When you are ready to build or remodel your home it’s important to realize that since early 2020 the Construction Industry has experienced significant, sweeping changes. Not only has there been increases on overall costs, the availability of of a lot of materials and appliances has a lot of contractors and clients reconsidering a wide array of things. While you might be able to compromise on timeline, a finish here or there, it’s never a good idea to compromise on quality.

John Webb has redesigned quite a few homes over the years, so he knows a thing or two about the quality and ease of repair of a lot of these appliance brands. In this clip John explains just how much has changed since COVID hit, how it has impacted supply chains, and how that in turn impacts the availability of certain items his Clients often ask for.

Quality Appliances and the Cost of Repair

This is pretty good refrigeration built in. Overflow. This is going to be a great family house and for entertaining. This has some good compartments here. Everything is built in. There’s some good limestone we tool out. It came out in pieces, I couldn’t get it out in one piece. It was sad. Some extra floor.

I believe this is a Miele dishwasher, but it’s 15 years old. And some of the problems with some of the things here in Eugene is that it’s difficult, when things do happen, to get anybody that knows how to work on them. They have to come out of Portland anyway. And you have to wait sometimes. There are some appliances that are pretty cool appliances – beautiful refrigeration and stoves, you know, that I’ve run into – but there’s nobody that to take care of maintenance on them if there’s ever a problem. If something broke in some of them you might not get a part for 6 months.

So, it’s a no-brainer to me I just don’t touch them. Unless you’ve got somebody that’s in a bigger metropolitan area that will service and can get the parts, and they know the problems that they have. But sometimes we know that there’s problems, but the beauty or whatever that people can’t get past, just so beautiful and streamlined, how organized they are and how well they operate.. So, you know, with any machine these days, all you can do is…

What I do is what I know I’ve been using for the last 20 some odd years: what lasts and what doesn’t last. And, I have good luck with a lot of them, with these higher end appliances, but we have had things where one thing has been a problem. For instance, say an ice maker broke and wouldn’t fill with ice, it would flood the floor. You know, you’re paying $12,000 for a refrigerator you don’t want that. And you don’t want them saying “Oh there’s nobody here that can fix it. Or “It would take us three weeks to get there. And another 3 weeks to get the part.

Changes to Remodel Costs and Supply Chains

And with COVID, it’s just been treacherous out there. I mean, it still is. We try to look, when I’m making suggestions, it’s really about what we can get. And if you steer off that then you’re on your own. I mean, I’ll get it for you, it just might be 6 months down the road. And, to think we’re going to get it installed at that time for the same amount? Everything is going to go up because now we’re pulling people off different jobs, coming back and resetting and getting it going.

You’re going to have at least a little bit of an increase in cost. And, sometimes that’s alright and sometimes it’s not. It just depends on how a client has an attachment to something that they’ve absolutely loved. And I think it’s important that they have that. So I’ll go the whole mile for them, but COVID has not helped anybody in this industry, trying to get the parts for anything. They just got dishwashers moving again. I mean, we’ll order specialty ones, lets say we oder specialty dishwashers that take wine glasses, and big wine glasses. I mean with the configuration inside giving you more options on how to put things in the dishwasher, that can cost you months and thousands of dollars.

I think they went back into operation in November of last year. And if you had anything on the rack you could find one. I did find one last year and we had to put our own front on it, but we didn’t care at that point. I got it to blend it and everything matched up perfectly. But that’s not always something that people can do.

John Webb Construction & Design EUG: https://johnwebbconstruction.com/

Posted January 30, 2023 by John Webb