Building a wall

No, today I was actually building a wall. Physically. At work today, some of the techs and I spent the day building a wall and making one pointlessly large room into two more functional small rooms. Really the other guys did most of the work and I watched and did small tasks. Really, I don't know much about building walls.

I learned one thing though.

Its very easy.

So this leads me back to something that Stephanie and I have discussed a lot. Why does building stuff cost so much. It costs 300 million dollars for just one mile of underground subway. It cost 18 million dollars to build that school that I was working at. Why? Why does it cost so much to build stuff?

The wall we put up today didn't cost that much. 8 sheets of drywall for about 5 bucks each. 40 bucks. about 20 long 2x4s. Not maybe 60 bucks. Some nails, a cool nail gun. Maybe 150 bucks in materials. Then, really, it only required 3 guys for 8 hours. These guys make nearly 20 bucks an hour. But only because they are trained to do much harder stuff. But we will give them that. 480 bucks for Labor.

So this wall cost maybe 600 bucks give or take. Thats really not very much. Now I grant you, its just one small wall. And it wasn't exactly built with perfect precision that might be expected from a high end project. But still.

Cinderblocks cost like 50 cents at Lowes. Almost all of that school was built with Cinderblocks. Now I know you have to pay a guy who is good at laying them down. Electricians, plumbers, tile guys, painters. I do understand that it adds up. But 18 million dollars is rediculous. I simply don't see it.

Can someone help?

-T