“I work for a construction company and there is a long wait for building materials. And this is just the beginning.”
I’ve been hearing that, too. We know a lot of people in the Trades, and Beau is a retired Electrician and Plumber who is constantly being asked to take small jobs by past employers. Labor is short, too.
We just replaced the flooring in our Family Room. $23 a SHEET for birch plywood underlayment. Insane!
We were using 3/4” tongue and groove Advantech for our sub-flooring and it went from $40 dollars per sheet to $90 per sheet just in February (and we purchase it by the tractor trailer load). Excellent product, but we had to switch back to 3/4” plywood to keep the client from getting sticker shock. All this is covid related. We have not even began to feel the trickle down from fuel going up 50%.
So finally I ordered a gizmo from harbor freight — sure enough the electrical switch has an issue. Hubby's like well I don't have time to do it. Bath tub faucet leaks and the drain under the tub is leaking-since that tub is just directly over the tub downstairs, his solution is to put a bucket under the tub and empty it when its full. So that tub is a no use-and it's the main bathroom.
Then the sink in the main bathroom got a rather large leak, so there's a dishpan there. And the main kitchen sink/dishwasher is clogged. I washed a few dishes by hand and then ran the dish washer.
Foam starts coming out of the dishwasher-so all the water in the sink from the hand wash went into the dishwasher. So I did get hubby to at least bring the shop vac up from the shed and we got the water vacuumed out.
Then I took a bucket of water and put it into the dishwasher and ran the cycle. The dishes came out clean, but every time the dishwasher emptied, the sink had some of that water come up into the sink and then it slowly drained out the regular drain. And the front panel of the dishwasher fell off, and hubby said he'd fix it— he was just so glad I figured out how to get the dishes clean.
And the intake from the well-that hose has sprung a leak and there's a dish under it set at an angle to let the water go into the drain, and for some reason the holding tank ain't filling up and the pump comes on every time you turn on the water to get a drink or whatever.
Well that ain't all, but gives ya an idea. Now hubby did a lot of the wiring when we built our house, and he did the plumbing for our house and our daughter's house. So he knows how to fix this stuff, and I even picked out replacement faucet like he told me too—too long ago to even be believable. I think hubby may be related to Pa Kettle-gonna fix that one a these days.