What rebuilding materials cost: U.S. factory prices

Each material’s index has its own base year, so we reset them all to January 2020 = 100. A reading of 150 means prices are half again what they were then.

• Copper wire & cable (+27% in a year, up 99% since January 2020). Electricians. Building wire is mostly copper, so rewiring after a fire or flood uses it.
• Lumber (+7.6% in a year, up 37% since January 2020). Framers and rebuild contractors. Studs, joists and rafters for framing a rebuild. It peaked in May 2021 at 2.2 times its January 2020 level (+120%) and has come down since.
• Paint (+5.9% in a year, up 51% since January 2020). Painters. Interior and exterior coatings for finished repairs.
• Plumbing fittings & trim (+5.1% in a year, up 35% since January 2020). Plumbers. Valves, faucets and brass fittings. This index does not cover pipe or toilets.
• Asphalt roofing & siding (+3.9% in a year, up 51% since January 2020). Roofers. Asphalt shingles and roll roofing.
• Drywall (gypsum products) (+0.2% in a year, up 48% since January 2020). Drywall and insulation crews. Wallboard replaced after water or fire damage.
• All goods for home repair (benchmark) (+7.7% in a year, up 49% since January 2020). Every trade. BLS’s mix of all goods used in home repair. Use it to judge whether one material is running hot.

It does tell you which materials are getting dearer at the source, and how fast. In the year to August 2026, copper wire & cable rose 27% at the factory and drywall (gypsum products) rose 0.2%. It shows the same thing for every county.

It doesn’t tell you what you will pay. These are national factory prices, not Inland Empire or coastal supply-house prices. They leave out freight, markup, tax and contractor discounts. They don’t cover labor. The newest four months are preliminary and can change. The world copper price is for refined metal, not wire, and it is published later than the BLS numbers.

The data also doesn’t say why a price moved. We show the change, not the cause.