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Lumber prices rising quickly

27K views 232 replies 62 participants last post by  Treefarmer 
I was making some repairs to my deck last month. At the local lumber/hardware store the pressure treated was non existent. The guy says they don’t know when or where their next load is coming - looks like no more this year. Said every lumber yard within 100 miles was the same.

Can’t comment on the price of what I bought - have nothing to compare it to as I rarely buy lumber.

I’m used to getting rough sawn lumber at a little family owned mill anyway.
 
Hardwoods must be doing OK. They are logging on the mountain behind me - those guys are working 10 hour days 7 days a week.

Hearing the saw and the skidder from a distance is actually soothing to me......I can picture exactly what they are doing - can hear the tree fall then the skidder fire up.
 
red oak and cherry are at the bottom of the barrel, wood cutter that has been cutting at my aunts place here along the base of the mountain hasn't been here for over a yr because of the low prices. i watch a couple u-tube cutters and they claim same thing. for some reason no one wants any wood that has a red tint to it
The mill up the road has more inventory of planks than I have ever seen before. Guess that’s a sign they are holding on to it all right now.

Red Oak and Cherry are what’s prevalent here in our part of the woods also.

But the mill still seems busy enough.
 
I should get a pic....

I drive by a hardwood mill up the road every time I go to town. They have so much inventory - both logs and finished product - that they had to buy the lot next to them just for storage.

It’s just unreal the amount of money sitting there....
 
also a shortage of fiberglass resin right now.
Off topic for a second...

I was at the Sherwin-Williams store last week to get 1 gallon of white exterior paint. He said I was lucky being that he said he had exactly 2 in stock.

He went on to tell me about their shortage. 80% of the raw materials (chemicals) come from Texas. After the plants were devastated it stopped the supply chain almost immediately.

What your guy said about resin makes me think that maybe that also comes from Texas plants.

I think we are just beginning to see the implications from all this. Things that you would never think of - like Line-X - are going to be in short supply for quite a while.

Last week my Ford dealer still has a pretty much empty lot. That started becasue of computer chips I guess but look at all the plastics in these trucks......
 
While not lumber it's just another example of prices going crazy. I need to have my fuel oil tank replaced. Got a quote in November for $1700 but I wasn't able to get it done right then due to other irons in the fire. Just requested a new quote as the other one was only good for 90-days. Price is now $1950.
I liked your post but don’t like it….

One thing however - it sounds as if you can get one so the availability must still be OK for now. Even with the added expense I wouldn’t hesitate too long….another couple weeks and they might tell you they can’t get them.

Even before all this fiasco I was always my own worst enemy with procrastination especially with larger purchases. Now I am learning that if I need something and find it I had better just pull the trigger.
 
I wanna say a 2x4x8 was about 2.30ish. Plywood was about 20 bucks a sheet. Give or take. IIRC.
For some reason I specifically remember the price of a 2x4…..

Back around 1988/1989 I was building a cabin in the mountains which we eventually moved to. In the one horse town there was only one place at that time to get any kind of lumber.

It was the general store - some of you may remember the type - part grocery, part feed, part hardware, etc. I think he normally bought 20 2x4’s at a time to keep in stock.

Each weekend on the way to our property we would stop to get some of them. They were $2 a piece. I always had to remember to keep $40 in my pocket so I could get what he had so I could continue working for the weekend.
 
It will be interesting to see. It's not like you can just run out and buy the EV equivalent of the vehicle you are currently driving as most EVs are sub-compacts.

I also suspect that not everyone has the extra capacity to install a home charger in their existing load center. With all the supply chain issues I'd be surprised if even buying a decent home charging station is without issues.
Same here on both accounts.

In fact…I’ve never seen one of these new fangled electric cars in person yet. Guess they are only in urban and very populated areas.

So my solution for the time being while keeping my beloved pickup is to change my routine and go to town once every 3 weeks instead of 2. But I haven’t seen gas prices go up like everyone talks about - yet…
 
Something to keep in mind with the unemployment rate, at least in the US, is that it usually counts people that aren't employed that are actively seeking work. It doesn't measure the number of people who were laid off and decided to retire early nor the people who simply refuse to work for one reason or another. It's suspected that COVID has caused the untracked value to climb higher than normal.
Even before all this mess it’s been like that. If someone was on unemployment and it ran out and they were still unemployed they were not counted.
 
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