Hit 500 stair stringers this week, surprised myself with a zero waste run

I've been framing stairs for 11 years and always figured scrap was just part of the job. This week I finished my 500th stringer and noticed I hadn't thrown away a single cutoff from the last 14 sets. It was a small thing, but I sat down and realized I started laying out each cut on the board before touching the saw. That habit came from watching a guy in Tulsa who did custom curved stairs, he told me "measure twice, cut once is for amateurs, think twice, cut none is the goal." Anyone else track their waste rate on a specific job type and get surprised by a number like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

pipera504d ago

Waste is just the cost of doing good work, cutting corners on material means cutting corners on quality.

the_kelly3d ago

The real cost of waste is hiding in the labor hours spent handling it, not just the material price tag. Every extra scrap piece means someone stops production to move it, sort it, or haul it out. That time adds up fast and hits the bottom line harder than the material itself.