4 Bed, 3 Bath, No Garage Door: The Unlikely Woes Holding Up Home Building

[Demovictory9]

“It used to take us 20 weeks to build a house,” said Adrian Foley, president and CEO of the Brookfield Properties development group, which develops thousands of single-family homes annually in North America. “And now it takes us 20 weeks to get a set of garage doors.”

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In most parts of the country, a builder can’t pass final inspection for a home that is otherwise perfectly complete — but that is missing its garage door. That means builders don’t get paid and homebuyers can’t move in.

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Along the way, the garage door became, for many, the real front door. And so it can be surreal to see brand-new homes with their garages sealed in plywood, or to hear homebuilders talk of installing temporary ones. Welcome to your dream home! The real garage door will be coming later.

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Amid all this variety, a few problems have been acute lately. Many doors contain spray-foam insulation, which has been in short supply since the plants in Texas that manufacture its chemical components were disrupted in last year’s winter freeze. (If you make garage doors, you are also competing for polyurethane or polyvinyl chloride with window frames, vinyl siding, caulking — and the aerospace, cruise ship and automotive industries.)

Many other garage door components are made from steel, which has also been in short supply. And even companies that manufacture the finished doors domestically typically source parts from China that have been snarled in global shipping.

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/4-Bed-3-Bath-No-Garage-Door-The-Unlikely-Woes-16924743.php

[riversedge]

1. It took over Six MONTHS to get new windows -had to replace rotting ones-for my mom. Carpenter said

it was like this all over his area. People waiting for repairs--he barely scraping by.

[Sherman A1]

2. Interesting piece

I wasn’t aware of the shortages created by the Texas freeze 🥶 last year and how they ripple through the economy. Not necessarily a surprise on the rippling affects, as one piece of a supply chain puzzle can really make a multitude of differences elsewhere along the chain, but nevertheless very interesting.

Guess I will wait another year before thinking about new storm windows for the house.

[mnhtnbb]

3. The builder of the development where I bought

a new house--contract April 2020, completed December 2020--was routinely installing substitute appliances in order to close the sale. I had a substitute dishwasher, gas cooktop, vent hood, and probably would have had a substitute refrigerator, too, if I hadn't bought my own. The appliances I had paid for with the purchase of the house finally were installed three months later.

The little inserts that went in our garage door windows were missing from half a dozen houses that closed about the same time on my street. They finally came about six months later.

The builder also changed window suppliers for several months while my house was under construction. Couldn't get the Jeld Wen windows specified in the contract (my house did) but after several months they were able to go back to them.

[Silver Gaia]

4. Oddly, we recently had to have a repair done on our garage door.

The guy first tried to sell us on the idea of a NEW garage door, and when we didn't bite, he admitted it would take a loooong time to deliver a new one anyway and he had the parts so he would just go ahead and fix it for us since it was inoperable as it was. He still insisted we really needed a new door, though, and told us we should have him order one anyway. We declined. I wondered why there was such a delay, but figured it was some issue like this. At least it helped us get him to repair the door quickly. We don't need a new one.

[progree]

5. Homeowners confront 'every imaginable disaster' trying to renovate their homes (contractor hell

Homeowners confront 'every imaginable disaster' trying to renovate their homes, Yahoo Money, 2/14/22
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/homeowners-confront-every-imaginable-disaster-trying-to-renovate-their-homes-143317830.html

(contractor hell - with demand for contractors far outstripping supply, homeowners don't do proper vetting and contractors take advantage)

This is just one of many examples, another is like getting a new refrigerator or a furnace fixed in a reasonable amount of time, yada that makes the economy not feel very good to some, despite the job numbers.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Wait for it ...

The article in the New York Times ran a year ago.

4 Bed, 3 Bath, No Garage Door: The Unlikely Woes Holding Up Home Building

Supply-chain complications are giving the industry and buyers fits.

By Emily Badger | Photographs by Andri Tambunan
Feb. 15, 2022

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