Re: [Paddlewise] CO2 - lets have real information or close discussion

rebyl_kayak_at_energysustained.com writes:

>Have to  say that I'm in despair of ever getting my question answered.

All I  wanted to know was how much it costs to build a kayak when you take 
out the  very important and worthwhile costs of labour and profit. That way I 
reckon I  can estimate my green house offset and pay it because I want to not 
because I  think anyone else should...

It would have been nice to get a closer figure but thats the  best I can 
manage given the lack of any real information.



This is a slightly different question than what you asked in the first place.  I can think to two ways to do this:  most large item retail gross margins are about 33 percent of retail price, ditto the manufacturer's mark-up.  For most manufactured goods labor and material costs are about half and half.  for example a $1500 retail kayak should have cost the retailer about $1000, and cost the manufacturer to build it about $660.  Half of that is direct labor cost, half direct material costs, or about $300-330 each.  Removing the material suppliers overhead and profit, you  might be looking at about $200 worth of raw materials at cost.  This varies for many products and industries, some items are more labor intensive to make, some more material intensive, but for a rough guess this should be close.

of course the different type of materials that kayaks are built from may have a different "carbon cost".  For example propane and gasoline roughly cost the same, but propane has about half the carbon dioxide output for the same amount of combustion for each of the fuels. I imagine there might be something similar with fiberglass/polyester resin, polyethylene, carbon graphite/epoxy resin, and the various other materials used in kayak building. A review of the chemical composition of what ever your kayak is made from will tell you the carbon content of the material.

The other way to is simply weigh the kayak and then make an estimate of the percentage of how much each of the components contribute to that weight, and then look-up the whole sale cost for each of the raw materials.

I think Matt Broze might be able to give you a fairly accurate estimate of the raw material costs that go into his kayaks.


Good luck,

Peter C
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