Moving On From Residential To Commercial

no1bldr

I stumbled upon this site about a month ago and enjoy reading some of the posts. I have been in the residential framing business for 10+ years in the gulf coast region, mainly Miss. Gulf Coast and Southeastern Louisiana. Residential work has slowed to basically nothing and I was wondering how many have made the jump to metal stud framing. Is the money better? More importantly, how long did it take you to catch on to metal studs? Any information would be greatly appreciated as desperate times here have called for desperate measures.

pm_sup

I liked it when I made the switch. Generally people moving into new offices had the money to do the job, had already contacted some other contractors, and had a real perception of the cost to do work (sometimes residential renos, people are clueless as to the real cost of materials etc)

Steel is clean light at fast. A lot of steel guys were drywallers so layout and carpentrly skills were lacking, coming from a carpentry background is an asset.

Good luck

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"Judge of a man by his questions rather than his answers" Voltaire

no1bldr

Thanks for the info pm sup. It is funny how things work out, as just today I got invitations to bid on three wood framing jobs, and one complete remo. It always seems that it's feast or famine. Your info was encouraging and thus has given me the insight to go ahead and diversify my business.

Thanks,

Jeff

P.S.

That babysitter for grown men thing is right on target. We run a morning bus route to pick-up those without vehicles. It usually amounts to about 95% of all that is employed with me.

commercialguy

It's been good for us, we switched over from remodeling to multi-family commercial carpentry, last year.

buckbuilt

I did the jump also. From Michigan and currently working in South Carolina. No real commercial experience. Need help with some commercial terms like what a second floor is called in a typically all one story building for retail sales. MEZIDENE? Please reply if you have any idea of what I'm referring to.

joasis

Mezzanine.

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buckbuilt

thanks. had a crash course on retail electrical, fire suppression, HVAC, low-voltage EMS Systems, etc.. two week training period and then i'm on my own project. alot to absorb in 14 days!!!