Two weeks ago, I was in my basement going over a job with a plumber. A week later, the written proposal price came in higher than his on-site estimate. I asked him about it. The price of materials like steel and copper keeps going up, he said.

A few days after that, my editor dispatched me to photograph consumers and get quotes from them regarding inflation. Outside a Boston Home Depot, I found Paul O'Toole loading WonderBoard onto his truck. Last weekend, crooks stole copper pipes from his job site. "You don't expect someone to rip it [copper] out of the walls," the astonished general contractor told me.

While attaching fresh lumber to the roof of his van, Alex Pepin explained that price spikes have hurt his profits and make estimating jobs more difficult.

Whew. The modest plumbing price increase I signed off on looks pretty good at this point.