Feed Me Your Construction Content

Ready Frame Go with Nik Moeller from BFS

• Joshua & Carolyn McMahon • Season 3 • Episode 33

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Discover the remarkable journey of Nik Moeller, the Director of ReadyFrame for Builders First Source, who transitioned from a young boy enthralled by framing houses with his father to a stalwart in the construction industry. Nik shares his fascinating story, from building his first house at the age of 16 to overcoming the financial and emotional challenges of the 2007 market crash. Gain insights into how his unwavering commitment and resilience shaped his career, leading him to embrace education and innovative technologies to stay ahead in the ever-evolving construction landscape.

Ready to solve quality control headaches in construction? Learn how ReadyFrame’s pre-cut framing technology, designed with precision 3D modeling, is revolutionizing the industry. Nik explains how this groundbreaking solution not only bridges the gap between 2D plans and 3D reality but also significantly reduces waste and saves on labor costs. Hear real-life success stories, including how a Denver University study found a 30% labor savings and how framers in Austin are reaping the benefits of quicker, more efficient builds.

Join us as we delve into the logistics and efficiency of ReadyFrame, from reducing the number of material deliveries to empowering new workers with easier training processes. Nik discusses the advantages of pre-constructed efforts for large projects, offering a peace of mind that traditional stick framing can’t match. Whether you’re a custom home builder or involved in large-scale developments, Nik’s insights will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of ReadyFrame’s transformative impact and its potential to streamline construction practices across the industry.

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Carolyn can be found on LinkedIn at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-mcmahon-937b89158
Joshua can be found on LinkedIn at:
www.linkedin.com/in/joshuamcmahon15
Email for feedback, questions, complaints, etc:
mcmahonjoshua15@gmail.com

Daily Journal: https://amzn.to/41p9aKE

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that, love that.

Speaker 2:

Hey y'all, Welcome back to another episode of Feed Me your Construction Content. I am Carolyn McMahon.

Speaker 1:

And I am Joshua McMahon.

Speaker 2:

Second week in a row for us after our break.

Speaker 1:

We're back, it's official.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we took a little one-week break.

Speaker 1:

One-week break, that's right, but now we're ready.

Speaker 2:

Ready frame With that.

Speaker 1:

Ready go, ready, frame go. That's exactly right, because we got our good friend nick from bfs all the way from utah, flew from utah to richmond, virginia to be on the podcast and you're like no, no, no, nick, you could do it remote.

Speaker 2:

He's like've got to be here in person.

Speaker 1:

The most odd thing we've ever experienced. But here he is in the podcast studio Welcome Nick.

Speaker 3:

Glad to be here. Yes, it's a long flight.

Speaker 2:

I spent more time in the airport in Detroit than I did on the plane Sounds about right Four-hour layover.

Speaker 1:

Haven't had a Detroit layover yet.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they got a sky lounge, so it's not too bad.

Speaker 1:

Oh, there you go.

Speaker 3:

Airports are never the funnest place to be.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no doubt. Well, in all seriousness, thank you for coming here. We actually have Nick on our job today that's why he was out there and we're doing a readyame system and thought well, nick, all you're doing is going back to the hotel room and doing schoolwork, because you're going back to school like a crazy person would do, not that I know anything about that Right right, the oldest student.

Speaker 1:

So we were able to get you to agree to stop by the house and jump on the mics and talk a little bit about your career, and then we'll get into some questions about ReadyFrame. So, if you don't mind, would you maybe just give a little introduction, a little bit of background?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So, like I said, my name is Nick Muller. I'm director of ReadyFrame for Builders, first Source from Salt Lake City, utah, and when I was about eight years old, I got really curious about framing houses. My dad was a framer by trade, so I wanted to go out and learn how to do it. I was an eight-year-old boy really excited about being outside pounding wood together and things like that. I wasn't allowed to use a nail gun until I was about 14. So I had a whole lot of hand pounding going on there on the job site. Couldn't use the saws for a long time, but I grew a love for working with wood and that's really got me what.

Speaker 2:

What got me into framing yeah, framing wow, and it stuck with you, because most we know little boys want to be firemen or superheroes, I mean yeah, for sure not. Not many eight-year-olds are looking forward to being a framer yeah, like hey, I want to do some, I want to work with my hands.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I guess that was just, you know, the example of my dad, maybe watching him work and maybe the smell of the wood, I don't know. But I really loved doing that. And as I got older, when I was 16 years old, I got a 67 Chevy. That was my first truck, was my first truck and, uh, I got to frame my first house by myself at 16 years old, what, yeah?

Speaker 3:

so holy crap, that is awesome yeah, I was pretty excited about that and uh, so it's me and one other guy. We framed a 2 000 square foot rambler, a single-story house is it still standing?

Speaker 3:

yeah, heck, yeah, um so. So from that, you know, after about 10 years of framing, I just I knew that wear and tear was going to beat me up. I was already sore, I'd come home at night and I started taking protein drinks to try and wake up the next day and be able to be alive on the job side. And so I went out and got a real estate license and that led me into building houses, surprisingly enough. Uh, so I I became a builder in 2006, which was a great time to be a builder it was man, good job, great time, made a lot of money, had a lot of fun.

Speaker 3:

And then, uh, 2007. So, you know, I just getting this company going, we were rolling, uh, it's like August of 2007. So you know, I just getting this company going, we were rolling. Uh, it's like August of 2007. I had four clients that were supposed to be closing on their house and no funding. They wouldn't fund the houses, it was overnight. They signed the documents overnight. The houses were, all of a sudden, these guys don't qualify for a house anymore. So I had about $250,000 worth of invoices that I had to pay. Ouch, and you know, I spent a lot of time building this company and I told you earlier that I had a credit line with a bank and that's pretty hard to get as a builder, so I had a million and a half dollar credit line. Um, and the market, just, I mean you guys, most people know what happened.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean we, we've been in the business that long, but that's an interesting perspective, because I've never really heard that from that side. Right, you know you have a house ready to go and then those people you know couldn't get into their house. Here are the keys. No, just kidding.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so. So we had four of those houses and we had about 15 more lined up right after that.

Speaker 1:

Gosh Under construction.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and then we had another 10 that were at four-way stages. So as soon as those four happened, we knew we were in trouble.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Oh man. And a lot of things started happening, like got filed complaints from my subcontractors because I couldn't pay them Right. We had some investors that we were building houses for that decided to get together in a group and sue us. So all of that stuff compiled together basically kicked me out of the market.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so I took a hiatus from construction because, you know, as you can imagine, it was pretty painful to go through that process. Yeah, I thought that I was going to be a short-order cook for a while, which turns out that I love cooking, but I'm not going to be a short-order cook.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And I actually grew a love for baking. That is one thing I kept and I still do. Baked cheesecakes is my primary thing that I focus on.

Speaker 2:

Heck, yeah, well, you know that they can ship cheesecake from Utah.

Speaker 1:

There you go.

Speaker 3:

I'm just saying I think you guys need to come out to Utah and I'll make you a cheesecake.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I've I've gone out of town for less. So well, okay, cool. So you know you're recovering from that huge blow.

Speaker 3:

And then what do you do? Well, so my wife was like I'm doing all these little odds and end jobs and stuff like that. She's like, can't you make more money doing construction? I'm like, well, probably, but I don't want to do that, yeah, and so I eventually got back into it. I did remodeling for a while. I started working for a company because they did specialty installations, which is installing products. There's no instruction manual, nobody wants to touch it because it's potentially you know, liability, so I was installing these things. I got to install a 180 foot tall wind chime in the federal courthouse in utah, which the only people that get to see that are judges and criminals. So I got pictures, but don't tell anybody that I got how?

Speaker 1:

how did you get that type of project though?

Speaker 3:

I don't know, I just installed it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, that is so crazy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So they had a guy that was going to install it. I guess, for whatever reason, it didn't work out and they got the my boss. I was working for her. I said, oh yeah, yeah, we can do that. And uh, it was. You know, it was challenging. Um, I don't have to go into all the details on how to install the wind chime, but um, anyways, that was fun. I enjoyed doing that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3:

And then they wanted to get back into framing and I was just like I told the guys, like you know, when I started working for you, I told you that if we got back in framing I was going to quit. That is one thing I really don't want to go back to doing. I love framing, I do it on, I do all of my own framing at home, but I can't do it for a living, right? Um? But he talked me into it and said if we want you to be a leader, we don't want you to manage the framing division of our company. You're just going to have to get it started out in the field.

Speaker 3:

So I got out there six months and we build up some crews and stuff like that. Shortly after that, that's where I ran into ready frame and so at this time we had 10 crews going in this in the wintertime, 15 crews in the summertime. And I'm pulling my hair out because I'm doing quality control. You know I got things that are not done right. And one thing that I found most common, that was really painful all the time, aside from wrong openings for windows and doors is I go into a four-way inspection where, like, do you guys do four-ways out here?

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure I've heard of three-ways.

Speaker 2:

Whoa, we're not talking about that.

Speaker 1:

Four-way inspection is it like uh. Are you talking about? Like uh, like a combo inspection, like all your meps and framing all at one time? Yeah oh, four-way inspection. I'm.

Speaker 3:

I was on the wrong page yeah, so let me go back to the other page of my notebook. So we would. They would inspect all the mechanicals you know plumbing, electrical, hvac and framing all at the same time.

Speaker 3:

You're right, yeah. Well, the only problem with that was is I'd go into the kitchen and we would miss a bearing post for a beam above it and of course that's where the sink's going, or close to it. Yep, and I got pipes and I got electrical wires and all that stuff and I got to go tear all of that out. So I get my bearing post in.

Speaker 1:

That's the worst.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So after having that happen multiple times and getting charged, I saw when I saw ready for him I was like, oh man, this is an answer to my issues, because now I can tell somebody hey, put that in there, print it on the piece of wood for me, and then, if my guys don't follow that, now I got something I can go back to and I can say hey, you guys need to follow this.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's pause for a second For those that are living under a rock. What is ReadyFrame I mean you're talking about, like we know what it is?

Speaker 3:

That's because we were just out there doing it all day. But before that Josh was like ReadyFrame what but before that, josh was like ready frame, what so? Ready frame is a brand name that was created by builders first source. Previously, bmc had the brand name of ready frame. Ready frame is actually pre-cut framing packages. It's not a new concept. It's been around for I mean 50 years probably, um, or even longer, because I know sears had some kind of a pre-cut package. Oh sure.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, Like a package house.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that was like clear back in the 1900s.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3:

A long time ago.

Speaker 2:

Man, they were way ahead of time.

Speaker 1:

A couple hundred dollars, $900, to get one of those Sears, houses, sears and robot.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 3:

So I mean the concept's not new. But basically what happens is we're using a program to design a house in a virtual space and creates a 3D model. Now we put every stick, every stud, every plate, every header, cripple, seal. It's all built into this house. But the special part about the program is that it makes it will create a saw file that allows us to print that material and cut that material on a on a saw that we use in our shop.

Speaker 3:

So we had some guys that developed the saw and we've improved our saw over the years, because this saw was developed about 15, almost 20 years ago and now we've made some improvements on it to get more efficiencies out of it and things like that. But there's other saws in the market. You can go buy a saw if you really want one. But yeah, so that's what ReadyFrame is. It's pre-cut framing packages that's designed in a software program that will be able to transfer a file to a saw to mark the plates and the parts and pieces in the wall and then cut them to the specific lengths.

Speaker 2:

And so, beyond just the obvious, why is it important to do that? Why is it important to have it?

Speaker 3:

So a lot of times what happens when you go out to a job site, you have a set of plans and we experienced this today, actually, which was pretty interesting. You've got an architect that's designing in a 2D space, and then we've got a framer that's designing in a 2D space, and then we've got a framer that's framing in a 3D space, and there's a lot of different things that happen between those two spaces that aren't necessarily seen by the architect at the beginning on the 2D space, and the framer will wind up trying to frame something and he's like, oh man, this is not going to work. But typically what happens is they just frame it. That's right.

Speaker 3:

And then you go back and you have to fix it.

Speaker 1:

That's right.

Speaker 3:

But the other part about it is is the framers are. They're essentially dictating how the builder frames the house, because they're going to frame it how they want to frame it. The builder might have some specifications that they want to use to build a house and they might give the sheet to the framer and say you need to frame our houses just like this, but that doesn't mean that the framer is going to follow that unless you have somebody following up on it like a superintendent. But, as you know today's superintendents, nothing bad with it, but there's not the experience that there used to be with people to have hands-on experience from the field. Right, we've got somebody that's gone to college in construction management. Now that's a superintendent. So they know the process, they know the flow, but they don't necessarily know all the things to look for, the flaws, to watch out for. That's right.

Speaker 3:

And the biggest part about Ready Frame that we love to share you go onto our website at BLDRcom and you'll see our tree counter. We're saving 7.8 trees per house. So we use ready frame Now this house that we're just doing for you guys right now probably more than 7.8 trees, I would think. So I'm thinking that we've got probably about 500 trees in that house.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is a big house.

Speaker 2:

How cool is that? And, um, you know, I imagine, just from a cleanliness standpoint, that you've got less waste. I mean, because that usually is when it looks like a bomb goes off in the house is during the framing you.

Speaker 1:

You go back to framing this house, which is a quarter of the size of that house that we're doing today. So what they framed yesterday and today is about the framing in our house. We had a pile of lumber out in that front yard. There's like a bucket worth of lumber in this and it's more like little blocks, right it's hardly any waste at all, which means there's no dumpster on site. There's no need for a dumpster right now.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And that makes a big difference. You know, and I am going to say, dumpster fees can be relatively expensive depending on where you're at.

Speaker 1:

Charlottesville is $600 for a dumpster, Richmond's you know, three to $400, but Charlottesville is out of this world for dumpster fees.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and they you know, three to four hundred dollars. But charlottesville is out of this world for dumpster fees. Yeah, and they, you know, a lot of times you're you're probably paying a fee because of there's landfill space or they don't have anything designated for that. You know, go to hawaii, for instance. Oh yeah, I can only imagine dumpster fee out there is because they don't have land out there like we do in other areas just put it in the volcano right. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1:

You're just dumping it away throughout the entire route To blow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm hearing cleaner job sites, less waste. You know we joke about it, because I got involved when we built our house and I had never really seen it from that lens and I'm like what do you mean that there's a fill order that you need?

Speaker 2:

A fill order and then you see all this crap in the dumpster that has 80 nails in it and it was like what, what happened and all of this like cut wood and long pieces, and it just kind of pissed you off a little bit, it's a lot of waste. It's a lot of waste and that just hurts my heart a little bit. So, um, I'm excited to hear more about that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, hurts my heart a little bit, so I'm excited to hear more about that. Yeah, so little do people know that framers like to use nails in a lot of them.

Speaker 1:

Especially with the invention of nail guns.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, it's so much fun. I mean why not just pop off a couple nails and you're you know, life's better now, okay, well, that's right.

Speaker 2:

Then we improve someone's life immensely With framing our home.

Speaker 3:

There's, no doubt no doubt right. So you know, if we get into some of the other benefits on what ReadyFrame does, what I want to focus on is, yeah, dumpster fees are great. We're going to save you 66% on your dumpsters right or 33% on your dumpster.

Speaker 3:

So if you have three dumpsters, on a job site you're going to have one, yeah, instead of the three, which is, which is a big deal, yeah, it makes a lot of difference. And then the other side of it that I look at, you know, from a background of being a builder and a turnkey framing contractor is the extra orders. I don't think people take into consideration how much time extra orders cost. No Extra orders, you know you're spending the time to come up with the list how much you need to get, and if you're not getting it yourself, you're calling your lumber company Builders First Source, which it should be every time, right, shameless. Source, which it should be every time, right, shameless.

Speaker 3:

But you're calling your guy and then sometimes you're not going to get a hold of that guy, even though he's a great guy. You may not get a hold of him every time and you might be delayed. But your framers over here is like I can't work the rest of the day unless I have these 75 plates. That's right, you know. And they want to go home unless you get the material there. So you you could potentially lose a day or that much time just trying to get material on the job site.

Speaker 1:

Well, the worst part is that because we don't, we didn't frame right. Superintendents today didn't frame yesterday. They don't know how many studs they need, so walking around, they have no clue that they need more material. The framer doesn't know he needs more material until he's out of material, correct. So now you call it in at 4 o'clock. Well, bfs might be great, but they're not getting you that lumber. Tomorrow it's coming the next day, so you lose an entire day. But you might lose more than that because that crew is going to another job site.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and it used to be that you didn't know when you were going to get that crew back.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. I think it's still that way sometimes yeah.

Speaker 3:

So you know, depending on the market and what, what situations are like. I mean, you could lose a whole week on a house just for waiting for some material. So to me that that piece of the ready frame is invaluable because we have somebody that goes through and looks at all the material that's supposed to go in the house, right? So we're looking at the plans, we're designing that we all the material that's supposed to go in the house, right? So we're looking at the plans, we're designing that we have to design it virtually. We have to build it in the, in the model, and we can't build it in the model without having all the material in there.

Speaker 1:

That's right.

Speaker 3:

And so we get all the material in there. So all the material has been identified that you need to build all your walls, and people are actually double checking it Right. So now we've we've taken the process, we've added a couple of planning steps up front and because we want the product to go out and be good for the customer, where you know a lot of times what happens and we just had a call on this today I was telling people every time you get a takeoff, it doesn't matter where you're getting it from, you should review that takeoff. I would be embarrassed as a salesperson to take a takeoff from somebody that doesn't know lumber and just turn it over and send it out. Yeah, but that happens all the time. They're not reviewing their takeoffs, they're just sending it out to the job and you might miss a beam.

Speaker 3:

We had one where a customer he's like well, we do custom homes and I don't think Ready Framed is right for us. Yeah, so we go ahead and do the one house. The framers kind of complained about it and stuff like that, and I'm just like whether you guys do it or not, that's up to you, because I've got plenty of other people over here doing it. I don't need your business, so I don't want that to sound bad, but that's kind of how it was at that time.

Speaker 1:

Well was at that time. Well, I, I want to piggyback on that. It's kind of how you have to be, because if if the builder is not going to buy into the system, it'll never work right because the framer, they're antiquated, builders were antiquated. We've been doing it this way. We've been making money. Why are you trying to disrupt what I'm doing? So it's it's really hard for you in your role or anybody in in ready frame world to say, hey, let's just strong arm people until they buy into it, when you've got builders that are interested and want to be on board and you can fly to there and you can help them get it implemented. So I think what you're saying is we want to spend our time with people that are embracing the system.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's where I want to be. I want to spend time, like you that want to embrace the system and then find value in it. Well, sure enough, the next house that we sent sent out for them I happen to know because I knew the sales guy uh, they didn't ship one of the beams. Nobody ordered it. It happened to be during the time when those beams were a month out, oh God.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that hurts.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so these framers have pulled off the house. The house sat for almost a month.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, that hurts.

Speaker 3:

And see if we would have done that in ready frame, even though we would have had parts and pieces that they didn't like. We would have ordered all the material because somebody was double checking and designing it and would have said, oh hey, we've got this beam. That's a large beam, We've got to get it ordered because, guess what, it's a month out.

Speaker 2:

So let me ask you this Does it take a different framer to install ReadyFrame?

Speaker 3:

No.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

It takes a different mindset.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Open-minded framer.

Speaker 2:

I like it.

Speaker 1:

I would look at it almost like Lincoln Logs. Remember back in the day you had Lincoln Logs, you just put all your pieces together.

Speaker 2:

I am 50.

Speaker 1:

But now the Lincoln Logs have all of the markings to tell you exactly where the jack stud goes, exactly where the king stud goes, where the header goes, and it's all bundled together.

Speaker 2:

Well, that just takes the fun out of it.

Speaker 1:

It takes all the thinking out of it. So you don't have to think about what's the cut on this, what's the header size on this. You just unbundle it, nail it together. You get to do what you love, which is nailing shit together. Yeah nail it together. You get to do what you love, which is nailing shit together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah now you get to do a lot of it. We already determined that. Yes, heck, yeah, what I like to do is use the nail guy. Oh my gosh, yeah so it's super clean.

Speaker 1:

I mean one wall component because, just like nick was saying, a crew leader can be out there saying, hey, go grab that wall system and frame that one. You're going to go grab this wall system and frame that one and you can send them off and while before they're done framing it, you can go start sending them up there with the next ones.

Speaker 2:

So we talked about the, the waste factor, cleanliness, which kind of goes hand in hand. For that Is there a time. Savings with ready frame.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's time savings, I mean.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I'm trying to set you up here.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I appreciate that You're making it easy. Um, so, you know, we the studies. So we actually performed a study and this is where I come up with some of these numbers, right, so we've got some percentages and things like that. And this what we did in the studies we took 12 houses six were that were ready frame and six that were stick frame. This was done by a third party, so Mark LaLeverte and Denver university partnered together and they did this study. So in the study, what they found was that they were able to save 30% on the labor.

Speaker 3:

Seems like a lot, but just recently, matt Reisinger um on the house that they did there in Austin and it was a house that went through the whole process with builders for source, right, we did digital tools, we did ready frame and they're still doing the process and he does a lot of. I mean, that house has got some interesting, uh, construction science in it, which is really cool. But that framer what he does that's really unique is he pays his framer by day. So they've got a set rate that they pay by day and so every day that they save, they save that amount of money.

Speaker 2:

Versus the job as a whole.

Speaker 1:

That's brilliant Because the other framers are going to say, oh, it's $7 a foot for me to frame this, $10 a foot, whatever their rate is. So you say I got this ready frame system, you're going to save five days on your framing. What would be my price? Oh, it's still $8 a foot, or whatever their price is.

Speaker 3:

So on this guy, he was motivated, he was the framer. They actually interviewed the framer. I don't know if you saw that one, but they interviewed the framer and he was actually feeling like there was 40%, 50% time savings on the labor portion.

Speaker 2:

Wow, because I'd imagine you'd want to drag that out. You got paid by the day.

Speaker 1:

But if you think about the amount of work in an area like Austin. If he can get to that job, get through that job, get to the next job, he's able to do more work efficiently and make the money he wants to make. He's able to run his business instead of be working on the business all the time. What a huge plus.

Speaker 3:

I'm glad you brought that up, because that's something that I've seen a lot of feedback from from framers. The guy that I'm talking about is the guy that's out there on the job. He's got his belt on. He's the one that owns the company. He's out there framing with his guys.

Speaker 1:

Yep, that's right.

Speaker 3:

I had a guy I said what do you like about ReadyFrame? He's like well, this allows me to go find more work. I come here in the morning, I get my guys started and now I can leave once I've got them started and I don't have to worry about them getting the job done right, because ready frame takes all the guesswork out of it. He can take his lower wage guys and allow them to frame the house. I mean, you can, you can take guys or you show the training. Amount of time it takes to train somebody how to use ready frame Very minimal.

Speaker 1:

It's pretty easy to teach somebody how to do it Versus stick framing, that could take years to teach someone how to do it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I mean a smart person that's really intuitive with building, can pick up, could be a crew lead in six months, but that doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 3:

It just doesn't happen.

Speaker 1:

But the opportunity is there, whereas stick framing I don't think it's there. I don't think you can pick it up that quick and be a crew lead.

Speaker 3:

No, and I actually trained a lot of guys when I was framing when I was younger and tried to get guys to be crew leads, and it's amazing that so many guys were not confident that they could do it. And so I had a guy that I was confident he could be a crew lead. I literally had to push him out and I said you're framing this house on your own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But you know, that's a whole other aspect of it. And now you can say hey, guess what the guesswork's taken out of this? All you got to do is put it on the marks and nail it together. You're good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we could frame our own house with ReadyFrame.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we could that's think of the savings oh boy, it's a matter of whether you will or you just don't want to could?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I didn't say we're doing it, remember. I believe in who's excellent, that's great.

Speaker 2:

We'll do it on the next one no, we won't.

Speaker 1:

We'll still find somebody to do that stuff see, See.

Speaker 3:

Now I'll absolutely do mine if I'm ever allowed to build a house.

Speaker 1:

Well, if you come back to Richmond Around this time, well, that's cool.

Speaker 2:

So you know you're doing one in Charlottesville.

Speaker 1:

We are. So we're doing a massive house in Charlottesville. I wish I could remember the square footage off the top of my head, but I can't. I mean it's 8,000 plus square feet, it's probably close to 10,000. It's a big house, it can be very overwhelming, and there's probably 60 pages in the blueprints. And I know I'm exaggerating, but not by much.

Speaker 1:

There was a spot where we couldn't figure out the ceiling height in one wall and the architect didn't have it in the drawing. You had to go searching through the details. We found the detail, the smallest detail you could find on the wrong page, and we found it. And what we found was exactly what the ready frame crew back in at the shop had cut and prepped for us. And the point I'm making is that they're putting so much effort in the pre-construction side to get this stuff right that they found the detail that we, who we're not framing the house, so we're a little bit different. It took us 30 minutes to find something, just to verify, and it was already done and it was right. So you talk about peace of mind and confidence in the system and what they're doing on this caliber house. It makes you feel pretty damn good and the framer. The framer feeling relieved like yep, that's it, we got it.

Speaker 2:

And he just kept getting it, and so you just you get a copy of what file style that allows you to upload the plan into 3D.

Speaker 3:

So we can use a PDF, so we're actually going to design on it. Really, what happens is a designer will typically take it, they'll put it, they can overlay it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, right, there's layers on a plan.

Speaker 3:

And so they'll just put it in there and they'll draw on top of it and copy the lines. But really what matters is we've got to make sure the scale is right. So if the scale's good and we've got everything right on that, then when they can do that and draw on top of the plan but a lot of times they're gonna just draw it based off of the plan they'll have one screen open for the plan and one screen open for their design and they'll follow the measurements through and and do that, and then we can do double checks on it how long does that take?

Speaker 2:

obviously, I'm sure it would vary based on the size of the house, but I'm sure you don't have historical data on that. But like, how long did it take you to? How long would it take you to design?

Speaker 1:

from you know, getting a set of plans to having it ready to go to the salt.

Speaker 3:

Well, so it does vary right. So we've got. We've got guys that are turning plans in about an hour.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

But that's a plan. That's a plan. That is a repeat plan. Okay, like a DR Horton or something like that. That we've done multiple times and all they're doing is they're pulling in options. They go in and check the option sheet. They pull in the options to the plan. They check everything, make sure everything looks the way it's supposed to look. If they've had any feedback from the field or whatever, they might add that into it. But I mean, if we've been doing this house for a year and a half or something like that, there's not going to be a lot of changes that we're making at that point, and so that's all they're doing is making sure it matches. They identify it for that lot, they send it out to production. Now, this house here that we're doing here, that probably took at least two days.

Speaker 2:

Oh, at least two days.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we went from. You know the house. It was a repeat plan an hour turnaround time to two days.

Speaker 1:

I mean that's pretty damn impressive, nick Two days to put this plan together and I know there was a lot of questions and back and forth and everybody worked really well together. But for you guys to have your system down and to be that efficient makes builders feel really good. So let me ask you what's been the biggest obstacle for BFS to kind of get this into other markets and help builders realize the savings and the efficiency they can realize?

Speaker 3:

Probably the biggest thing is just knowing that it's available. Okay, because we've had national builders come to us in certain markets and say, hey, we want ReadyFrame. So what do we do? We support it and we get ReadyFrame into that market and we can ship ReadyFrame. Readyframe ships really well, so if you guys didn't have a facility here, we could ship it in from. Probably. Charlotte is probably your closest place.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker 3:

But we can get, so I've gotten as many as 12 units on one truck that we'd ship. What?

Speaker 1:

do you mean 12 units, so like 12 townhomes?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Are you serious? You can get like 12 townhomes like a simple townhome on on one truck.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we're just, we're just gonna. We're not gonna send you all the material, we'll let the location that's closest support that yeah, yeah, you're gonna have.

Speaker 1:

You're gonna have loose lumber as well as you have loose lumber, you have plywood, but then the the ready frame, the wall panel system just the cut parts.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we'll see. We can send you get about depending on the size of the units the ones that I was shipping. They were about 1,500 square feet, and so we were getting about 12 to 15 of those on one truck.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but from an efficiency standpoint that's pretty good. Yeah, You're not doing that. I mean, how many trucks would it take? You know, if you're doing stick frame, you can't get. You know, if the whole house was stick frame, you couldn't get an entire house on one truck in stick frame. It'd have to be multiple runs.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, typically. Yeah, you're going to run into that because you're going to. You got bunks and bunks of material right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you got to put on there, heck yeah, so less stinky trucks on the road.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's exactly right. You're reducing, so another benefit.

Speaker 3:

That is another aspect to the study that we did was it reduces our deliveries by 28%. Wow, so that's you know. And when we look at that from a company, it benefits us because if we have I mean, let's just say, 20, 25% easy numbers, right, so for every four trucks that were going out of the yard, one of those could be reduced by using ready frame. That's great. Now, right now, I just heard the comments here in Richmond about how far everybody's out on getting material delivered. Yeah, so if this, if this area, was to switch over to ready frame, we'd be able to have more trucks for deliveries. Right, we could get more material out, because we have one one less truck out of four.

Speaker 1:

Well, we get to get more material out because we have one less truck out of four. Well, some of the advantage of other builders getting on board is that more framers in the market will become used to the system. They'll start requesting the system, which will help us bring labor pricing down to its inline. So framers are doing it quicker. So pricing should come down to be inline because we're going to spend a little bit more because of ReadyFrame, because you're doing a lot of the cutting off site right.

Speaker 3:

So the labor in the field should come down, but it's not going to unless the market helps us correct some of that yeah, and the biggest part about that when you'll start seeing a reduction in the price from the framer is when they get to do it consistently. Yeah it. So you know, unfortunately, right now we're gonna have them do this. One house for you, right, yep, but the next time they do ready frame, when? How long is it going to be?

Speaker 1:

it might be well, for us it's actually good because I've got two more foundations going on the ground at the exact same time. Um, if, if this framer's happy with everything going, then I'm going to see how many more crews he has, if he can get me two more crews, and we'll put both crews on those other jobs and ReadyFrame on both.

Speaker 2:

So you've already sent the plans for ReadyFrame takeoffs. Yeah, how exciting.

Speaker 1:

I'm pro-ReadyFrame just from a custom home builder standpoint. When you think about job cleanliness, custom homes, you want them to be clean, you want them to be tight, you want to be efficient as you can be. So having some of that stuff dialed in before you get it to the field just makes more sense, because days under construction is a big deal for custom builders yeah, yeah, especially we're not fast.

Speaker 2:

You're carrying the load. So when you were out there today, I mean you just you're like this is it? I'm sold I.

Speaker 1:

I feel really good about it. Everything was was coming together. When they had problems, the framers had problems they were able to find the solutions very quickly. Bfsfs had a support team out there, even beyond Nick that's been helping them and everybody's been super cooperative, like very open-minded to this system.

Speaker 2:

And is that just for just kind of the getting started with ReadyFrame?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Or will you have someone at BFS at every job?

Speaker 3:

So that support is based on until we got you up and running gotcha, gotcha once you're walking, then you don't need me here every time but that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

I mean, otherwise it's like well, here you go, I'm out.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that's what I think that's what I really appreciate about what your team is doing with this is that you really believe in the product, you're investing in it, you're putting your own skin in the game to help make sure that it's successful. And putting bfs team members on the job to answer questions and guide goes a long ways, because I mean we can just hit the easy button and stick frame everything right.

Speaker 2:

We've been doing it for years so how long will it take you to finish this? I mean so you've started framing, when they started framing yesterday.

Speaker 1:

They've already framed the basement. The first floor floor deck is on, which is quicker than we thought, and we're going to need trusses out there next week, which is a lot faster than what I thought. I thought it was going to take them six weeks to frame this house and probably four weeks before they're ready for the roof system. So they're way ahead of where I thought they would be, which is a pleasant surprise. That's great feedback really, and I can't tell you, I mean that job is super clean.

Speaker 2:

Did you take some video?

Speaker 1:

I didn't take any video, but I will. I'm going to get my marketing team out there to take some video. That's what they do. Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, no no, no me, I'm like.

Speaker 2:

is this on?

Speaker 1:

Which way do I point the camera?

Speaker 2:

Where do I look?

Speaker 1:

Well, nick man, we're so grateful you could stop by and you flew all the way from Utah to see us. This is truly awesome, man. Anything else you wanted to touch on?

Speaker 3:

You know this is what I do, so I mean anybody else that's going to do Ready Frame? This is I love coming out meeting new people, being in new parts of the country. I haven't been to Virginia before, so this was a great opportunity. Oh, perfect. I mean I came out here, you know, to get the sales team kind of going, but Sure.

Speaker 1:

You mean to be on the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, actually, they told me there was an opportunity to be on a podcast.

Speaker 1:

I changed my schedule this week to be here.

Speaker 3:

I'm supposed to be somewhere else golfing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we're doing homework. I know it's so terrible Poor thing, doing homework.

Speaker 3:

No, I love the product and I've always been like I said. It's just something fun, and I've always tried to figure out ways to be more efficient at building houses, and even though a lot of my ways did not include using wood material, I think this is probably about the best you were going to get on efficiencies. One last plug I want to give is using sustainable resources. Trees are they're our sustainable resource. They're really good because they grow on their own. They are carbon, they sequester carbon, so they store it, and then when we use ReadyFrame, what we're doing is, by eliminating the carbon that goes out to the landfill or getting burned or whatever, we're utilizing the material in a way that reduces that carbon. Right, and so now we're using those trees in more efficient ways. Like I mentioned before, 7.8 trees If you add that up over the million homes that we might potentially build in a year, that's 7.8 million trees.

Speaker 1:

That's a lot of damn trees. That's a lot of trees.

Speaker 3:

But what does that equate to? When we look at houses, how many more houses can we build now? That's right, because we're looking at shortages with the mills and what happens if the interest rate's lower right now and demand goes up, yeah it goes up and all of a sudden, prices on material goes up.

Speaker 3:

But if we were to do something like that and use pre-cut framing packages across the country, we could really reduce that stress on the lumber mills, because it's so expensive to start up a lumber mill and that's why they haven't recovered from 2008, because they the amount of investment that it takes to get that mill going just does not come back to them in a matter. I mean, you're talking like five years, a decade, for them to get that money back. Wow, and when you've got pricing going down to $350 or $400.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, the capital investment for that has just got to be huge.

Speaker 3:

So do I see lumber mills coming back in the market really quick? No, but we do have a solution right now that we could use.

Speaker 2:

Well, heck yeah, and I really think you need to use the ready frame Go.

Speaker 3:

I'll watch you guys use that at the beginning of your podcast Ready frame.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Well. Thanks so much for for spending time with us. Great to meet you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was a pleasure, Nick. Thanks for coming by breaking bread in the house and uh hope you enjoyed your time in Virginia.

Speaker 3:

I did love it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for coming by breaking bread in the house, and I hope you enjoyed your time in Virginia. I did, Loved it. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3:

All right, come back and we'll come to Utah for cheesecake. There you go. You're welcome anytime. Book it.

Speaker 2:

All right? Yes, All right, until next time.

Speaker 1:

See ya yeah.

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