VARYING BUILDING VALUES.--COST OF APPURTENANCES.--PRICES OF LABOR
AND MATERIAL ON WHICH ESTIMATES ARE BASED.
The cost of building varies in different sections. At the end of this
chapter will be found a list of prices upon which the building estimates
of this book are based.
The plumbing schedule is formed so that one may see about what the
different items of a completed plumbing outfit cost. Figuring sixty feet
of service and seventy feet of drain, the plumbing outfit would cost, as
indicated, $328. It has been furnished for less. The figures given in
connection with plumbing work are not necessarily accurate. They are
approximately so in detail. As no two plumbers or other mechanics will
figure exactly the same on the same fixtures, or the same material and
labor, it is not to be expected that an architect could form a
thumb-rule schedule which would be satisfactory to plumbers and all
others. In the class of work contemplated in this specification, the
tendency of these figures is in the right direction. They are as nearly
correct as general statements can be. It is known that a single bath-tub
can be fitted up to cost more than the entire plumbing outfit here
mentioned. It would afford no more conveniences to the occupant of the
house, and would be no safer from a sanitary standpoint; and it probably
would require more labor to care for than the one contemplated. The
estimates are on the basis of a specification which would meet with the
approval of the public sanitary inspectors in any of the large cities.
Where there is a material reduction in the number of fixtures and
connections from the list given, the percentage for other piping and
connections will have to be increased.
There are various ways of reducing the cost of the outfit. The best way
is to have less of it; for instance, only city water may be used, or,
possibly, only the cistern water. The completed plumbing outfit
mentioned in schedule "B," with the exception of cistern-water
connections, including hot and cold city water for sink, wash-stand, and
bath-tub, has been put in, in plan No. 30, for $245.
The natural-gas-piping figure, like the others, is liable to vary.
Piping for five fires has been put in for $20, for $15, and for $30. The
burners, the burner valves and mixers, usually cost from four to five
dollars a fire.
The gas-fixture schedule is priced by the burner, not by the connection.
Each burner of each fixture is counted. Of course one may get a single
fixture which will cost as much as the above rule would figure on a
whole outfit, but that is unusual in moderate-cost houses. Some of the
second-story brackets will cost from ninety cents to one dollar and a
quarter apiece. This will increase the price of burner margin for the
first floor, and allow more elaborate fixtures.
The mantels are priced to include grate, hearth, facings, and everything
that may go there, excepting fender and blower. One may get a mantel for
$25 or $30, or he may use a grate setting without a mantel, or may go as
far into the hundreds as his inclination and means will lead him. Very
expensive mantels in moderate-cost houses are not in good taste. A $100
or $150 mantel in a room all of the other wood-work of which did not
cost over half that sum, is in exceedingly bad form. The mantel appears
like a monument; everything around it is insignificant. In buying
mantels from stock in mantel stores, the cheaper ones are generally the
best designed from an artistic standpoint.
The furnace price is necessarily arbitrary. The owner of a house will be
told that the price here given is too high and too low. A
moderate-sized, two-story, eight-room house, which, counting the
bath-room, would have nine connections, could be provided with a furnace
of wrought-iron or steel, riveted joints, double galvanized-iron jacket,
for $240. The same furnace brick-set will cost from fifteen to twenty
dollars more. The owner of such a house can get a cheaper furnace, or he
can get one which will be much more expensive. Oftentimes when an
architect estimates the price of a furnace to the owner, the latter will
respond with the statement that he has been offered a furnace complete
for ninety dollars. Upon investigation it generally proves that the
furnace is in some one's store ready for delivery; that it will cost
extra to set it, and for all connections, fittings, registers, etc.; and
that the furnace itself is of such a kind that ninety dollars is a high
price for it. There is no doubt that the statement as to furnace prices
will meet with general disapproval from manufacturers. Many will say
that the prices given are ridiculously high, and others, ridiculously
low. Other general statements as to heating apparatus may be found in a
chapter given to that subject in that section of the book devoted to the
Journey through the House.
The estimates given on plate and cathedral glass are about as
unsatisfactory as anything can be. They merely give the owner a general
idea as to what to expect.
Electric-work prices are approximately correct for localities where the
facilities for doing this kind of work are at hand. Door and table bell
outfits are now sold and arranged ready to be set up. The methods of
their adjustment are so simple that any one who can read can put them
in.
The general statement may be made that these prices are approximately
correct in all the larger markets; and that in cases where the building
is far removed therefrom, there must necessarily be additions for travel
of workmen, and other incidental expenses in the transportation of
material and labor.
The following is the list of prices of material and labor upon which the
building estimates are based:--
Excavating, $0.25 a yard.
Brick in the wall, $9 per M.
Mason work, $5.50 a yard, laid up.
Cement floors, $0.70 a square yard.
Timber, joist, and scantling, less than eighteen feet long, $17 per
M.
No. 1 common boards, $18 per M.
Select common pine flooring, count measure, $26 per M.
Common flooring, count measure, $22.50 per M.
First quality yellow pine flooring, face measure, $37.50 per M.
Standard yellow pine flooring, face measure, $30 per M.
No. 1 poplar flooring, face measure, $28.50 per M.
No. 2 poplar flooring, face measure, $23.50 per M.
No. 1 stock boards, $20 per M.
No. 1 poplar siding or weather-boarding, $18 per M.
No. 2, $16 per M.
No. 1 pine siding, $22 per M.
No. 2, $20 per M.
Shingles, 16 inches clear butts, best, per M, $3.75.
Shingles, 16 inches extra, 10 inches clear butts, $3.25.
Pine lath, per M, $2.50.
Poplar and pine finishing lumber, $3.75 to $6 per 100 feet.
Oak or maple flooring, first class, $4 to $6 per 100 feet.
Oak finishing lumber, $4 to $6 per 100 feet.
Under certain conditions the above prices are subject to discounts.
Plastering: three-coat work, plaster-of-Paris finish, $0.25 a yard;
two-coat work, plaster-of-Paris finish, $0.20; gray floated sand
finish, three cents extra on above prices.
Painting, $0.06 per yard a coat.
Labor: common labor, $0.15 an hour; bricklayers and masons, $0.35
to $0.45 an hour; carpenters, $0.20 to $0.30 an hour; tinners,
$0.30 an hour; painters, $0.20 to $0.30 an hour; plumber and
helper, $0.50 an hour.
The above labor prices are those paid by the contractors. Rarely,
however, are the maximum prices reached.
There are few subjects on which ideas vary so greatly as values. This
fact may be made apparent when we call to mind that bids on a house let
for $3,000 frequently range $1,000 higher than this figure.
BUSINESS POINTS IN BUILDING.