Material Shortages: Nothing is on the Shelves!!!

Material shortages! Most of us have experienced some sort of material shortage over the recent past. Frustrating to say the least!! In the latest episode of Electrician U, Dustin talks about this issue, what are some of the causes, and what are some of the other results.

🤘⚡️MEMBERSHIP⚡️🤘
JOIN ELECTRICIAN U - become a member and get:
FREE Continuing Education every year
FREE Practice Exams
FREE Monthly Video Courses
FREE Weekly Live Instructor-Led Classes
FREE Monthly Educational Newsletter
Premium Members-Only Content
Private Discord Channel
Monthly Members-Only Discord Chats
Sign up here --- https://www.electricianu.com/electrician-u-membership/

🎧🎹MUSIC AND VIDEO:🎹🎧
https://www.facebook.com/descantmv

🎬✍️ART AND ILLUSTRATION:✍️🎬
https://www.daverussoart.com
The recent shortage of electrical materials (well, the shortage of MOST construction materials) is due to the pandemic and the fall out from it. Even though we may be over two years past the start of the pandemic, we are still suffering from some of the effects from it. The material shortages honestly STARTED with people having to go home when Covid hit. This resulted in having only the materials that were on hand to be able to sell. Part of the problem lies in the length of time this pandemic has gone on. If it were short lived, factories could have simply reopened, worked some overtime to make up for the off time and it probably would have been back to business as usual! In fact, there have been cases where some places of business have not opened back up at all.
Furthering the problem of material shortages was the fact that some people/companies went into panic mode and bought up ALL they could find for certain materials. This left a deficit for the rest of us and honestly something that factories couldn’t keep up with. With workers out sick and factories/warehouses either offline or at a fraction of operating capacity, some manufacturers simply could not keep supply up with demand. In some areas of the country people even went to the extremes of STEALING from the larger supply stores. Yep, just walking in and taking items leaving the stores to raise their prices to make up for their losses! This also led to some of those stores having to lock up those higher priced valuable items and provide extra security protocols to ensure their theft was lessened.
The material shortage is continuing to rise even though the pandemic has calmed down. Believe it or not, some items that used to be stock are now being quoted by the vendors as being up to a year away from being available! A year!! This is further impacting the construction industry. Can you imagine having to tell your customer that they cannot occupy their new building for a whole year past their deadline? And the material shortage issue is not confined to the construction industry only. Has anyone looked for a new truck lately? Car lots are empty on many models and those you do find are twice as high as they were (proportionately) a year ago!
So, this material issue has forced us to explore other avenues to complete our projects and complete them on time! Could be different materials, different installation methods, different types of buildings all together! It is also forcing us to plan better (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!) to project for delays and higher costs.
We hope this has been an insightful look into the current material shortages issue impacting the construction industry. What are you seeing in your local area? What are you doing to get past some of those issues? Leave a comment in the comment section below and let us know! Please continue to follow Dustin and Electrician U as we are constantly adding new content to assist our followers in being the best electricians possible.