I know this is a building question, but anyone who has a feel for costs will appreciate your input.
New house, original Facia and Freeze board was aluminum, but had to upgrade to Hardie Board, due to assosiation rules. House is 4,000 sq ft, 2 story, more complex than normal.
Builder needs $12,000 extra, does this sound right???
Replies
Hardie
Yup. Materials, labor, insurance, etc. Big house, 2 stories, more complex than normal.....How many quotes have you gotten? Are they all in that range?
Thx Hardie
No quotes, this is a new house, my builder is giving this up-charge after changing Freeze and Facia from Aluminum to Hardie.
Builder
Thats a little different.
I assumed from your first post that there was existing trim that was being changed to Hardie Trim. I'm not sure without knowing a little more how he would be able to justify what amounts to an up charge based primarily on a material change in that amount. Material would be more, I'm not sure labor puts it that far off.
If I understand correctly, it was originally wood wrapped in aluminum on new construction. Now it's Hardie Trim on new construction. Does that include paint on the Hardie? Caulked, nails filled,one coat primer, two coats finish?
Ask a lot more questions.....something's a little off here.
http://www.buildingsupplyhouseusa.com/hardie_siding_and_tile_backer
http://www.ronshomeandhardware.com/Painted-Coated-Aluminum-Roll-Flashing-Valley-s/197.htm
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Carpenter/Hourly_Rate
-Paul
Paul
Many thanks, that was good information, yep it includes everything, but the hardi came already primed.
This is a very reputable builder, everyone thinks very highly of him, but I guess business is business and he is in business to make money.
I will sit down with him and ask him to show me how he added up to $12,000 extra. The way he does the Freeze board is a lot more expensive I think with Hardi in labor, as he does not nail it onto the brick. He makes boxing against the framing, allowing for the brick to fit behind the freeze board, Means the freeze nails onto the boxing. I'm not sure if this would have been different with Aluminum?
Thanks again.
Freeze & Fascia
I did carpentry for almost 30 years and am familiar with your subject but have a question. When you say "Hardie Board" aren't you talking about the siding? I know of alot of different materials used today for the fascia's and freeze Boards but do not know exactly what material your contractor is selling you. Call you be more specific. When you said your existing is alluminum, don't you mean they are wrapped with?
Thanks, the initial plans called for Aluminum facia and freeze boards, with vinyl soffits. The walls are not siding, they are brick. The property owners association was OK with the vinyl soffit, but wanted Hardi for the 8" freeze board against the brick under the soffit and 8" Hardi for the facia board. This is what is costing $12,000 more.
Ask for the material and labor on the aluminum
I agree. $12,000 in this time frame seems very high. It depends on how complicated your soffit and fascia are. But if you do the perimeter of roof and area of the soffit you can come to some conclusion. On a crude 30 x 70 foot floor plate you might have 200 lineal ft of facia and 500 sq ft of soffit. Any way you look at it, he may be getting a lot for the work. He will now have to paint, how many coats etc...but still.
Hardie is not the most wonderful product. It is heavy, needs to be painted and has had some problems in our area of delaminating or swelling due to over driven nails. If it is installed you have to be very careful about finishing all cut ends and or caulking the butt joints.
Have you asked about using an Azek type product an increasingly specified product for these applications. If you can accept white, it does not have to be painted, is light and easy to install and will not rot. It also has a wonderful bead board soffit material that is quite attractive.
But whatever you use your contractor needs to show you why there is such a cost increase. There will be labor, materials and possibly finishing. Each product will have numbers attached per sq ft and per lineal ft and he should be able to show you why the cost jumps so much. You could also call another installer of the product and find out how much they would charge.
Peter
Thanks Peter
My apology, I have been away from this for a long time. I looked at the material this evening and it is Miratec, primed.
I will ask him for the costs.
Miratec is same as Hardie Trim
Miratec trim boards are more or less the same thing as Hardie trim boards. Trim boards are uniform and not the same as the siding which is a laminated, 3 layers of wood and cement product. But both products need paint and are heavy. That is why I suggested looking at the new PVC trim products which seem to be doing quite well in the field. They have the same coefficient of expansion as wood and can be had either with a smooth or rough cut cedar appearance. They are easier to cut, can be welded together and not need to be painted if white is what you are looking for as a trim color. There was some issue about painting them dark colors so in that case you'd probably be better off with the Miratec or Hardie materials. Azek is one of the trade names of the trim materials.
Peter
I take it the house is yet to be built and changing from the original speced aluminum on the estimate, to a synthetic, will have an up charge of $12,000. I've never seen trim made from aluminum but it's commonly used as a wrap. Lower grade, less expensive lumber can be used underneath the wrap. Since you have to put up a base trim to wrap, putting up a synthetic instead doesn't require much more than a little more careful measuring and cutting, some materials may require hand nailing. Of course, you are leaving off the wrapping which is time consuming to install. Aluminum isn't cheap either. Leaving it off and the labor to install should more than cover any additional costs for material. There wouldn't be any additional work in setting up scaffolds.
It may be, that originally, the contractor would only have to put up rough backers for the aluminum. Many hire specialists to do the aluminum and they can make a sad looking nailer look pretty. If the contractor, now, has to put up pretty trim that won't be wrapped, it's more work. Is it $12,000 worth of work? I'm very suspect, unless you have a real complicated roof, lots of dormers, gabels, porches,etc. You've only mentioned two boards, facia and frieze.
You should be able to sit down and talk to your contractor about this proposal. If you can't discuss such issues now, you could be in for a bumpy ride. You can easily figure the material cost within an acceptable range, just add up the measurements and go price it. You won't be able to figure labor costs but you can take a guess at how many hours $12,000 will buy. At $45/hr. that's 266 hrs. About an additional 8 days for a four man crew. It doesn't smell right, 8 days, 4 carpenters, trimming a 4000 SF house !!?? Experienced crews in my area would frame and roof a house in 8 days. If your contractor can't reasonably explain the up charge, find someone else. Get back to us, I'd like to hear the explanation.
This is how it went down tonight.
1.) Builder got quotes for boxing and facia plus freeze in in Aluminum from folks South of the border who did good work for him before. Then the Architectural review board here said no Aluminum. The Builder then got the current carpenter who framed the house to quote.
2.) Material is almost the same but total labor quoted is $14,000. This is $12,000 over my budget.
3.) The labor for the boxing, Miratec frieze and facia, is almost 1/3rd of the labor cost he charged for framing the whole house.
4.) Carpenter says this work and his price is at a different rate, as that is what the market pays and he is competitive. This work is thus kind of like the cream on top. Says three weeks, three people labor.
5.) Builder says he will get two more quotes. Can I trust him?
6.) I agreed to look at the new quotes, and mentioned that the price is still over by too much, Builder and I will go see the architectural review board and negotiate back to Aluminum, as there are houses built this way in the development.
7.) In the mean time the Carpenter said he will bring his labor down to $12,000.
Willie, normally pros are not going to answer any questions regarding prices. There are too many unknowns. You haven't given us much information. We have no idea where you are, what stage the house is currently in, what the house looks like or what details are required to install your trim. However, it sounds like you are only changing materials from the original estimate and it just doesn't follow that such a change should involve that much of a labor price increase, on that job. To someone who has been building homes for many years, 3 weeks for 3 guys installing roof perimeter trim seems outrageous and I would seriously question their competence. We are talking $12,000 additional labor over the labor it would have cost to install the trim and wrap it. It's going to take this crew an additional three weeks to install a different material, why? It doesn't make sense. How long was it going to take to install and wrap the original trim? How can simply changing the material while leaving off a laborious element, the aluminum, involve so much additional work. If you have increased the parameters of the job and it now requires filling nail holes, priming and painting, that changes the equasion but just changing the material from pine boards to Miratec and upping the care of installing doesn't justify the increase.
Hammer
Thanks, I really appreciate the time you have taken to reply. Your answers are re-assuring and make sense.
I think what happened here is either the builder is having a tough time meeting his budget, or he mistakenly did not know he is dealing with an Engineer, got into bed with his Carpenter and tried to get $12,000 extra out of the job. Could be that he missed part of this in his budget, but he needs to then say so and I will work with him.
The house is in Pinehurst, North Carolina, being built in a prime golf development, which is well established.
The framing has been completed, only boxing needs to be done for the frieze, I thought this would be part of framing, but builder says no, this is part of frieze.
House is 4000 sq ft with additional 1200 sq feet garage space, a bit more complex than your normal house. Two stories.
The total linear facia and freeze together amounts to 1,300 ft approximately.
The Miratec cost $1,400, he got if for just over $18, per 192" 4/4 8" board.
I will post a picture tonight.
Don't expect a price from anyone, but would be nice to say $14,000 labor is way over the top, rediculous, or perhap just a little too expensive, or perhaps in line for this kind of house.
Wish me luck, this was the first speed-bump, this being a very reputable builder as seen by the community.
It has two garages, needless to say the one is my wood-shop. :-)
same issues
Great advice here and thought I would offer up what I have learned. The Hardie board and the like are VERY hard to put up and thus, cost much more to purchase as well as install. If you are doing vinyl soffitts I would consider a composite outdoor board. Theya re readily available, cut and nail like wood, can be painted without any of the other issues. Another friend did this on their house in Maine and it is still going strong. I am a big fan since there is not alum. clad wood to rot and no extra expense to install. It is likely that, once your neighborhood sees this, it will be standard. Good luck!
Labor Talk
$14,000 could be 5 guys for 2 weeks at $35.00 per hour. It depends upon where you are, but you might be able to find some out of work guys or folks willing to work for reasonable wages and whittle it down a bit. After all, you don't require craftsmen on this type of work, do you? Lots of cabinet guys out looking - at least around here they are.
There should be no bad times for good people doing good work, but then, this world is different now.....
House is complete
Thanks all for the input.
My house is done and we are moved in. It all worked out well, there was no upcharge for the Miratec facia and freeze, after a long session with the builder and his trim carpenter.
My shop is set up, so from not being able to cut wood since 2006, I am smiling and working hard at making sawdust. :-)
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