Im curious. Just watched a show where a cabinet was built out of reclaimed lumber. Have those guys raised their prices too?
Im curious. Just watched a show where a cabinet was built out of reclaimed lumber. Have those guys raised their prices too?
I'll wager you a PF dollar™ 😎
The lunatics are running the asylum
I heard something interesting the other day. We're getting some windows replaced soon. We've worked with acompany, slowing replacing windows for quite a few years now, and have a good relationship. Our point of contact has been in the business for a few decades and seems pretty on-the-ball. She was saying that the lumber shortage was going to happen no matter what. She said the US has a law that says trees have to be 70 (I think) years old before they can be used for timber, to ensure the timber produced is of good quality. Consequently, the US lumber supply is not reactive to demand. This doesn't apply to non-US lumber sources, apparently, and I don't know early enough about the situation to comment on the accuracy of her statement, but I thought it was interesting. .
Price is one thing to deal with but availability is even worse. We tried to price a relatively small amount (about 10,000 LB), fairly common size of structural flat bar recently and it doesn't exist in the U.S.
We would have to place an order and wait for the mill to roll it
Welding consumables are fairly available but at much higher prices.
My son is working on several casino remodels in L. Vegas, the Wynn has (I think) 3 floors stripped out and cannot buy carpet or furniture anywhere on the planet at any price. So the rooms in those floors are just sitting, gutted and idle. They stopped all work till that situation clears up.
Commercial doors have also been hit or miss for the company he works for, many delays.
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.
Lumber prices are coming down. Surprisingly lower than I thought.
There's still shortages and longer lead times across the board. I've told all my customers they just have to trust me for color-matching shingles and siding to whatever is available, unless they want to wait indefinitely for a very specific product.
A year ago mass-produced (Homecrest) cabinets were 2-3 weeks out. Now they're 16+.
LVP (luxury vinyl plank) or wood flooring - I tell my customers to make 3 color choices in order of preference, and maybe I can get one.
Anything aluminum...you can get white, clay or black soffit and fascia. They're cranking that out. If you want a different color, you might be waiting a while.
I've had to lower my prices to 1/3 of what they were in June to remain competitive. It was a worse loss than I imagined. However, sales have picked up significantly and I've replaces some inventory with newer lower priced product. I think we hit the bottom of the pricing at the mill level. We're on week three with the same price level at the mill.
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.