Framing Contractor in Fresno, CA
Production, custom and multifamily framing — six crews, labour-only or labour and material, and an on-time handover rate we publish because your schedule is the thing we're actually selling.
Our Product Is Your Schedule, Not Our Lumber
Every builder we work for has the same underlying problem: the frame is the pinch point. Nothing behind it can start until it's done, and everything behind it is booked.
So the number that decides whether we're worth using isn't dollars per square foot. It's how often we hand over on the date we promised. Ours is ninety-six percent across the last three years, and we publish it because almost nobody in this trade will.
That figure comes from ordinary, unglamorous things: six crews rather than one stretched thin, thirty-eight carpenters on our own payroll instead of day labour that may or may not appear, a lead carpenter who stays with a job start to finish, and a scheduler who tells you in week one if a date is going to slip rather than in week five.
When we can't hit a date we say so before you've booked the trades behind us. That is worth more than a bid being four percent lower, and every GC who has been burned already knows it.
- ✓96% on-time handover across the last three years
- ✓Six crews, 38 carpenters, all on our payroll
- ✓One lead carpenter per job, start to finish
- ✓Slip warnings in week one, not week five
Scope We Take
We frame. We don't chase siding, decks or finish carpentry, and we'll tell you plainly when a job is outside what six framing crews should be taking on.
Every Trade Behind Us Inherits Our Tolerances
A framing error doesn't stay in the framing budget. It gets absorbed — and billed — by whoever arrives next. These are the six places it shows up.
Drywall
Out-of-plane studs and bowed top plates mean floating, shimming and extra compound. Drywall crews price a bad frame the moment they walk it, and they are right to.
Cabinets
A cabinet run needs a plumb, flat wall and blocking exactly where the layout says. Missing blocking is the single most common framing complaint we hear from installers.
Tile and stone
Out-of-square openings and deflecting floors turn into cut waste, lippage and callbacks. A tiler cannot fix a frame; they can only charge for working around it.
Windows and doors
Rough openings that aren't square or aren't the specified size mean shims, foam and a unit that never operates properly. This is where warranty calls come from two years later.
Mechanical and plumbing
Chases and drops that were never framed leave the MEP trades cutting structure — sometimes cutting things they shouldn't. We frame the routes the plans call for.
The inspector
A frame that fails rough inspection stops every trade behind it and puts a correction and a reinspection on your calendar. This is the most expensive version of a cheap frame.
Send Us the Plan Set
We'll come back with a number and a date, priced labour-only and labour-and-material so you can compare. If we can't hit your programme we'll say so in the same reply rather than take the job and hope.
What Happens, in What Order
A single-storey production plan with the package on site. Custom and multifamily run longer, in the same order.
Days 1-2 — layout and walls up
Plates snapped and bottom plates anchored, walls built and stood, temporary bracing on. This is the day the plan set gets read properly, and where a discrepancy needs to surface rather than get framed in.
Days 3-4 — plumb, line and shear
Walls plumbed and lined, permanent bracing, shear panels on with the specified nailing pattern and hold-downs set. This is what the inspector will actually look at.
Days 5-7 — trusses and roof
Trusses set and braced to the engineer's layout, sheathing on, roof edge detailed. Crane day is scheduled around the truss delivery rather than the other way round.
Days 8-9 — sheathing, blocking, backing
Wall sheathing completed, then the part that decides how the finish trades feel about us: blocking for cabinets, handrails, grab bars, TV mounts and anything the plans call out.
Days 10-11 — windows, dry-in, walk
Windows and exterior doors set, weather barrier and flashing, then we walk the frame with you against the plans and clear our own punch list before we hand over.
The Inspection Turns on Hardware and Nailing
In this state the structural conversation is seismic, and that means the frame is judged on connections rather than on how straight the studs look.
Shear panel nailing is the big one: edge nailing spacing, the right fastener, and no over-driven nails breaking the sheathing face. An over-driven pattern is invisible from six feet and it is a failed inspection from six inches.
Then the hardware: hold-downs anchored where the engineer put them, straps at the specified locations, hangers fully nailed rather than tacked, and the correct product rather than a similar-looking one. Substituting hardware is not a field decision and we don't make it.
We schedule our own pre-inspection walk before we call yours, because a correction we find costs an afternoon and a correction the inspector finds costs your whole programme a week. Nought shear inspections failed since 2022, and that is a number we'd rather protect than explain.
- ✓Nailing pattern and fastener to the engineer's schedule
- ✓Hold-downs and straps where the drawings put them, not near them
- ✓No hardware substitutions made in the field
- ✓Our own pre-inspection walk before we call yours
What We Need From You to Hit the Date
Our on-time figure isn't ours alone — it depends on five things that are yours. We'd rather agree them at bid stage than discuss them at week three.
A final plan set, not a nearly-final one
Revisions mid-frame are the most expensive kind. If a set is still moving we'd rather start a week later than frame it twice.
The package on site before day one
If you're supplying lumber, it needs to be there and complete. We'll review your takeoff and flag gaps before delivery, free.
A slab or deck that's ready and accurate
Square, level, correct dimensions, anchors where the plans say. We check before we start rather than build a frame that inherits an error.
Access for a truck and a crane
Truss day needs room. If access is tight, tell us at bid stage and we'll price the smaller equipment rather than discover it on the morning.
The truss order placed on time
Truss lead times are the single most common cause of a frame stalling mid-job. We'll tell you the date it has to be ordered by.
One person who can decide
A named contact who can answer a plan question the same day. Waiting for a decision is the cheapest delay to eliminate and the most common one.
Across the Central Valley
Four Steps, and You Get a Date in Step Two
How working with us actually goes, from plan set to handover.
Plans in
Send the set and the truss layout. We review the takeoff too and flag anything missing, whether or not you're buying the package.
Number and a date
Within two working days, priced labour-only and labour-and-material, with a start and a handover date we'll commit to.
Crew assigned
One of six crews with a named lead carpenter who stays with the job. You get their name and number, not a dispatch line.
Frame and walk
We frame, run our own pre-inspection walk, clear our punch list, then walk it with you against the plans before handover.
Mostly About Dates and Drywall Bills
We build eighty houses a year and the framer is the single biggest schedule risk on the whole calendar. Redhollow have hit their handover date on twenty-nine of our last thirty starts. I do not have a cheaper framer and I do not want one.
The difference shows up in the drywall bill, not the framing bill. Square openings, plumb walls, blocking where the cabinet guy needs it. Our finish trades stopped writing change orders for framing corrections about two years ago, which is exactly when we switched.
We buy our own lumber package and a lot of framers get funny about that. Redhollow quoted labour-only without blinking, told us exactly what they needed on site and when, and flagged two items missing from our takeoff before delivery.
What Builders Ask Us
Do you bid labour-only, or labour and material?
Both, and we'll price both on the same bid so you can compare. Plenty of production builders have better lumber pricing than we do and want to keep control of the package — that's completely fine and we don't load the labour number to punish it. If we're supplying, you get the takeoff and the supplier named.
How do you price framing?
Production work is usually per square foot of framed area by plan, which is how builders want to compare and budget. Custom and multifamily are priced off the drawings, because the framing hours in a complex roof or a stacked party wall have very little to do with the square footage. Either way the bid names what's included — sheathing, blocking, hardware installation, windows or not.
What's your capacity, and can you take our schedule?
Six crews, thirty-eight carpenters. That's roughly eight to twelve houses in progress at once, or one multifamily building plus tract work. We'll tell you honestly at bid stage whether your dates fit — and if they don't, we'd rather lose the bid than take it and put your programme at risk.
Who handles the shear and hardware inspection?
We install to the engineer's schedule and we run our own pre-inspection walk before you call yours. Nailing pattern, hold-downs, straps, hangers fully nailed, no substitutions. Nought shear inspections failed since 2022. If a correction is ours we fix it without a conversation about who pays.
Do you do blocking and backing as standard?
Yes, and it's on the bid rather than an extra. Cabinets, handrails, grab bars, TV mounts, closet systems, anything the plans call out. Missing blocking is the most common complaint finish trades have about framers and it costs us almost nothing to get right the first time.
What if the plans change mid-frame?
It happens and we'll work with you. What we'll do is price the change and tell you its schedule impact in writing before we build it, rather than absorb it quietly and hand the date back to you late. A revision that arrives before walls go up is usually cheap; the same revision after sheathing is not.
Are your carpenters employees or subcontractors?
Employees, all thirty-eight, with workers' comp. We don't run day labour. It costs us more per hour and it is the main reason our on-time figure holds — a crew that turns up is worth more than a crew that quotes cheap.
Will we get the same crew all the way through?
The same lead carpenter, yes, and largely the same crew. You'll have their name and mobile number from day one. Continuity is the thing builders raise with us most often about framers they've left, so we treat it as part of the product.
Send the Plan Set and the Dates
Two working days for a number, a start date and a handover date, priced both ways. If your programme doesn't fit our capacity we'll say so in the same reply.