I've drawn plans for a stick-built workshop and interested in knowing how much to allow for material waste. (Percentage ?) and is it broken down by type of material, such as 2x4's, plywood, shingles, sheathing, etc. Many thanx!
Depends on the plans and dimensions. If it can be sheathed in full 8' sheets of plywood, say 24', there is less waste than if it is 23' or 25'. Shingles can be returned so there is no more than part of one bundle in waste. Any extra 2 x 4's will eventually be use for something down the road.
Thanx Ed. How would a contractor estimate waste?
The answer is yes, no, definitely, probably, and maybe.
You will find that you will use up all of one type of supply, and have others left over. You cannot hit it just right.
Steve
"waste" can come for a couple of different sources....
design errors, construction errors, bad material.
so it depends on how good each of these categories is
when I was building laboratory specimens (8' shear walls; 8', 12, 16' long) we had no design errors because the design was so simple
depending on the skill & experience of the crew we had the occasional const error but again we were building simple repetitive stuff
The bulk of our waste came from "un-usable" material.....by the time we stickered & dried a unit of 2x4's, we usually had a number of "hockey sticks)
Since we wanted our test specimens to be pretty decent we ordered about 10 to 15% extra on 2x4's
but if you're building with green lumber you can get it all nailed together and it will stay straighter when it dries out.
As Ed mentioned, on plywood you should be able to get really close depending on how the design matches up with sheet sizes. Plywood, being a manufactured product should have zero un-usable sheets.
You've got to evaluate your process & determine how many mistakes you might make.
Nowadays with expensive gas, expensive labor, running to store doesn't make sense... imo better to overbuy and avoid the extra trips, then return unused stuff when you're all done.
cheers Bob
Two years ago they didn't care about waste, they were ordering about
25% more than they needed of everything and throwing away anything left over. Time was money. I built a 10x16 shed, remodeled a kitchen and put an addition on my house and more than half the stuff came out of a dumpster. I bet these days they are digging in the dumpster themselves for a little board if they need one. I would say to plan as close as you can rounding up on the high side and then order several extra 2x4s and a couple extra sheets of plywood. HD/Lowes are really pretty good about taking things back if you really guess wrong. It is better to go back with extra stuff when you are done than to be in the middle of something with people standing around and run out.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.