It has been over 20 years since I have had anything to do with framing a prefab package house. A potential client has asked for an estimate on the labour cost for assembling a package for him. Theoretically there should be no labour for cutting, just for assemly. I seem to recall that we spent quite a bit of time head-scratching trying to figure out where all the pieces went. Does anyone have any current experience with this and if so, is there a formula for labour estimating?
Ed Hoeppner
Hornby Island, B.C.
Replies
Well, I'm far from an expert on the subject. But I've sold, bought, and installed wall panels. So maybe I can provide som insight.
I worked for a GC for a short time a few years back. We built a spec house and couldn't decide if building with wall panels was cheaper or not.
So the owner sat down and tried to think of everything that would affect the price and how much labor there would be. In the end he figures it would cost $3,100 to stick frame the walls, and $3,150 to buy and install wall panels. Virtually the same amount.
If you're not buying the walls themselves, that might be tougher to figure. We used panelized walls on the "spec house from hell", so maybe I can recall some figures from that.
We had 6 guys show up to set the exteriors. I had a crane there to set them in place. I'm going from memory, but I'm pretty sure it took 2.5 hours to set them. Then 2 guys stayed with me and we spent another 3 hours doing the interiors. So that would be roughly 24 man hours.
I had spent some time beforehand snapping lines for the panels which isn't included in that. The guys that helped set the panels had done them before, so they pretty well knew what they were doing. And the crane operator was a good one.
Is that any help?
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