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Lumber prices.

surprisingly though it appears 2x6 through 2x10 have gone up some but have not doubled or tripled like 2x4s.
looks like only a 20% to 30% increase in 2x6s vs 100% in 2x4s
 
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vegas urban lumber said:
read an article about canadian bug kill timber so rapid that it's decaying before they can cut and process it. thoughts were that 2 to 3 years out could be a dramatic shortage of available good timber to cut
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Trev, that's not a very helpful "citation". Can you say where you read it? Can you name the bug or type of bug? Any specifics at all about where it's happening? (Canada is a BIG place).
 
phinds said:
Trev, that's not a very helpful "citation". Can you say where you read it? Can you name the bug or type of bug? Any specifics at all about where it's happening? (Canada is a BIG place).
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sorry paul when i went back to try and find the article i couldn't seem to locate it. i believe i saw it originally in a commodities articles list while i was looking at copper futures prices.

here is much the same info but i don't think it's the same article i first read

www.bloomberg.com

Millions of Beetles Are Wiping Out Forests All Across the World

The pest are eating away at trees as climate change warms winters. Infestations have the potential to worsen future emissions.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
 
With the looting that was going on from early May and the phase of reopening in NYC, there was a great demand for sheathing/ plywood panels and 2 x 4’s. The plywood was used to board up the doors and windows of the boutique stores (to curb looting and destruction of the premises) and along with the sheathing and 2 x 4’s for outdoor cafe dining (framing and decking) due to social distancing; weren’t allowed to dine inside restaurants and cafes. There are a lot of construction going on in NYC. I am not saying we are the main culprit of shortage and hike in the price, but the city demands for the need and necessity was high for building material from May to now and still ongoing. The restaurants had to do it in order to stay afloat and stay in business- in a popular location in NYC, there could be 10 cafes and restaurants in one block! Then there are a lot of developments that are going up whether it is mid rise or high rise buildings.
 
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Also, with the low interest rates, home construction is way up and limited only by available skilled labor. And we've been hit with several major storms that also caused a huge demand for lumber to re-build. So just about every market force possible is hurting the prices of building lumber.
 
I’m glad I got our deck built and screened in about this time last year. If I had to buy lumber for a big project I’d hedge the extra cost by investing in Weyerhaeuser or other lumber producers!
 
TimR said:
I’m glad I got our deck built and screened in about this time last year. If I had to buy lumber for a big project I’d hedge the extra cost by investing in Weyerhaeuser or other lumber producers!
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I would short stock. Biden gets elected and economy goes down. Trump gets e
Letter and fear leaves market.
 
OSB closed today at $70. That's for a .5" 4x8 sheet. Prices are going insanely high.
2x4 8' is $9.50
 
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Ha ha I have been toying with the idea of selling my mill and upgrading a little. Surprise surprise new mill are pretty much a back order situation everywhere and no deals to be had. Some places don't even have blades to sell. Guess I will keep on using what I have. Guessing my 2 x4's cost me about $.50.
 
sprucegum said:
Ha ha I have been toying with the idea of selling my mill and upgrading a little. Surprise surprise new mill are pretty much a back order situation everywhere and no deals to be had. Some places don't even have blades to sell. Guess I will keep on using what I have. Guessing my 2 x4's cost me about $.50.
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Got any lumber you wanna sell haha.
I have been toying with getting a sawmill as a side gig, but everywhere I've looked has at least a 6month back order.
 
We are building but seeing homeowners starting to back out of major renovations till lumber drops. Am looking into cost of lumbergrader/certified stamper per hour with an eye toward milling for friends and family in areas that require frame inspections. Our company has already begun to in house source materials like white oak through our Sawmills and a neighboring commercial kiln.
 
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This is totally unsustainable, I'm pretty sure it's driven by speculation. When it comes down it will come down hard. The commodity market is a rough game.
When I bought my mill 8 years ago my wife was less than happy. I think at the time I was close to $7000 for the basic mill. I upgraded to a bigger engine and longer track and bought a box of blades which pushed it up some more. Paid for itself many times over and I bet in this market I could get what I paid for it.
 
sprucegum said:
This is totally unsustainable, I'm pretty sure it's driven by speculation. When it comes down it will come down hard. The commodity market is a rough game.
When I bought my mill 8 years ago my wife was less than happy. I think at the time I was close to $7000 for the basic mill. I upgraded to a bigger engine and longer track and bought a box of blades which pushed it up some more. Paid for itself many times over and I bet in this market I could get what I paid for it.
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I agree. Lumber market will crash. And nice slightly used mills will be cheap.
 
i had to do a double take on OSB prices after reading above. i about choked when 1/2" 4x8 at my local home depot is online at over $45 per sheet
i used to balk at anything over $7 per sheet
 
My local supplier is up to $52 a sheet for OSB. I can buy .5" ply for the same price. Will be interesting to watch the next quarter new housing market.
My family is in the timber buying/selling business, and we haven't seen any real uptick in prices.
 
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My son is on call with a big rig towing company to furnish his road tractor, trailers, and skid steer for wreck cleanup. About a year and a half ago a Canadian rig with around 1500 sheets of 7/16 OSB overturned just south of the border. Him and one of his friends had some building projects in mind so they bought the entire load from the insurance company for $5/sheet. They had plenty to do what they wanted to do and last fall I estimated they had maybe 800 sheets left. They both have more projects in the wind so they have not sold much. It was just a OK deal when they bought it because perhaps 10% of the sheets have some damage, most are usable if you do some planning. That is certainly a case of stepping in it and coming out smelling like a rose.
 
If you think it is fun now, wait a little while. Everywhere you look the global supply chain is in a mess. We are seeing the consequences of decades of slap-happy decisions made behind rose colored glasses. The entire Automobile industry in a disarray because they cannot get a $5 semi-conductor. Reality is hitting home - you might be able to produce and procure 9,999 parts of a 10,000 part pickup, but that one part in 10,000 which you do not have can shut you down. A "perfect storm" of gigantic proportions have hit the building products markets. The latest addition to the storm is a shortage of polymers (PE, PP, and MEG) due to a variety of reasons. Fires at factories, hurricanes, less raw materials available, factory slowdowns, EPA regulations causing factory problems, covid slowdowns, etc..... Then the problems with the distribution side of things. The way I understand some of the adhesives and such that hold the sheet goods (plywood, osb, particle board, etc....) together are dependent on the polymers. The bean-counters who rule over these industries, have not built in any supply chain resilience. That would cost a penny or two and when you are competing with China ( where they don't care) I guess that penny or two means something.
 
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2feathers Creative Making said:
We are building but seeing homeowners starting to back out of major renovations till lumber drops. Am looking into cost of lumbergrader/certified stamper per hour with an eye toward milling for friends and family in areas that require frame inspections. Our company has already begun to in house source materials like white oak through our Sawmills and a neighboring commercial kiln.
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I don't think becoming certified as a softwood lumber grader is a real big deal. I have read about others doing it so they could sell and use home grown lumber. We are not required to use grade stamped lumber here for most work. From the looks of some of the grade stamped crap that I have purchased over the years you probably don't even need to know what you are doing just pass the test:sarcastic:I have been on tours of large mills where the lumber is moving so fast I don't see how it could be properly certified. It looked to me like a couple of guys working a fast moving conveyor belt were pulling culls and the rest got a stamp.
 
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