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Our amazing tips on how to save money on construction supplies are for the DIY person.
Undoubtedly, the cost of construction supplies have risen where you live just like they have here. So much so that new construction has become a distant pipedream for most.
If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, dig your heels in and get your hands a little dirty, you can build that dream project even if you’re on a tight budget.
We’ve been building contractors for over twenty years (you can read about our off grid build here) and have used all of my tips below. Honestly, it’s pretty much all we’ve used with the exception here or there. Cheap or Free doesn’t come easy. You may have to dig, drive, search, and often wait for the perfect find but it is doable.
For example, say you need ten windows but can only find one here or there, it can take you a year to locate all the windows you need for your build when following my tips.
That’s why planning ahead, along with patience, is essential when wanting to save money on construction supplies.
When we moved to Tennessee, we brought all our windows we’ve been saving over the years and used them in our new build. End result?
Most all of our windows were free (or at a GREAT discount) and they look amazing. This money-saving tip alone saved us over $3,000.00
Every home improvement store or lumber yard has a bone yard or a scrap pile. This is wood or construction supplies that have some damage of some sort.
Once, we bought 16 ft. decking boards for $.50 each from the boneyard! The ends were split and the wood was a little weathered. We only needed 14 ft. so we cut the ends off, built our deck and stained the boards.
In addition to the decking boards, we bought new windows for $25.00 each as they were installed on a new build and the owner didn’t like them.
Oops paint is another valuable way to save money on construction supplies.
You can pay $5.00 for a $50.00 gallon of paint in the oops section because someone didn’t like the color or it was mixed wrong. Most stores that sell paint have these oops paints available.
Inquire with your local lumber yard for such finds. Ask them if they have a bone yard, a ding and dent section, or a return pile you can look through for great deals.
Construction Supplies by Another Name
The funny thing about marketing is you can have the same product, slap a different name on it and charge double. Construction supplies are no different.
Some good examples of this are wood pellets. If you buy wood pellets for a rocket mass heater you’re going to pay $10.00 + a bag.
Now walk over to the equine section of a feed store and you’ll find those same pellets marketed as horse bedding for $4.00 a bag.
Another example is the metal totes you see in a lot of rustic décor. People use them for sinks, to hold towels and such. If you buy them at the feed store you’ll pay a higher price than if you buy them at a big box home improvement store.
Thirdly, horseshoe décor. They are all the fad now, people use them for towel hangers, trivets, and more. If you buy them online as décor you will pay a lot more than if you went to a local feed store and bought real horseshoes.
Unfortunately construction crews waste a lot of material when building. You can use this to your advantage when you’re the one building your project.
Any time you see a construction site, stop by and talk with the general contractor and get permission to go dumpster diving. The contractors have to pay to haul their construction debris off and are often welcoming to anyone who wants to take a load off their hands.
In the past we’ve been able to get free doors, wiring, insulation, boxes of caulk, nails, wood scraps, light fixtures and so much more. You would be shocked what gets thrown away at a construction site.
When saving on building materials that you will get for free, this is often the most labor intensive of all the ways to save. Particularly because those offering the free items just want them hauled away. Which means they are either still fully assembled, in a pile, hard to get to, or otherwise obstructed or large.
However, I’ve ran across some amazing free deals on Craigslist and Facebook Market. They are generally first come first serve so when you see a great free deal, be ready to jump on it ASAP.
Just in the past few days I’ve seen a storage building offered for free with usable windows, pickets, and siding.
Another free offer I spotted was a used wood basketball floor which was connected to 3/4 inch plywood! Never underestimate the value of free construction supplies.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid 20’s that I discovered there was a thing as wholesale building material stores. Now that are my saving grace.
Typically, a wholesale building supply will offer bits and pieces of random materials. We are fortunate to have one within driving distance that offers lumber and windows as well as most other construction materials we regularly need.
A prime example on savings for us recently was plywood and house wrap. Plywood is something we can’t mill ourselves and the big box stores were charging $36.00 a sheet at the time (now it’s almost $100 a sheet!). The wholesale store sold them for $17.00 a sheet. We saved almost $10.00 per sheet of plywood.
The house wrap at the big box store runs $125.00 for a roll, we paid less than $60.00 at the wholesale store. Huge savings on construction supplies.
Lumber prices reached a stratospheric high in May 2021, more than we have ever witnessed in our lives. As a result, people started taking manners in their own hands and are buying lumbermills’.
Lumbermills are a one time purchase with little investment thereafter (blades, oil, gas) and as long as you have access to wood you can mill any lumber you need.
We used all milled lumber for our build and bought a small sawmill from Hud-Son Sawyer called the Freedom Sawmill. It is perfect for our needs as it cuts logs 16 ft. long and 20 inches wide. You can learn more about our off grid home we built here.
Even if you don’t have a lot of timber on your own land, there are always people offering free felled trees online that you can mill.
Just the other day we were driving down our road and we saw a neighbor tying a large chain to an out building and connecting it to a tractor and pulling it down. We had a good look at the building and much of it was reusable. As we returned home we saw they were burning the building after the demo! What a waste of usable construction materials.
This is just one example of construction materials that can be recycled. Another one is by contacting a general contractor and asking them about any used doors or windows they may have from other jobs, including lighting. Often a contractor will keep the old items when they install a new ones, if they are in good shape.
Bricks, concrete blocks, and pavers are another free and recycled item I see available online and locally a lot. You can use these recycled finds to save you a lot of money in construction supplies.
We purchased our double French doors for our bedroom that were used. They had some nail holes and were scratched, but a little caulk and paint and they looked brand new. We saved over $700.00 by recycling used doors.
Have you gone to the lumber yard or building supply store lately? WOW! One would have to take out a second mortgage just to build a dog house!
Don’t give up your new construction dreams because of the cost of building materials. We’ve been contractors for over 20 years and we know ways to save you money when building a house!
You can read more in our latest article, Ways to Save Money When Building a House.
Let’s face it, construction is stressful. Even if it’s a small project it can cause stress.
As a contractor, I can honestly say our house has been under construction in one form or another for over twenty years. Do ya feel my pain?
During these years, we’ve accumulated some tips to help save our sanity, and our marriage during renovations and construction.
10 Home Renovation Tips to Keep Your Sanity
Building off the grid using natural materials can save you thousands of dollars. We have 6 Housing Ideas For Off Grid Living that will save you money. Time to think outside of the box and get creative with your building materials.
Supply chain issues, inflation, and labor shortages have converged to drive the cost of construction materials up across the board. These factors are putting pressure on precast concrete producers, increasing production costs, and squeezing profit margins.
According to the National Association of Home Builders in the U.S., materials prices increased 20.4% year over year and 33% since the start of March 2020 In addition, the World Bank predicts energy prices will rise over 50% in 2022.
Despite the external forces driving costs higher, precast concrete producers have several opportunities to create efficiencies in their production and capitalize on new opportunities in the market for sustainable products. This article describes six ways producers can unlock more profits from their precast products:
Reducing production costs is one of the fastest ways to boost profitability. For precast concrete producers, this means reducing the use of their most expensive ingredient—cement. By replacing or reducing the quantity of cement required to produce quality precast concrete, producers can boost profitability significantly.
SCMs can act as a reliable replacement for cement in concrete. Studies and industry testing have proven that SCMs increase concrete’s strength over time to levels greater than traditional concrete mixes. The most common SCMs—fly ash, slag and silica fume—also have an added environmental benefit by sequestering post-industrial waste from coal and steel.
Recent developments, including COVID-19 disruptions, raw material shortages, and the Clean Air Act, mean SCMs may not be a long-term sustainable option. In some markets, however, SCMs are still plentiful and cheap.
Portland-limestone cement (PLC)—also known as Type 1L cement—is a blended cement with a higher limestone content. It has been widely adopted by concrete producers around the world as it works, measures, and performs the same as standard cement, but with a reduction in cement and, therefore, a lower carbon footprint.
PLC replaces up to 85% of the clinker used in regular concrete with limestone, resulting in up to 10% less CO2 emissions. It’s suitable for all applications, and when blended with SCMs, PLC performs similarly to regular Portland cement.
The concrete industry is facing a growing demand for sustainability. Up to 50% of commercial building developers are looking for more sustainable solutions, and suppliers across the industry are feeling the pressure to lower their carbon footprint.
This growing demand for greener building materials is partly a response to the threat of climate change as various governmental bodies and industries are working to reduce the CO2 produced in construction:
Producers that take the lead on adopting innovations to create greener precast products will be better prepared for new regulations and can position sustainability as a competitive advantage to compete for greater market share. They also have an opportunity to charge a premium for low carbon products, helping to improve profit margins.
Carbon mineralization technology, such as CarbonCure Precast, works by injecting recycled carbon dioxide into fresh concrete during mixing. The injected CO2 undergoes a chemical reaction and turns into a mineral, becoming permanently sequestered in the concrete. CO2 emissions that were once in the atmosphere are locked away permanently in the concrete.
Because it also maintains strength, carbon mineralization allows for the quantity of cement in mixes to be reduced.
This CO2 utilization in concrete is not only sustainable—it makes good business sense. Analysts say that CO2 mineralization has the potential to become a USD $800 billion global industry by the year 2030 as demand for greener construction materials increases.
CarbonCure is a retrofit technology that injects CO₂ into the concrete like an admixture, which is then mineralized within the concrete. The CarbonCure Precast system includes a Valve Box that connects a CO₂ storage tank to the manufacturing equipment and a Control Box that monitors the system in real-time. The easiest way to conceptualize it is to think about CO₂ as another admixture. The technology is integrated with the existing batch operation system in the same way.
CarbonCure’s technology has been used by a range of precast manufacturers to produce concrete products used in buildings and parking garages, and by prestressed manufacturers that have produced wall panels, decking systems and general commercial load-bearing.
Concrete made with recycled concrete aggregates is often thought to be weaker than concrete made with natural (virgin) aggregates as the recycled concrete aggregates can be less dense, have a higher water absorption and a lower crushing value than natural aggregates. It can also have a significantly increased drying shrinkage and chloride ion diffusion coefficient, creating durability concerns.
Recent tests have shown, however, that the use of recycled aggregates in concrete blocks could give a compressive strength similar to that of blocks manufactured without any recycled aggregates. Using recycled aggregates in the manufacture of concrete blocks without any natural aggregates is not economical though, since a relatively high quantity of cement is necessary to obtain the required compressive strength.
Treatment of recycled concrete aggregates with CO2 results in the mineralization of the CO2, improving the properties of the aggregates.
Precast concrete producers can boost the profitability of their businesses by adopting strategies to attract and retain talent. Some producers are noting that the adoption of innovative technology and processes is having a positive impact on hiring.
These innovations are helping to reinvigorate the way people see the construction industry as a whole and can attract younger workers to a market that’s facing a severe labor shortage. Further, by adopting sustainable innovations, concrete producers can attract environmentally-conscious millennial and generation Z candidates.
The concrete industry is one of the oldest industries in the world because it has consistently risen to meet new challenges head on and evolved to meet the demands of society throughout the centuries.
The challenges it faces today are no greater than any it has faced in the past, yet the innovations and technical advances in the industry are better than ever. By adopting these innovations, producers can remain profitable for generations to come.
To learn more about how you can boost your company’s profitability with sustainable technology, download our eBook: 3 Ways Precast Concrete Producers Can Profit From Sustainability.
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