My Home Depot is stocking Swedish Pine Boards

[leakyroof]

I needed a simple Pine 1 x 6 board for some bed frame slats on one of our Relative's bedrooms. I rolled into the Home Depot near my work, and much to my surprise, the label on the board said it was a product of Sweden... [blink]
Nice board, very small and tight knots on it, but Sweden?  Have we run out of Softwoods in North American..... [big grin] [big grin] [wink] [wink]
  Anyone else run into this?

 

[Max Fracas]

I bought some very nice 1x12 pine at my Home Depot (NE Louisiana) and was surprised to see it was from New Zealand.

 

[Packard]

Ive been buying some 1-1/2” x 1-1/2” x 8’ pine from Home Depot. 

It is stocked in with the pine boards.

There are never any knots.
These are always dead straight.
These never show any twisting out of plane.
Dead straight grain.
Uniform color and texture throughout.

These sticks seem out of place with the rest of the pine boards.  I am assuming they are from a separate species of soft wood.

But in any case, a pleasure to work with.  As I recall, about $12.00 per 8’ stick.

 

[peter halle]

Swedish wood at Home Depot has been around for years where I live.  Usually 1 x 4 or 1 x 6.  As others have written, looks better in quality.

 

[woodferret]

Growth rings are tighter given the latitude/lighting.  The oddity of petrol being a large cost of fab/production now that seaborne transport/insurance isn't such a big hurdle it once was.

 

[luvmytoolz]

Isn't that pretty much what all Ikea stuff is made from?

 

[woodbutcherbower]

Most of the softwood in Europe comes from Sweden and Finland. It’s super-cold in the north where most of the forestry is done, so the trees grow much more slowly. Tighter grain, less knots,  and a better overall quality of material.

 

[bobtskutter]

Isn't that pretty much what all Ikea stuff is made from?

The Ikea furniture I bought about 15yrs ago was mostly pine.
The Ikea furniture I bought about 1yr ago (from Sheffield) was mostly recycled timber / glue and cardboard.
You can still get solid wood items but there is a lot of stuff that's chipboard and (very good) veneer coating, they even have end grain edge banding.

Just my experience.

Bob

 

[leakyroof]

Isn't that pretty much what all Ikea stuff is made from?

The Ikea furniture I bought about 15yrs ago was mostly pine.
The Ikea furniture I bought about 1yr ago (from Sheffield) was mostly recycled timber / glue and cardboard.
You can still get solid wood items but there is a lot of stuff that's chipboard and (very good) veneer coating, they even have end grain edge banding.

Just my experience.

Bob

  IKEA supposedly is re-examining their current methods of production, according to several Articles I've read in the past few months. You may start to see a return to more traditional construction materials from them. They have decided they are adding too much to Landfills due to their products not holding up over time. If it's true, it's supposed to be a major change for them that's coming.

 

[leakyroof]

Swedish wood at Home Depot has been around for years where I live.  Usually 1 x 4 or 1 x 6.  As others have written, looks better in quality.

I guess I need to get out more...  [wink] [wink]  Or at least buy more Pine at Home Depot to stay current.... [big grin]
It's so rare that I'm needing a board of Pine though.  [scratch chin]

 

[Peter Kelly]

The firewood bundles sold at the supermarket near my place in the Catskills are imported from either Latvia or Lithuania.

I cannot imagine how this is cost effective.

 

[squall_line]

The firewood bundles sold at the supermarket near my place in the Catskills are imported from either Latvia or Lithuania.

I cannot imagine how this is cost effective.

Or legal, considering all of the restrictions on transporting firewood within the United States. 

I mean, sure, there have to be regulations on importing wood of any species for any purpose, or we wouldn't have Swedish Pine.  But to take the time and energy to kiln-dry FIRE wood and let it sit long enough to be assured that it's not carrying any hangers-on that could potentially devastate entire genuses of trees like Ash Borer, Elm Disease, and others?  Yikes...

 

[Packard]

In theory, the shipping containers that travel the oceans are not limited by weight, but rather by cubic feet.  A standard 44 foot container will hold about 2,500 cubic feet of material. 

But after leaving the ship, they have to travel by truck or train.  If by train, again the weight is not a concern.  But if by truck, the maximum weight will either be 40,000 pounds or 44,000 pounds.

So, if you are shipping heavy items like solid brass bar stock, the container might be only 1/4 full by cubic feet.

You could fill the container with 35,000 pounds of brass and the 5,000 to 9,000 additional poundage be made up of fire wood.  Essentially, the fire wood would travel for nearly no cost.

So there are ways around these things. 

Plus, some countries have quirky tax rules.  And those can make money-losers really be money-makers.  And unless you know the laws of that country you will never figure out how they priced things out. 

 

[WastedP]

Not quite two years ago, one of my lumber brokers had sent a message saying that several U.S. mills that had shut down in response to the lack of market demand caused by Canadian softwood imports would not be re-opening, despite the record lumber prices at the time.  My understanding is that B.C. and Alberta had declared an emergency in response to pine beetle infestations, and the Crown was subsidizing timber sales to get the wood out of the forest before beetles killed it.  I think it was close to a decade that the emergency was in place.  However, just as the emergency status was being rescinded (about two years ago), the broker said that beetle infestations in European stands of timber were causing similar emergency programs to go into effect in Scandinavian countries, as well as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

If anyone with a better understanding of these events can set me straight on any inaccuracies, please do.