In your opinion, what is the single most disruptive force in construction today?

This question was recently posted to the Building Products Professionals group on LinkedIn.  The most appropriate response (in my estimation) was, “The usual comment of the purchaser, “keep the quality with you, give me the lowest price”.”

Regardless of their use, post frame (pole) buildings are designed as permanent structures. The building purchaser only gets one chance to do it right, or do it wrong. Sadly, “do it wrong” happens all too often (to me the right number of wrongs should be equal to zero).

Other than purchasing a home or a vehicle, a pole building will likely be the largest purchase an individual will ever make. While it makes sense to want the process to go smoothly, most people spend more time planning a week-long vacation, than they do their new building.

Very few major purchases are actually dictated by price. If most were, no one would own a Harley-Davidson, or a Mercedes. Suzuki automobiles would have been a huge hit (or Yugos – back in the day).

Don’t be cheap

Yet every day, I see clients opt to drink the Kool-Aid of “cheap” on pole building prices.

Years ago, I figured out if one is going to sell a product on price alone, there is always someone else who will leave out something, or shirk on quality to be less expensive. Or even worse, only provide a portion of the materials needed to complete the building.

Horror stories exist all over the Internet of the last example. One of the worst involves a box big chain in the Midwest. Their customer purchased a list of materials from them, believing it to be everything necessary to construct the pole building of their dreams. Later they had to spend another $5,000 on the materials it took to finish the building!

We recently had a client invest in one of our buildings. He had also gotten a lower price on a pole building kit from a major contractor focused lumber dealer. When he pointed out to them the list was missing over $2,000 of materials needed to construct the building, they told him they would happily sell the “rest of the materials” to him. I hope you are shaking your head along with me!

Please – do it right the first time. Don’t make the mistake of settling for less, just to save a few dollars now. Divide those “savings” by the life of the building, in months (being conservative, use 480 months – 40 years). Saving yourself $1000 on pole building prices – it was about $2 per month to have done the job right the first time!