the ones who purchase and install construction materials what are you seeing in terms of price increases and availability? Here in AL the only RCP (reinforced concrete pipe) manufacturer originally went up 30% across the board and now is not taking any orders regardless of customer for at least 6 months. We purchase RCP through our pipe supplier which is the pipe manufacturers biggest buyer so size is not making a difference. Fortunately we have a couple of pre-cast manhole and structure manufacturers to choose from so that hasn't become an issue yet. We can get HDPE (corrugated plastic), some PVC depending on type (corrugated, SDR grades, PVC) and ductile, although 4" ductile is very hard to find. All of the type pipes above just had a 15-20% price increase in the last month. Since we install a fair amount of storm drainage I've had to scramble to substitute RCP with HDPE on our current and upcoming jobs. At least now most of the GC"s and owners know about the RCP shortage and don't look at me like I have 3 heads when I tell them we cannot get it. Fortunately ALDOT approves HDPE and corrugated PVC (A2000) pipe so it's easier to persuade engineers to change the spec on private jobs. So far we can still get plastic pipe. Ordered 80 LF of 8" ductile for a road crossing this week and it was $32 per LF. The real kicker is the pipe plant where they make the damn pipe is literally 10-12 miles from that job. Here in Central AL we have 2 large ductile iron pipe mills that produce 1,000's of feet of pipe. Crushed stone has increased 15-25% as well with outages of certain screen sizes. Wanted 3/4 crush this week for a road crossing but had to settle on 8910 which is 1/4 to dust. Thursday our silt fence subcontractor informed us that non-woven silt fence fabric is on an 8 week back order. If that's the case it's going to either stop alot of construction or muni's are going to have to accept other erosion control measures. Equipment is hit or miss. Depending on machine Cat has plenty or none. We bought a B6 hammer for our 305 and picking it up Monday. Talked to the Bobcat guys last week and they are on allocation for new skids and mini's with most of them pre-sold. So what are ya'll experiencing out there?
We install primarily HDPE (corrugated plastic) pipe and except for larger diameter smooth-core pipe - supply is not an issue yet. Prices for plastic went ballistic last year - around a 60% increase - so far has been level since early December and neither one of our suppliers has mentioned an increase - though I expect it with crude being up. Crushed stone is like you - around a 20% increase and may go up again with fuel staying high. Yes, equipment is very scarce - looking for an extra excavator in the 20-25ton class - used - not much out thee that isn't worn out and they want unbelievable prices for that worn out stuff.
Call me crazy, but I have read a lot of history surrounding the communist revolutions in Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba and Venezuela, and I see serious parallels to what is happening here. If crime explodes, the economy dies, everyone loses their homes and businesses, and no one feels safe, then most people will do anything for the government to save them. The communists can then grab power, and run things their way.
Well we're no where near that scenario IMO. What we are seeing is the gov't mandated shut downs during 2020 are causing the supply chain issues we are having now. Business has been great for us as demand is still there and skilled workers few are far between to build the jobs. It's yet to be seen how bad of an effect higher prices are going to do to the construction industry but without a doubt it will cool it down. On the flip side there is so much liquidity in the commercial market it still makes sense for owners to build. Higher material prices will spur industrial growth as well.
The higher prices used trucks and equipment are bringing is the reason why we are getting rid of some items on the yard. Selling a pickup, 4700 International, 420 backhoe and a trench roller. Putting it on Ironplanet Marketplace. With what commercial auto and registrations costs now a days if you don't need that truck get rid of it.
My phone went dead all through January and February but is ringing a couple of times a week right now. I'm seeing under utilized stuff being traded or sold to obtain machines that will be used a lot more. Small dozers stopped being used around here more than ten years ago when mini excavators showed up with blades. It seems those dozers are becoming trade bait now. Large machines like artic trucks and 50 ton excavators seem to be moving out for smaller iron. Residential construction doesn't seem to be slowing at all for materials or prices. Truck and trailer hauling pallets of cut stone and concrete block just went by my house.
I work on the owner's side, and we've seen a lot of price increases for anything sewer or water related. Pre-cast anything is almost impossible to get right now, including both structures and RCP, of any diameter. Our primary contractors are saying the pre-cast companies are telling them new orders will deliver in 3 months. Pretty wild right now.
Same here. Offloading a couple of trucks, trailers, and some attachments while the market is hot. New equipment is hit or miss. We ordered a new Bobcat CTL back in October. It's still not here and keeps being delayed. Dealer has all our new attachments for the machine, just no machine. Every dealer I've talked to is in the same boat. Equipment is sold before it ever hits the lot. Forget about demoing a new machine. Buy and hope for the best. Interestingly enough, precast isn't a problem here. Usual lead times, but prices are up about 10% from last year. We do have 5 different pre-cast manufactures within an hour of the city. We've seen massive increases for steel culverts, and pretty big jumps for HDPE as well. Availability hasn't been a problem though.
Well the current only pre-cast manufacturer bought out the other 2 manufacturers over the last couple of years. They raised the price of RCP by 30% at the first of the year then shut down 2 weeks ago. Rumor has it the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is investigating them, probably for unfair trade practices. Further rumor is they are working a regional buyout of some sort in order to avoid charges. So it's a big mess at the moment. Trucking RCP from GA, TN, FL or MS is cost prohibitive with fuel prices if we could even get it there.
I am afraid I'm going to have to grind the rust off my trowel and remember how to brick up an inlet or manhole.. that's if we can get bricks...
Seeing that here as well, TONS of New constructs setting what had been slowed to a crawl industries on their heels, not enough manpower, no way to cast the volumes being called for as concrete takes its own time to cure out. Can see both sides and yes, we are seeing same levels of inability to provide.
I manage the property maintenance for a local town here and have to get quotes to be approved for contracted work. Those quotes used to be good for 30 days but now not much more than a week because of the unstable market. I had an HVAC unit go bad, only 2 years old, took 9 months for the part to come and it turned out to be for the opposite side of the machine. Ended up replacing the whole unit to get back on line. We're trying top do a couple jobs in house and have been struggling to get materials in many cases. I'm pricing a job now and require some 4" Schedule 80 PVC, I'm finding it to be $120/length where it used to be around $20. I've been buying materials in advance when I can because I fear they won't be available when I need them. Below is a picture of the electrical supply aisle at Home Depot in August 2021, it's gotten better but I still can't get some items to make repairs. I just got a quote for paving that's good for 3 weeks due to the unstable oil market.
Precast is plentiful here, one supplier last fall was booking 6 months out for some massive job but all others have acres and acres of stock. Must be a hub of it here almost because there is at least 5 massive suppliers, one has a 90,000 sq/ft facility alone. Unless it's a special pre-bench, anything you want is in stock. Haven't had to buy any pipe for a bit, but i'm sure glad I got a decent stock of SDR still. I know they aren't doing any price quotes, it's get a new price the day you want it they aren't guaranteeing any pricing, but have stock. Been busy with demolitions which is fine by me. Landfills nor bin companies have raised prices yet even with fuel insane, but I guess at $175/hr for a tandem rolloff it's still really good money. I think basements will be slow for me this year, I can't see any of the smaller builders building right now, too much risk that prices will drop off and build with prices insanely high and loose money. My guess is bigger builders don't care, if they lose money on a few houses it's not a big deal. Trying to sell as much as I can, going from work truck and personal to just one, probably selling CTL will just rent as for 100 hours a year it's not worth it especially when I can turn a profit on it after owning it for 3.5 years and 500 hours. These prices won't stay forever.
Concrete quotas and shortage here only way to guarantee mud is on site batch plants
We don't pour much concrete and when we do it's on-site trucks as it's just more convenient. Poured 4 yards of 3K psi flowable fill for a road crossing last week for $450 and change which is not bad IMO.
So is that on commercial warehousing type projects- or is that even on residential work? The only onsite you see here is at a big highway paving project or maybe a powerhouse project. Otherwise its all from the concrete plant in redi mix trucks. This is the first I've read of quota's and shortage of concrete. My only issue lately is trying to schedule the unloading of equipment hung up in the ports. Have two jobs this week that were supposed to happen a while back- I'm betting one or both of them won't happen because the equipment still won't be through customs. I have one other job that was supposed to happen early in january with equipment from canada. Supplier cancelled original delivery date- I don't think they will even give the contractor a estimated date right now. I also had difficulty finding 315 drive tires. I eventually found what I wanted- but couldn't get anything local.
It takes me 3 weeks to get slurry and that is twisting an arm to make happen if you dont do volume gravel pits are running 7 days a week to keep up with batch plants and there still running out and there is no weekend delivery unless its contracted Rebar is 3 weeks plus lead time precast is long lead Tilt buildings are going crazy there are probably 20 plus 200,000 sq ft buildings going up right now and the joist manufacturers are taking orders 18 months out one gc was told that the hoist for a project just started were delayed 6 months and another project was given a 2023 delivery date for its joist we were supposed to dig Plumbing next month start date been moved to december I have a backhoe on order from deere made the order in January October delivery last I heard Its wild times and the party going to continue all the way to this fiery train crash How many guys are going to be broke at this one you cant raise prices fast enough to meet the increases I see record revenues and little profits for a lot this year
In Jan. I got 5 yrd (minimum or delivery fee added) of 3500# with fiber, $800 ... here in FL
Residential is still redi mix But the big tilt projects are getting batch plants but it's not un common to get bumped the day of a pour Residential is as big a market as commercial maybe bigger there are 5 or 6 big track concrete companies that average 15 to 20 houses a day at 100 plus yards a slab cause the post tension that's not all the customs or 3 acre subdivisions Not to mention the three freeway expansions going
That would have been $600 for delivery here in the land of sand and limestone. The plant they normally send flowable from is co-located with a sand dredge. I keeping looking at volumetric trucks, but I'm not brave enough to try it.
I'm a self employed electrician, me & my son. Planning ahead, I've been able to buy materials, but costs have risen sharply. Average material cost is 3-4 times what it was in 2018. Certain items are made from unobtanium, and I'm out of luck. Generators have been back ordered since January 2020. I'll order, then wait 6 months. The lack of generators has sharply increased demand. I've sold at least three times as many as in past years, despite long waits & price escalation. Case machine parts have been 6 month backorder.
The company here started out with 1 truck several years ago and now has at least 7-8 along with tri-axle dumps, line pumps and a vacuum cement tanker tractor trailer. With ya' on being scared of them. Every time they pour for us I see a maintenance headache. I guess one just plans on putting two mixing bodies per chassis through its lifetime.
We do a fair bit of concrete, and personally I love the volumetric trucks, especially the new digitally controlled ones. Our supplier has a ton of mix designs on board. Makes it easy to adjust to the conditions, and keep it nice for finishing. To me they don't seem that complicated, the ones around here are a few hoppers with a main belt, and an auger. Augers are an obvious wear point, but I see a lot less to go wrong than say a screening plant.
we do a fair amount of city infrastructure upgrades for the city here. The guy that does all the bidding saw the writing on the wall last year and bought a boat load of stock. Pipe, joiners, gate valves, curb stops, man hole frame and covers, storm frame and grates, elbows, Ts, all the goodies. There is a local manufacturer for concrete pipe, and manhole pots, so no worries there. I think they also bought a tractor trailer load of geotec fabric. I do hear that there have been some issues with rough plywood. I guess the furniture grade is not a problem, but seems a waste for concrete work. Osb is manufactured here, but they make more money shipping it to the US, so local stores are charging like 40 bucks for a sheet of 7/16.
We do primarily farm drainage and soil erosion work - soil and water management. HDPE prices starting going up last March and went up close to 60% by Nov. - we bought up enough pipe last July to run us through this summer. If we hadn't we would have been paying three times as much and waiting to get the materials we need. They would not let us prepay and only take delivery as we needed so we had to take it all - HDPE doesn't like sunlight for long amounts of time so we only bought a short years supply - which for us is just over 1 million feet of various size pipe. We have a precast plant 10 miles from us and though we do not use much - have been able to get what we need - that being said - have a couple of friends who do a large amount of storm sewer work and they are like most of you - cannot get pipe - and what they do get - if there is a chip out of one end - instead of sending it back like they used to - they get the approval from those in charge to repair/patch what they can.
Housing is red hot here in my area and no slowdowns projected. Commercial is nuts as well. I see a lot of delays in construction. I.e. a house instead of rapid construction from start to finish now might sit a month waiting on siding or windows/doors. Trying to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry because when it starts to flatline I’m going to try to slide over to garbage/landfill trucks/machines and wait out the recession.
We've been preparing over the last 2 years for the slow down by getting DOT certifications, a GC license and fortifying financials. When the private market slows or stops usually gov't funded work continues. Just hedging our bets the best we can.
Most of the work we do in house is small quantities, under 5 yards. I've got a company I use that has turned out to be very reliable and they have a single axle truck for the short loads. I was remarking to the driver what good shape his truck was in and he replied it was due for replacement, that they would transfer the body to a new chassis. Apparently the wear parts are easily replaced and they go through them each winter and have little down time. Up here in the north during cold weather the sand can chunk up due to freezing and screw up the mix. They park the trucks inside to lessen the risk but I avoid the colder months even with antifreeze being available.
I learned years ago when the economy slows the need for food stays the same. One big reason I have worked fleet refrigerated the last 30 years. Your not going to get rich but you will stay employed.
Interesting. How big a factor does the road salt play into it?
The amount of damage road salt does is astronomical. The Highway Dept. at the same town I work for has been sending 32K trucks out to be re-framed after 8 to 10 years use. They're right in the thick of it every storm. The industry has finally adjusted by using heavier frame rails instead of double frames which just traps the salt between them. Re-framing costs them around $35,000, a new truck today is over $200,000 and has all the emissions and electronics crap on them. I think the concrete bodies are up high enough they don't get a high dose of the salt spray, plus the adverse condition of both temperature and snow are not conducive to concrete work so they may be able to keep the trucks out of the salt to some extent. Religious washing after a storm also is a big help. This company must do all of that because the truck I mentioned was 20 years old and was in like new condition!
The Blue Brute water pipe doesn't do sun light as well. That stuff is kept covered.
Good lumber is getting hard to get here as well. I guess you guys import a lot of lumber from Russia. With that shut down, our mills are sending everything your way. Even with tariffs, the lumber mills make more money selling to the US, just like the OSB mill. If you buy any OSB with Arbec stamped on it, it either came from a mill in Quebec, or from a mill I can almost see from my house.
I don't know what it does to transit mixers, but it sure is destructive to ALL vehicles used on highway. Auto bodies suffer most, then frames, but the whole vehicle takes a beating. Nothing wears out, they corrode. Most electrical problems, springs, brakes, wheel bearings & seals, everything under the vehicle.
The dumps used by DOT here also for snow removal came with 1/2" rails on the ones the state bought 2 years ago.
I think we have 2 LP OSB mills in the state and it's still $40+ per sheet at the big home stores. Probably cheaper through builders supply houses. Wife and I have been wanting to build a house for the last 2 years but lumber prices are ridiculous.
A lot of folks around here are re-learning how to brick up boxes.
Wife and I were looking at buying a piece of land and putting a mobile or modular on it. The price of the model we wanted went from $140k in 2019 to $220k.
Hey CM. Did the RCP outfit shutdown during the *vacation for everyone* back in '20? Or, did the workers just say fu©k it and not show up to work because they could make just as much or more with the freebies?
Yeah, & look at all the costs of upgrading your lot to prep it for that double wide. Last one I was involved with was modular set on a concrete foundation by crane. A simple rectangular ranch house. The owner bought the lot 20 years ago so he didn't factor land cost. Power, well, Comcast, septic system, driveway, he wanted a number of upgrades, & he had the walkout basement 3 bed rooms, two baths. His didn't come with a boiler. He added central air & a generator & a garage. His $150,000. house cost about $450,000 total.
No rumor has it they are in hot water with the feds (FTC) and in some sort of merger/buyout situation. We got pipe and structures from them in Jan.
While I appreciate the rising costs you have to be cunning We sold our house, simple 3bd 1bath split for 420k that we paid 150k for 6 yrs previously. Had builder put 28x44 2 bed 2 bath house on family land with river view and 3 bay garage, I did 660 ft driveway and underground utilities along with finish site for around 290k so made out like a bandit. Sell higher build high lol
What are regulations like in the US? Here, I can't sell building lots unless there is access to them. If along an existing roadway, I have to have the culvert installed, and it has to be 18 inch ribbed plastic, or concrete. If more than one lot, and they are not at the road, I have to build a suitable road, and I mean a wide ditched graveled road. Once approved, the province will put up a sign, and start looking after it. Grading, plowing, maybe even paving. Inside the city limits, if it was a large area, I would have to install water and sewer, curbs and pave, all within spec. Mind you a lot in the city large enough for a house sells for $30,000 depending the area. Once your street build is approved, it becomes city property, and they will maintain it, and you can sell your building lots. If I want to build a house outside the city, I have to pay a guy to come, and tell me where to dig some holes so he can check drainage for a septic system. He will advise on depth, and weather I can go down, or if I have to build up. If he give the green light, I can get a building permit. Once I get the permit, I can get temp power. The building inspector has to sign off on all steps of the build, and he has to give the ok before the inside walls can be closed in. At this point, If I have not already had my well put in, once it is done and approved, and water tests pass, I can get the power hooked up to my house. Once the home is done, they come and measure and take notes to decide how much tax I get to pay every year on the home I just paid a bunch of tax on to build. Oh and I can't do my own septic, it has to be an approved installer, I need a certified electrician to install, or at least sign off on my wiring before I can get power to the house hooked up, and all stamped lumber, no rough milled stuff.
Some cities may have ordinances. Otherwise it's about a willing buyer & a willing seller. Rural lots tend to be 10+ acre, a carryover from Act 250 a blunder of a law from 1968, it exempted large lots from most regulation small lots were required to meet. These days all but those with public sewer & water must be perk tested, then an engineered septic design.