I really, really made a mistake here.

Back in early October 2007 I bought the purlins (Z100 15) I would need for the main floor level before a price rise.

The plan was to have them delivered to our house in Mundaring, drop them off with a semi trailer and Hiab next to the barn, and then move them out to Wooroloo when needed.

When the truck turned up, he was unable to turn from off the street in to the bottom of our 5 acre block - so 27 purlins ended up dumped on the verge near our house.

Over the next two weeks, Linda and I carried these in one by one and put them safely out of sight on gluts.

Finally in March 2008 I was ready to buy PFCs for the undercroft steel work

The supplier was not all that keen to organise the transport - so we decided it was a good time to move the purlins out to Wooroloo and transport the PFCs from a steel yard in Bayswater.

I just couldn't face the prospect of moving 27 purlins back out on to the verge, one by one

Instead I bundled them up in to three packs of nine and dragged, begged, bullied them from their resting place, up a driveway, out on to the street verge. (about 2 hours per pack).

From here, everything went smoothly - a semi trailer with Hiab arrived with the PFC's from Bayswater already loaded, picked up our purlins, and neatly dropped them off at Wooroloo.

Took them over 5 hours - the charge for the job was $530 which I was told was very reasonable (looking back now from the perspective of escalating fuel prices - this now seems laughably cheap)

A month later, I realised that for the outer edges of the floor, I really needed C purlins (and in two other places)

The transport costs for these were $350 ! Almost the same cost as the materials

So I guess the lesson here is:

(1) If you don't know what you are doing it can cost you

(2)Buying before a price rise does not always save money if transport costs are high