Hi Mike,
Thanks for adding your voice to this conversation...
I came between $16128 (if I brokered it out to one of my younger Timberwright acquaintances) to $34560 (if I laid it out and cut it) for the salt box in question within the first 3 minutes of reading about it...Good to see you landed in the exact same area for your assessment for its costs. And yours would probably be a better deal as mine might not include wood?
I agree, if you do this day in and day out like we seem to, we agree (custom or stock item timber frame) if you have been doing this a while it isn't difficult at all to give a potential client a really accurate prices for just a frame. With just a little more info you can provide them the transport and raising fees as well. Clients love speed, set fee pricing, and the knowledge base to succinctly delve deeper into this topic with them without too much hemming and hawing or reluctance to share the information...even if some of it is validated as "averages." To be able to do this "off the top or your head" is even more valuable in instilling confidence in a client...Assuming one can do that accurately...
(P.S. Mike...expect an email soon from me on some frame related item questions, your current timeline of projects, and related... I may need your assistance and thoughts on some stuff...Thanks...)
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Jay, Your work takes you on a different path than mine and perhaps others. Our different paths head in a general direction or have a similar view, but they are different.
Hi Tim,
It would be foolish of me to say for certain on whether our paths are very different. However, I suspect they aren't really at all that much different, but perhaps working in a broader field of Guild art trades and in a global format has equipped me with perhaps a broader perspective?? You do something on and off for over 35 years and you get a deeper understanding of it...
By all means you and the folks you work for have their system of pricing, I'm sure it is on a level of work I don't perform in.
Again, that may well be true, but I suspect it isn't?
I have consulted on Cruck Frames in the U.K., to delving into items with Ed L. (who I miss terribly) on the Christ Church project in New Zealand, his work on the Synagogue in Poland, and all the way down to DIYer project restoring and/or building Bousillage traditional Creole timber frames...and the gambet in between...With that, and the diversity it reflects from huge projects in the commercial range (as I am on now) to small "pizza pavilions" in the Asian style for an elementary school...I would doubt that there is too much I might not have at least studied that would or could have merit in the methods you perform.
I would listen if you could explain how you price a frame alone and equate it into square foot pricing. And why you would do that? I have no problem learning new trick.
Tim...
...New tricks is what I too am here to learn all the time!!
..and share what "tricks" I known and understand with fellow Timberwrights and potential consumers of our frames and other craft...
The basic methods for square foot pricing are well outlined in this conversation thus far...If you ever wish to "dig deeper" into it, by all means send me an email or give me a call. My online business card lists all my contact info at the bottom of each post...I would love to hear from you and chat about this topic to any depth or detail you wish to...
If you are listing frames pre designed, pricing by the square foot is logical. To design a fresh frame by sitting down and first running the square foot number, well, I'm still not sure how that process works.
Part of this ability, no doubt, is a great deal of experience on many different types of frames and in many different disciplines. These prices do not very often include the timber as that commodity does fluctuate a great deal, especially for high end custom or complex traditional frames like Bousillage, Minka, Kubbhus, Kath Kuni or other vernacular style...
If a "pre designed" boiler plate frame, then wood/timber can often be included with little issue.
The first thing is determining the construct of the frame, square foot pricing of the building is derived from and based on the design of the frame.
I wouldn't really disagree with the above comment one bit...
You can have a "metric" of volume or area be very different from one frame style to the next...Most definitely...A Dutch design or a "Tidewater Cape" Saltbox could have many more joints than an average "colonial salt box." Nevertheless that does not change the ability of someone with the correct knowledge base (and a calculator in my case) in providing a price that is at least 70% to 80% accurate within just a few moment of punching in numbers so a potential client of such a project could understand their potential project better...
Regards to all,
j
