Moving to Montana or Wyoming

[Hnthrdr]

There’s no work in MT. I heard CO is nice though…

Co is so damn nice, I love my home but it’s such a giant PITA to live here these days with the other 5 million yahoos that fudged it up. We are literal Mountain California now… we have better weather, prettier mountains, better seasons than about anywhere (especially the other mountain west) yet, we have rush hour traffic 24/7 and men dressed up as women telling me to not have a an ice engine, or firearms, or hunt lions, or that I need to pay more taxes so drug addicts and illegals can have better healthcare than the healthcare that I already pay for.

 

[Wolfie729]

As someone who packed his family of 4 , now 6, and moved from NY to WY I'll give you some advice.

You need to spend alot of time in these areas before tou move to them. People visit Yellowstone through Cody to the tune of over 1 million a year. Those people fall in love with July in Cody and think they want to live there. Then they sell their expensive house in CA or NY or thr PNW and move. Then 1 year later they leave and go somewhere else.

These places aren't what they seem when you visit and living there is very different.

Outside of the towns and cities in Wyoming that are populated and have amenities the smaller towns are isolated and lonely with nothing to do.

I live in one of the disreable towns in WY. My 7 year old daughter asked a question the other day. "Mom, if someone was visiting (our town) Wyoming and had never been here before, what would they do for fun?" My wife couldn't answer the question.

The wind, the cold, the winter, makes people flee. Youndont experience those things in their full affect until you live here. Many can hack it, many cant.

If we want to have a fun 3 day weekend outside of camping and hiking (which eventually get old) we have to travel to billings for trampoline parks, the mall, Scheels ect..

Sometimes its very difficult living here. Alot of the guys who grew up here look to leave and move later in life, not all but a lot.

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Thank you! Never been to Yellowstone or Cody. Michigan winters are tuff I frame houses all winter so I’m used to embracing the suck. We do have some awesome amenities here one of the top ten childrens hospitals in the country is 30 min away. Probably the reason my daughter is still here. I mainly just hunt out west but I long for being out there constantly we are still very much in the beginning stages

 

[Wolfie729]

Hey transplant, here are the rules: only the people born in these places get to play the don’t move here game haha just messing

Also let’s be real, this guy would likely be a net positive for any western state, I watched my home state turn into an unrecognizable lunny bin. So I for one would rather have a boatload of conservative minded, pro small government people move in. And fyi it took 8-12 years for Co to flip and we had a population of 2.9 mil when I was born… so if my math is right Wyoming or MT could be flipped a hell of a lot faster than that, 600k heck in a year or two you guys could be in the fight of your lives with gov overreach, people are coming anyhow, I’ll take those who won’t threaten to end hunting/ consumptive lifestyle any day

I appreciate this. If you look at a michigan voting map there is always usually 3 counties voting red on the west side my county is one of them. But we get over run by the crap hole people call detroit. And now we got all the people from chicago moving up here because it sucks there but then they try to change the narrative which is why they moved here in the first place.

 

[Wolfie729]

Plenty of prior posts on where to live with a little searching, but it should be said you need to carefully consider locations because construction in rural towns is very different from town to town, and work is very much like salmon runs, when there’s work life is good and when it dries up there’s not a single fish in the stream.

Work on the houses of residents in city limits and you’re competing with every guy with a pickup and skillsaw who will work for dirt cheap. Much more money is in vacation homes, but it’s not as easy as just showing up. Local subs will work against you as a favor for their regular contractors. Locals won’t trust you, and many jobs have architects out of the area so courting them is not always easy. Suppliers will rent you their crappiest equipment, deliver their worst lumber, drag their feet as much as possible on concrete pour days, and over bid your jobs. Even carpenters don’t like guys who show up from the east coast and don’t adjust to the way we do things. We don’t care how you nail off trim in areas with big humidity swings, what you do for termites, or how much you like strapping ceilings prior to Sheetrock.

The guys who make it in smaller areas go to work for the best contractor in town to learn how things are done, make contacts, get to know suppliers/subs, and understand where the niche is they want to explore on their own. Without this kind of local information and starting a building business you're rowing upstream.

The other out of state small contractors that have made it seem to start very small with whatever they can get, and are very good at making friends with local architects, suppliers and subs, so even without any other local support, they get a stream of small projects from recommendations until they have enough time and local work under their belt to be taken seriously for bigger stuff.

The best carpenters that you would like to hire, aren’t interested unless you have good projects and lots of hours. Even when you have good work for the summer, the more established guys have planned for a big house to be dried in by late fall so work can be done all winter inside for the carpenters they like and have been with them all summer. Many guys are used to traveling across the state for the best paid work, so you might be in an active building area and can’t find anyone local that will swing a hammer for you, or know for a fact a large number of carpenters live in an area and can’t get any of them to call you back.

As the poster child for moving to Wyoming, a small general contractor with a great reputation for high quality stain grade finish work moved to town, called up every contractor and was willing to work for cheap to get his foot in the door. He showed up on a job I was on running trim and we chatted a bit. Later the owner of the company asked how he was doing and chatted about the nice looking trim and how he could never hire the guy as an employee because all the extra nailing made him too slow, and as a sub his bids would be too expensive per foot for knotty alder or pine trim that gets used all over the place. I could tell the guy was sharp, capable, likeable, professional, good work ethic, could be fast enough if he could give up his old habits, had a pile of projects back east, but struggled for two seasons as a sub and moved back home.

Many western carpenters and subs for the best paying remote vacation homes are jack of all trades and the guys who stay the busiest are not only the best at what they do, but are flexible and well rounded. A cabinet maker who can also frame interior walls, tile the backsplash, has a brother who will do the granite, can install or site build cabinets, install appliances and isn’t afraid of running the exhaust duct through the roof is much more valuable than a guy building custom cabinets for 20 years in a shop.

I get that. Not looking to start a business there may go into something completely different. Ive done a ton of custom houses over the years from 7,000 sq ft timber frames with all custom cabinets to 13,000 sq ft metal building barndominuims to a basic bathroom remodel. I enjoy what I do. We started with high end trim and built from there but I’m ready to try something different.

 

[Wolfie729]

What do your 10&12 year old girls think about leaving everything because of the excitement you get when being "west" for 2 weeks a year ?

Haven’t talked to them much about it. I think to many people now days put too much stake in what their kids think or want. My kids will make new friends as will my wife and myself. People are pretty resilient, I enjoy the western culture I grew up on a farm running equipment working with animals it’s the culture and the lifestyle. Hell I shot a buck in wyoming one year and just got talking to the rancher and helped him the rest of the week with all sorts of stuff for fun not making one penny. I did get a couple free beers and an elk steak one day.

 

[Wolfie729]

We’ve had a little fun with you on this thread, but here’s a serious question. You’re already a Michigan resident. If you’re looking for a more small town or backwoods lifestyle, why not relocate to the Upper Peninsula? Seems like this would have to be easier logistically?

The UP is cool from what I hear, never been there lol. If we ever take vacations we head west. But the lack of hunting opportunities and work are not for us.

 

[TaperPin]

I get that. Not looking to start a business there may go into something completely different. Ive done a ton of custom houses over the years from 7,000 sq ft timber frames with all custom cabinets to 13,000 sq ft metal building barndominuims to a basic bathroom remodel. I enjoy what I do. We started with high end trim and built from there but I’m ready to try something different.

I’m not trying to dissuade you, just bringing up all those things because even contractors within the state run into those issues when doing a job in a new part of the state.

I love working on vacations homes, remote outbuildings and big remodels in the middle nowhere, and once you’re in the loop I’ve always had plenty of work in the pipeline. Personally, I’d focus on remote roads with 20 to 75 desirable lots, a home owner association that plows the roads, with or without a gated entrance. Some are owner occupied, some are second/third homes. All the owners in these areas talk a lot, trade information on who has done work for them that they like, and once you’re in you could almost retire there. Once established it gives you credibility with architects and clients that will get you into larger more exclusive customs.

The more flexible you are, and more you network, the more things will fall into your lap. In rural areas it’s sometimes hard to find good generals or subs that aren’t busy, at any price, especially last minute. Many small outfits have stepped up from moderate size projects to big customs because they were able to jump in and finish a project someone else was fired from, or that had someone walk away from before it was done.

Just keeping a sharp eye on customs out in the sticks as they are being built will turn up a number of opportunities. When one comes to a halt, something went wrong. Some crews don’t know what they are doing and get themselves in over their heads in quite visible ways - a lot of work isn’t being done by experienced subs but guys trying to do everything by themselves.

In the back of your mind I’d keep up on radiant floor heat designs especially working on wood subfloors, SIPS, ICF for walls as well as foundations, shallow frost protected foundations, pinning foundations to large rock outcrops, techniques to retard concrete on remote pours, super insulated shells, fire resistant construction, stick framing big vaulted main rooms, finishing western style woods, dealing with high wind sites, basic log construction especially log/timber trusses/beams, log siding, cement siding, leach field systems, when river run gravel can be used instead of crushed, using big timber pieces for decks/entrances/exterior and interior trim, Ipe/synthetic decks, aluminum clad window systems, basic steel I beams for spanning big open floor framing, stained concrete basics and paver installations. It’s a giveaway when someone new doesn’t know anything about those, thinking the subs will know, or the architect will tell them. It’s the Wild Wild West and outside the city limits in areas without building inspections it might be up to you how it’s done and you’re expected to have a code book and understand how to use it. It helps to know everything the subs know, or should know. Even getting plans from an architect outside the area may never see him set foot on site. Vacation home architects often advertise in magazines and might be in one state, the client is from another state and the house it built in the third state where you are.

The flip side of a hands on general, an acquaintance builds 5 remote houses a year from the cab of his pickup, using all the same subs for every one, but dang he puts a lot of dirt road miles on checking on them every day.

 

[ewade07]

I grew up just west of Billings, went to school there, College in Bozeman, then bopped around between Bozeman and Sheridan WY for jobs, ultimately landed back in Billings with a great job and been here for the last 6 years. My wife and I own two homes now in town. Is Billings the greatest place in Montana to live? No. Is there worse places? Yes. Billings may not be in the mountains but it is close enough. It has gotten more expensive to live but I see it as one of the more affordable places to call home.