No matter how you frame your project. All the work that we provide has to be done. The difference is, we do all the work in a very controlled and calculated manner.
I think we have discussed in “The Broken Framing Process” the inefficiencies of the planning and labor more. In this blog, we will discuss why the pre cutting is a vital part of the process.
You may wonder why couldn’t the plans be fixed and the materials just be figured more accurately. Delivered to the job and cut on site similar to how most framing crews do it now.
Well, the truth is you can and it is vast improvement over the current system. And even though the cost for doing all the work necessary is offset by being more efficient with the materials and a more streamlined process. When we cut the materials we can actually eliminate the cost of the work of the planning stages. There are several reasons. I will go over a few.
Purchasing. Typically the materials are bought from a single source that provides lumber to many jobs. That pricing is based on supplying to most jobs that will require many extra trips for short orders and pickups. You pay for all the inefficient jobs going on, even though yours is running more efficiently. And since that lumber is bought from a single source, while there 2x material may have good pricing, maybe there plywood pricing is high. We buy our materials in bulk from different wholesale sources that don’t need to mark up for short orders and pick ups.
Controlled Environment. Chances are, if you are reading this, you spend a good portion of your day outside on job sites. But even if you do, we all have to spend a large portion of our time inside working at a desk and on a computer. A framer has those same types of roles but is required to do those task in the rain, snow, mud, heat, cold etc. Could you imagine if you had to do that portion of your job that way? Also for every board put up on a house (except for studs) it needs to be cut. Do you dry your hair in a bathtub? Make your toast in the sink? Obviously not. That is what a framer has to do. When we are cutting offsite in a dry environment we can cut faster and safer. We also stack the material in the order needed. No need to waste time to down stack thousands of boards to get to something on the bottom. Also a ton of space is not required. So small job sites are not an issue.
Waste. If you are “green minded”, whether that is dollars to you or the environment. You win. Normally, all the waste is gathered together. Papers, plastics, metals, clean wood and nail embedded wood. The vast majority of that waste is clean wood. You then pay for all of that “waste”, by volume or weight, to be taken to the dump. And that clean wood is the vast majority. We’ve all heard that one mans trash is another mans treasure. Because we are cutting the wood in a clean and separate workplace, we can efficiently use the wood for other purposes. Shavings, mulch, fuel, etc.
Now that the purchasing, cutting and waste has been controlled. Those savings and the streamlining can be passed along to Owner, Builder, Framer and even the Lumber Company.
