Plan early for home improvement projects

Apr. 24—People thinking about doing projects shouldn’t delay, says Clyde Schmautz, manager of Infinity Building Services.

“If you are thinking about doing something now is the time to get it on the books, now is the time to make sure that it can happen,” he said.

This is a busy time of year for projects, he said.

“There’s a lot of people making decisions and having different plans drawn up, additions, siding, windows, decks, garages,” he said.

Related to decks, people are mainly updating products that do not require maintenance and making the decks larger at that time, he said.

Schmautz noted that decks made of wood material will fade, sag, begin rotting and crack. Using products that do not require maintenance eliminates that problem.

People thinking about doing a deck project should consider how it will be used, Schmautz said.

“What they’re going to use it for as far as how much furniture they’re going to have and the size of different things like grills or anything up there which would determine the size of the deck more than anything,” Schmautz said.

He said most people have a design or plan in mind for decks when they come to Infinity Building Services, which offers concept to finish services.

“They’ll come in with an idea just like when people come in for a new home,” he said.

Schmautz said there isn’t one project that’s more dominant than others at this time.

“There’s a lot of different things that everybody wants to do,” he said.

The timeframe to turn projects around can be affected by the availability of the product, Schmautz said.

“If it’s something that we do not carry and we have to order it, we’ve waited three months for certain things already or longer,” he said. “So the availability has got a lot to do with it, so if they are thinking about it (a project) they should check that out and make sure that the product could be gotten in a timely fashion.”

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Lumber mills and plywood mills that shut down for a period of time during the pandemic then got behind in producing products, Schmautz said. Weather in certain parts of the country — the freeze in Texas in February, for example — also can affect the availability of certain products.

“Something as easily normally gotten as windows, they were out 10 weeks (from the manufacturer) this past fall,” he said. “So 2 1/2 months, which is usually a two-week turnaround. It did shorten up through the winter but already during the building season now they’ve added an extra four weeks, now they’re back out to six already.”

Infinity Building Services expects to be in its new location in early summer, Schmautz said. The business will be moving from 2801 3rd Ave. SW to the former Builders FirstSource location at 1905 8th Ave. SW.

For more information, call 952-7500 or http://infinitybuilding.net.