Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

I might be a bit different and have my own ideas. But I also sometimes go to Poland to get building materials. Clearly cheaper and better.

For you privately or for your business activity? If privately, then you live near the border or have unlimited time (no real job?). Every normal employee can't do that. If for business, then you also don't have a real job if you have time and leisure to go all the way to Poland. Every normal craftsman has the stuff sent and paid for by the customer. By the way, the building materials are not "better." The Poles also just use water to cook. You are a strange guy ;):rolleyes:

That sounds to me more like the Zittau area. You are probably faster at the Polish and Czech hardware stores than at the German one anyway.

Do you have tips for Poland, tiles, and laminate? Possibly also furniture?

We get our bathrooms, tiles, interior and exterior doors from Labradoor in Szczecin.

We consciously buy and place orders locally, even if it is not available at Romanian prices. Simply because we want to support the craftsmanship and the middle class in our region. These are our neighbors, fellow citizens. If they are doing well, then the region is doing well too. And our cooperative loyalty in times of problems has certainly also contributed to the fact that we neither have delivery problems, nor have price increases for building materials been passed on to us beyond a normal extent. For that, a spontaneous replanning by the client, which is a complete redesign in the area of installation, costs only an extra box of wine. And yes, we have also been able to pick up window lintels from the building materials depot on a Sunday once. And that is not only possible in rural areas, it is also possible in the city, as I repeatedly observe at work.

There are a few trades that require a master’s certificate, like electrical work, heating, etc. Of course, you earn very well as a master in those trades, and naturally, there is demand. In 2004, under the red-green government, the master’s certificate requirement was lifted for many trades. At that point, the master’s title became almost worthless. I am a master of a trade that does not require a master’s certificate, more in the field of textile processing. The wages there are not that great anyway. There is also no credit-financed bubble like with roofers or heating installers.

How is a self-employed shoemaker or tailor master supposed to charge 100€ an hour, for example? That just doesn’t work. No, people run to C&A, buy pants that don’t fit for 10€, and then go to the tailor who is supposed to alter them for 3 euros. But that also takes 1 hour, and he can only alter 10 pants per day. Yes, that’s how it is. And since there is no longer a master certificate requirement for shoemakers or tailors, there are no apprentices anymore either. Master’s certificates in trades without the master requirement have dropped by about 90 percent. But since only masters are allowed to train apprentices, you can figure that apprentice completions have also dropped between 80 and 90 percent.

When this correlation was recognized in politics, in 2020 they made some of the trades masters-required again. Tilers, upholsterers, for example, after hardly any upholsterers had been trained anymore. But first you need masters again for that. That will probably take years, if it happens at all.

So far, no problem, the goods come from China anyway. There is no German textile industry anymore. But now we currently have the problem that a container from China either doesn’t arrive properly anymore or is extremely expensive. Can production suddenly start up again in Germany then? No. Because there is neither the technology nor the corresponding skilled workers. Electricity prices, etc., also play their part.

Just across the border in the Polish part of the city of Görlitz, there are huge shopping centers. Carrefour, Merlin Leroy, Castorama, and many more hardware stores, supermarkets, etc.
In the surrounding area, there are building material dealers. You see many small trucks from Munich, Stuttgart, or Nuremberg buying there. It’s almost all Germans there.

Huge selection, especially in hardware stores. Clearly more than here in the country. Doors, windows, tiles, fences, gates, wood, insulation, etc. I was over there maybe two years ago, price-wise it was still very attractive then.

We consciously buy and commission locally, even if it's not available at the Romanian price. Simply because we want to support the craftsmanship and the middle class in our region. They are our neighbors, fellow citizens. If they are doing well, then the region does well too. And our cooperative loyalty in times of problems has certainly also led to the fact that we neither have delivery problems, nor have price increases in building materials been passed on to us beyond the normal extent. A spontaneous replanning by the client, which involves a complete redesign in the installation area, costs only an extra box of wine. And yes, we have even been able to pick up lintels from the building materials yard on a Sunday. And this is not only possible in rural areas, it’s also possible in the city, as I notice again and again in my work.

That’s exactly how it should work in my opinion. But when the local ones demolish what they shouldn’t demolish, but leave standing what they should demolish, don’t master their craft, and then explain to me and my expert why a mistake couldn’t have been done differently, build crookedly and either too small or too large, forget orders, and are almost unreachable because they can’t handle the workload. Well, then my motivation for “act local” definitely reaches its limits. The question is also, what is regional? If my staircase builder is almost in Spandau while I’m at the eastern border of Berlin, Poland isn’t that much further away (especially in terms of time). For me, state borders are only on the map and not in my head. If everything were right in the immediate neighborhood, I would find that more sympathetic, too. My HSL is practically 500m from me. So far he’s shown to be reasonably capable, I just hope that’s also true for the fitters. Can’t you make awnings, sun sails, and blinds? You should be able to benefit from the construction boom...