BuildTrader: Materials & Pros

Decoder Labs LLC

About this app

Good material deserves a second job.

Sick of the "Hi, is this available?"

Every job ends with material nobody needs. Half a pallet of pavers. Twelve
bags of insulation. Three hundred feet of romex. It goes in a dumpster because finding the person who needs it is harder than replacing it.

BuildTrader is where that material finds its second job, and where the person doing the work finds the person who needs it done.

TWO SIDES, ONE APP

Materials. Post what's left over from your last job and it shows up for
contractors and DIYers nearby. Browse surplus lumber, flooring, tile, drywall,
insulation, roofing, doors, fixtures and more, filtered by category, condition,
price and distance from your zip.

Services. Hire local trades, or list yourself and take the work. Plumbers,
electricians, carpenters, HVAC, roofers, concrete and masonry crews, plus
haulers, cleaners, demo crews, handymen and side-job providers. Filter by trade and by who you want doing it, from a licensed construction company to someone with a truck on a Saturday.

WHAT MATERIALS COST RIGHT NOW

A live commodity tracker for the things a job is built from: softwood lumber,
hardwood, copper, aluminum, zinc, iron ore, natural gas and crude oil, with
scrap copper, steel and aluminum, plus producer price indexes for gypsum board, asphalt roofing, ready-mix concrete, plastic pipe, insulation, siding, sheet metal, fencing and hand tools. Ten years of history on every one, with a chart you can drag through month by month.

Scrap prices matter here more than anywhere. When copper scrap runs, that box of leftover wire in the garage is worth real money.

Sourced from the IMF and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via the St. Louis Fed. Monthly readings, and every figure names the month it covers.

KNOW THE COST BEFORE YOU CALL

A cost guide for 98 common projects across 18 categories. Set the size,
condition, finish, access, complexity and urgency, add your zip, and get a
localized planning range with the assumptions shown. Save it, turn the material side into a shopping list, then send a structured private quote request to
matching local providers and compare what comes back without a lowest-price race.

PROJECT TOOLS

Twenty material calculators — concrete, drywall, flooring, tile, insulation,
siding, paint, board feet, studs, decking, fence, roofing and more. Work out
what you need, then check whether a listing nearby actually covers it. Compare the real pickup cost against retail. Estimate weight, fit and trips before you borrow the truck.

HOW IT WORKS

Local pickup. You message the seller, agree on a time and place, and handle
payment between yourselves. BuildTrader never takes a cut of a sale and never sits between you and your money.

Listings show an approximate area, never a street address. Exact pickup details stay in your private conversation.

Every listing shows when the seller last confirmed it's still there, and stale
listings pause themselves. No more messaging about something sold three weeks ago.

FOUNDING TRADERS

The first 100 people to post a listing get BuildTrader free for life.

Built for merchants, not corporations. Good material deserves a second job.

What’s new

102