With lumber prices soaring in the past several months, home builders are scrambling for ways to keep the cost of construction in check, fueling a renewed interest in alternative materials. While they may still not be cheaper than lumber, the spike in lumber prices is causing many builders to rethink the cost/benefit tradeoffs of traditional alternatives to lumber — steel, concrete, and plastics.
During NAHB’s Building Systems Week in late September, I presented “Builder Attitudes Towards Systems-Built Construction,” which summarized the findings of three different recent studies related to builder views and usage of offsite construction methods and factory-built components. Overall, the market is bullish toward use of offsite methods, and some sectors—such as multifamily—have been much quicker to adopt these into housing production.