My framer told me I was over-engineering the roof trusses and it saved me $3,200 on the Jones project.

I kept adding extra bracing for snow load in a zone that barely gets 6 inches a year, and he just flat out said 'you're wasting money on 50 year old code standards' so I checked the new local codes and he was right, has anyone else had a trade call them out on over-building?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_nina19d ago

A buddy of mine had an electrician tell him the same thing on a house he was building. He had ran conduit for everything even though the code says you can use romex now, and the guy was like "dude you're burning money on pipe that's unnecessary." He checked and the electrician was right, the new code had changed three years ago. Saved him about a grand on material alone.

andrew_rodriguez19d agoMost Upvoted

Hold on, how much time and money did he save just by checking codes? $3,200 is nothing on a whole job if you're making sure the roof doesn't pancake in a once in a century storm. I've seen old timers get bit by assuming the new stuff is good enough, then the inspector makes you rip it all out anyway because they're still using the old book.

finleyh899d ago

Gotta say I see it the other way. A good framer who's paying attention to actual loads and not just gobbling up extra material is a keeper. Paying more for steel you don't need is just burning money that could go into the next job or your own pocket.