Timber Framers Guild Forums General General Forum Questions ballpark pricing from Timber Framers

Wow that information on ballpark pricing from Rudy was great! He said that he prices his frames from $7-$9 a board foot.
Does that include raising?

How do other framers initially ballpark price a frame?

It is a helpful skill to have when you are first talking to a client. I have to do it all of the time and wish I had someone to compare to.

My process is this: I give an initial ballpark and if the client is game, I am contracted to complete a Timber Frame design. From the completed timber frame design, I provide a fixed bid and a raising date.

I understand the various factors needed to price a Timber Frame, but I do not have the years of experience pricing out frames to see a pattern develope which would enable me to develope a formula such as Rudy's board footage formula.

What other formula's are used by professional framers?

the thread where Rudy talks about board foot pricing is "barn conversion question" in timberframe design.... go back to show all topics from this year.
your method with the client is identical to mine, I have a ballpark for smaller structures like a porch around 30/40 per square foot, additions or homes at 50/60 per square foot, and the highest quote so far was for a 5000sq ft barn/entrance for a local zoo at 75 per square foot. For me these ballpark figures include transport, timber, cutting and raising(not design or engineering)
The finished price, like the finished plans, takes some work and nail biting. Try to get together with a co-worker and go over the estimate, this will give you more confidence with the client and 2 brains will think of more items specific to the job, including how difficult the client may be to deal with.

my price could be a bit high, the canadian dollar is small in many ways and I'm a recovering farmer so I can't afford to underquote... I'd rather stick frame that lose my land timberframing

if you're craving comparison, find someone in your general area who builds in a similar style and ask them directly how much they charge.... you may be surprised that some folks will give you some good information...

We're still using the same method for pricing, although we are doing a lot more adaptive re-use work so the formula becomes useless in those situations. Our hard costs have gone up like evryone elses so the one change we have made on new frames is to break out the cost estimate for raising and transportation as a seperate line item. If the client wants a planed and oiled finish, that also becomes a seperate line item in the quote.

It's obviously smoke and mirros, but it also makes the cost of the frame itself more tangible, even if the illusion is it's a deal. I like to think good work has to cost more than the market will bear so the real trick is helping the client beleive they really have chosen a better value which means a better investment. If all they're interested in is the bottom line, we're back to where we were when we were stick framing.

Keep up the good work!

Rudy

Collin,

You asked how other framers come up with an initial ballpark estimate.

Great question.

If it something straightforward, I can fairly quickly come up with a reasonably close stick count and board foot estimate. Figure the materials costs and plug in the handy "man-hours per stick" multiplier and you have the basis for a guesstimate. Our man-hours per stick number is based on record keeping and extrapolation.

Obviously you have to have some idea what the frame would be like. Sometimes it is just guesswork.

I would love to hear some other framer's input.

Gabel

The only real method that works will be based on the historical costs of your style of framing cut with your methods and tools.
Items to remember when bidding something you have not tried before: corners, larger timber sizes, degree of difficulty of joinery, experimental finishes, weather, site specific raising dificulties, new wood species (I use white pine as a benchmark and then apply a multiplier as needed), specialty tooling, complex metal work, did I say corners, unusual foot print and more, unusual height, secondary and tertiary pieces.
I also use a matrix of factors to crosscheck: Bd Ft, joint count, piece count, square foot.

Then there is always the old dart board.

AS the saying goes in the building industry: When you finally figure out your labor perfectly your price will be too high. Well presented high value work is easy to sell and quality sells itself. If you are bidding competetively against others and getting every bid your price is too low. If you are too busy the same may also be true.
Best of luck,
Curtis

Listen to Uncle Miltie!

I totally agree...this sort of thing really depends on who/where you are, and how you are doing what you do. Other factors...metalwork, site-access, chamfers and stops, shaped timbers, curves, hand-raising vs crane raising, rushed-schedules and a really important one: handling big wood. We add extra handling time for particularly long, big or heavy timbers...anywhere from 10-20% extra labour on those pieces in our experience (OK...so maybe we're just wimps)

The most brain-twisting answer I've come across is ballpark pricing by internal volume...it makes so much sense but I still can't quite get my head around it! (We did a job in Holland a while back and the planning laws there are based on cubic volume)