CARPENTRY · INTERIORS AND FINISHES · FIXED BY STEP 08

Heat comes on in October and the miters open

The trim was tight at walkthrough. Then the building got its first heating season, the miters opened, and the callback came three to nine months after the check cleared.

WHY IT'S A CARPENTRY PROBLEM

Paint and tile either fail at install or they hold. Wood keeps a clock running after you leave the site, and that clock is set by the thermostat and the weather, not by how well your guys cut. Carpentry is the only interior finish where doing everything right on the day can still generate a defect list in January.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Callbacks get charged back at full labor and mobilization cost against a job that closed months ago and whose profit you already recognized. Repeat callbacks from one builder turn a profitable job into a loss, and the books never get reopened to find it.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

13%

Derived from Framing, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 12%.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

18%

Derived from Framing, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 22%.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

Derived from Framing, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 10%.

Wood is hygroscopic, so material installed at a moisture content that doesn't match its in service equilibrium is going to move. The classic failures are open miters, separation in tongue and groove and flooring, sticking doors, and nail pops, and they turn up on the same schedule: the first time the building gets heated hard or dried out. Whether HVAC was running and the building conditioned before your trim went in is the controlling variable, and that call belongs to the GC. You install on the schedule you're given, the season turns three to nine months later, and the defect appears after acceptance. Standard scopes give you 48 hours to respond to a warranty work order and require the correction at no cost.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Log a moisture reading on the trim material and the substrate before you install, with the date and a record of whether the HVAC was running, and keep it in the job file.

STEP 02

When you're told to set trim in an unconditioned building, send one written paragraph to the GC that day saying so, because that record is what turns a January callback into a change order conversation.

STEP 03

Open a warranty cost code and charge every callback, drive time included, back to the original job number, then sort warranty cost by builder once a quarter and bid that builder accordingly.

THE FIX

Step 08: Standards and accountability

Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work.

CFOS-08 · CHAPTER 8

Five hours a month, spent projecting the work

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Carpentry by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

PMs aren't accountable for margin

Your PMs are measured on schedule and on the client being happy. No role in the company is measured on the number at the bottom.

SAME TRADE

What else costs carpentry contractors money

CARPENTRY · CFOS-06

The cabinet clock doesn't start until someone signs

You won the job in March and the shop still hasn't cut a stick, because the shop drawings have not been stamped. The fabrication clock starts at approval, and the architect owns that date.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-04

You bought January lumber and you hold the June move

You priced the frame off January lumber and bought it in June, and the subcontract had no escalation language in it. The whole price move comes out of your job.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-05

Money earned in month two comes back in month eighteen

Retention from framing you did two winters ago is still out there because that job hasn't closed. Carpentry starts early and ends on the last day, so both ends wait on one closeout.

CARPENTRY · CFOS-01

You make four trips and the subcontract pays for one

The subcontract prices carpentry as one mobilization and you make four: frame, blocking and backing, trim, and the corrections after the walkthrough. Only one of them got bid.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Trench dips appear inside the bond window

The parking lot settled over your sewer line eighteen months after acceptance, and who pays comes down to whether the density test for that station and that lift is in a file.

DEMOLITION

They Found A Tank A Year After You Demobilized

An old UST turns up under the pad twelve months after your last load left, and every finger points at the contractor who isn't on site anymore.

DRYWALL

The eleven-month callback hits this year's payroll

It's March, two of your best guys are in a truck all month fixing houses you finished last spring, and none of those hours bill.

QUESTIONS

What carpentry owners ask

Trim miters opened after the heat came on who pays for it?

The trim was tight at walkthrough. Then the building got its first heating season, the miters opened, and the callback came three to nine months after the check cleared.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Log a moisture reading on the trim material and the substrate before you install, with the date and a record of whether the HVAC was running, and keep it in the job file.

What are carpentry contractors supposed to be making?

No survey separates carpentry, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Framing, which runs 18% gross margin, 13% overhead and 5% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not carpentry's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 08, standards and accountability. Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work. It comes from chapter 8 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for carpentry contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What SPM The Construction CFO does, and what it costs

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.