Construction costs are out of control

[Bio]

I work for a federal land management agency. I work from the concept to end of timber sales. The loggers cut the trees and put them on a truck. No one is counting rings or figuring out the age of those sticks.

I am positive a good number of those trees are less than 70 years old, the small log mill makes boards out of ridiculous small trees.

I could see how you want to make window casing and related stuff from older trees with smaller growth rings but that is the limit of my wood product guesstimates.

I'm not a lawyer and haven't slept at a Holiday Inn ever, but I'm pretty sure there is no such law. I spent most of my first five decades in Washington state, and if the trees that I've seen harvested by Weyerhaeuser were 70+ years old I'd eat my hat. They harvest at 22 to 28 years if I recall correctly.


Cat

Completely un-true. There are numerous forests that are harvested well before the 70 year mark. Southern yellow pine is regularly harvested near the 25 year mark for timber. On the west coast, in prime conditions, Douglas fir can also mature for a saw log size in 25-30 years. The vast majority of our domestic production of timber is second growth planted within the last 50 years.

Thanks for setting me straight, y'all. I guess I had some bad info.

[Borderland]

I just purchased some cedar decking to repair a 25 year old deck. To my eye about 50% of the lumber being sold is too knotty and warped. It's unusable. A deck built with that wood will rot out in 15 years, even treated every few years. I realize that not too many people are using cedar for decking material these days and that's probably one of the reasons. That and being 1-2 dollars a foot. Most of the Red Cedar being sold these days is garbage. 25 years ago it was mostly all heart wood with very few knots. I read that 12" trees are now being harvested. I would guess that to be a 25-30 year old tree depending on the rainfall where it was grown.

[Catshooter]

Thanks for setting me straight, y'all. I guess I had some bad info.

Don't feel bad, it happens all to frequently these days. Most people are very sloppy & careless with data.


Cat

[AKDoug]

I just purchased some cedar decking to repair a 25 year old deck. To my eye about 50% of the lumber being sold is too knotty and warped. It's unusable. A deck built with that wood will rot out in 15 years, even treated every few years. I realize that not too many people are using cedar for decking material these days and that's probably one of the reasons. That and being 1-2 dollars a foot. Most of the Red Cedar being sold these days is garbage. 25 years ago it was mostly all heart wood with very few knots. I read that 12" trees are now being harvested. I would guess that to be a 25-30 year old tree depending on the rainfall where it was grown.

Cedar is a whole different animal and good stuff still exists. You won't find good stuff without looking for it, and a willingness to pay for it. I use International Wood Products out of Tumwater for my cedar decking and I've gotten excellent stuff from them for some very picky customers.

[JTMcC]

I got quoted $5.29/lb for 5P+ today. I'd bought a bunch of Dual-Shield and 1/8" Excalibur 6 months ago because I was afraid this was going to happen....and it has. Jet Rod is still in the $3.70-ish range around here; guess the demand for it isn't there like it used to be.

That's $265 for a 50 LB can of 5P+???? Wow. Weldingsupply.com will ship 5/32" 5P+ to my door for $191 a can plus tax and I consider that outrageous.

T-8 wires are up, 5/64" 232, 25 LB spools at $140 delivered.

Excalibur, 1/8", $176 delivered.

I also stocked up before the end of last year, but I'm about to find out what those will run me locally. I should of bought more.

[Odin Bravo One]

$200 last week……

Being able to negotiate the price has it’s uses.

[Borderland]

Cedar is a whole different animal and good stuff still exists. You won't find good stuff without looking for it, and a willingness to pay for it. I use International Wood Products out of Tumwater for my cedar decking and I've gotten excellent stuff from them for some very picky customers.

I guess Lowes isn't the place to buy cedar decking. I only needed about 20 BF anyway.

I don't know how they sell that crap. People probably pick thru it and employee discount the rest.

Anyway, I don't know what you're paying per LF but it has to a lot more than 2 bucks.

We have a few truck loads of 60 yo red cedar on our property but I won't cut it. Probably worth more to a tree hugger just to know it's there.

I can point out that there's 30K worth of cedar here when we sell.

A pretty good scam here used to be to buy timbered property with a private contract, log the property, default on the contract, and leave the seller holding the bag without the timber the buyer logged and sold.

[Darth_Uno]

IME an actual lumberyard will have much better cedar and fir than the box stores.

Why that is, I couldn’t say.

80% of our decks now are composite. The price gap is t near what it used to be, and some people still just prefer the natural look and feel despite all the maintenance.

[0ddl0t]

+1 on lumberyards or, if you have a large order, you might try going directly to a mill (assuming you have smaller mom & pop type mills in your region).

[rob_s]

If this infrastructure bill goes through (even though it’s largely pork) I’d expect to see prices for a lot of materials to jump again, but that will either be (a) wholly reactionary or (b) not for some time as the new-construction projects will have to go through conception, design, permitting, etc. If there’s a large amount of spending for simple maintenance and repair, certain materials are likely to go up soon-ish.

I worked on some projects at a previous previous employer that were funded by Obama’s stimulus and we started construction several years after the bill passed.

As a commercial GC, we are still seeing subs jacking their prices after we are awarded the job, ostensibly because of material suppliers refusing to guarantee pricing, which is ostensibly due to fluctuations. I say “ostensibly” because I’m not entirely convinced there’s any reality to any of this, and that we are in the business of “risk”, but right now there is too much uncertainty.

We are seeing things like appliance shipments being affected. New apartment buildings waiting on 250 dishwashers are happy when they get a shipment of 10.

We are looking at new strategies for purchasing and procurement. Sadly, the procurement cycle is a lost art in our business because people got used to just picking everything off the shelf at any time. Things had become so readily available that pretty much every PM and/or super under 40 has never had to do try material expediting, and most over 40 have forgotten how or think they are too senior for it now. I imagine that about the time we get it figured out, this “crisis” will be over and we’ll lose the institutional knowledge yet again.