hiring Amish to build a barn

My wife and I are looking at a farm property a little south of Albany to turn into a summer camp.

We would need to build a dining hall and would like to have it match the other farm buildings which are built with post and beam construction. Anyway, it got me wondering if we might be able to save some money by having an Amish crew come in and build the barn? Any ideas if we would save, and if so, a ballpark idea how much? Also, where would we find such a crew? I"m going out on a limb here, but I"m guessing I won"t find them online!

Thanks in advance,
Jake

Gee Why dont you ask the Amish?

My limited experience is that they are not cheap by any means, but very good.

Basically you get what you pay for

The Amish in my area, IA, are competive and work hard. I do not know if they do any better than a non-Amish person.

we had Amish by us when we 1st moved to our new place,the neighbors said they did nice work but very expensive and slow,this was is in Wisconsin about 10 years ago,hope this helps a little.haven't seen you post for a while hows it going?

Any Amish on here want to chime in on this topic?

Life is crazy but getting better by the day right now. Hopefully it takes a while before it goes back the other way.

Thanks to all for your replies....especially the guy that said to go ask the Amish....

Jake

A buddy of mine hired a few Amish to do some cabinet carpentry and he was paying $10/hour cash....So he says. If you pay by check the price goes up. I would think that with as bad as some guys are (money wise) $100 per day for work would be quite good.

Jake I live 60 miles west of Albany, We have a large population of Amish/Meninite families here. Like the man from IA said the good ones are not cheap. Since you have to also be code compliant, You will be better off with a contractor who can intergrate SIP technology into your post and beam design. The foundation and floor if you are doing a slab on grade floor should have a frost wall constructed with CFIs and radiant tubing. If you are determined to hire Amish craftsmen e-mail me. There is an Amish contractor here who has a modern day tool box and a drivers licence, and a crew. If you have any interest in solar thermo heating equipment, I sell and install it.

Mennonites do a bunch of building around here. You can usually spot their "type" of building. Our neighbour had them build a heifer barn. Good job, but they came and went wnenever they had time to build because all of the crew had their own farms. They built to code, but they would not sign a contract. The old order Folks still have barn raising and a friend of mine watched one happen. He lost count at 150 men working and the building went up like a cartoon. Just whack,whack, whack. Some of them want to be fed at noon and they eat like starving lions. Another neighbout had five of them renovating his barn and the five of them ate 3 21 piece buckets of KFC and everything that came with it. (neighbour was a single gent.)
Cheaper than some contractors but some hidden costs.

We have a lot of Menonites here who do building. They do fabulous work but definitely not cheap. Price-wise they are more expensive than the regular contractors but cheaper than scale. But, I dont know many barns built on scale wage either. I'll stick with my regular guy. He's dirt cheap, good work, and slow as molasses.

Years ago, Amish Bob was posting here. Maybe too hard to crank the genset with one hand and type with another. (Why were there two commo guys on an Army Special Forces team? One guy cranked the bicycle style crank generator while the other guy did code!)

Hey there;
Regardless who you decide on, get some
"reliable" references BEFORE any money
changes hands !!
Bob
God Bless

Here in Ohio you can hardly find anyone that isn't Amish on a building crew.

I have had a few garages built and pole buildings and have always had problems with poor workmanship. I think some of this has to do with they get paid by the building, a flat rate price, so the quicker they can slap it up and cutting a few corners along the way they can move to the next job.

Where I live We have a Pole Barn Amish crew and they do good work.

Local and state building codes for public buildings would be expensive,probably require a licenced crew.

You could also have them hand-craft some of those Amish miracle heaters to heat the place and REALLY save some $$$!!

They do not have insurance, Workman's Comp or Social Security, so they save big $$$ in overhead that way; but also, if they get hurt or killed, they will not sue you, either.
Around here they are very inexpensive compared to licensed, insured contractors. Hard not to look harder at their price.

The Amish in my area do alot of building. I heard of their cheap prices so I went to them and asked to buy ag steel panels. In a one hr conversation he told me that LINER panels would be just fine at least ten times. I kept insidting that I use a decent ag steel designed for exterior exposure. He did not have a price on regular steel, so he mailed it to me a few days later. It was competative, just not cheaper at all than the local lumber yard.

The buildings they build are not on the same scale as local builders, or even close--but they do have alot of satisfied customers.

Any idea what happens if one gets killed on YOUR property, even if they do not sue you? You may want to speak to your insurance company, they will tell you real fast what can go wrong. Then decide if you would rather gamble with them or go to a gambeling place.

Many folks will say they are hard workers, they are indeed hard workers, but that does not make them experts on structures. If their product or engeneering designs fail, do you think a juge will mess with a Amish man?

Our government has a gentle eye towards Amish, because it is very unpopular when it comes to re elections.

In our area they keep books on a chunk of scratch paper, no sale tax added, alot of cash, no insurance etc.

Many folks will mention they did a good job--well you realy can't tell from the ground what is good or bad. I get alot of calls to fix something that a very strong wind had a effect on. Kinda like the strong winds always hit the mobile home parks, and no where else.

I hired a Amish girl to clean house, and she gave me a insite to the Amish world that we all think is great. I was beyond shocked to hear her remarks about the elders, little girls issues that she claims is just part of their world.

There are good and bad as with any group of people, we have a few in our area that harvest the normal mans wallet because they are trusted to be honest.

I bid against an Amish crew to build a pole barn. Differance in price was $300.00 don"t know who was higher, neither of us got the job.

Insight to the Amish:
If there is electricity nearby and power tools, they will use them
If a dad has 5 sons under the age of 21 working for him, the dad charges for 6 men and keeps all of the money. The boys do not get paid until over the age of 21.
They will bring their children (5 - 7 yr.olds) to the job to help clean up.
The Amish around here expect youj to pick them up and take them home each day. If they have to find a ride, they add the cost of the ride to the final bill.