On Nov 3, 5:10*pm, "PanHandler" wrote:
I've drawn plans for a stick-built workshop and interested in knowing how
much to allow for material waste. (Percentage ?) and is it broken down by
type of material, such as 2x4's, plywood, shingles, sheathing, etc.
Many thanx!

"waste" can come for a couple of different sources....

design errors, construction errors, bad material.

so it depends on how good each of these categories is

when I was building laboratory specimens (8' shear walls; 8', 12, 16'
long) we had no design errors because the design was so simple

depending on the skill & experience of the crew we had the occasional
const error but again we were building simple repetitive stuff

The bulk of our waste came from "un-usable" material.....by the time
we stickered & dried a unit of 2x4's, we usually had a number of
"hockey sticks)

Since we wanted our test specimens to be pretty decent we ordered
about 10 to 15% extra on 2x4's

but if you're building with green lumber you can get it all nailed
together and it will stay straighter when it dries out.

As Ed mentioned, on plywood you should be able to get really close
depending on how the design matches up with sheet sizes. Plywood,
being a manufactured product should have zero un-usable sheets.

You've got to evaluate your process & determine how many mistakes you
might make.

Nowadays with expensive gas, expensive labor, running to store doesn't
make sense... imo better to overbuy and avoid the extra trips, then
return unused stuff when you're all done.

cheers
Bob