The price of lumber skyrocketed during the pandemic.

[Packard]

The price of lumber skyrocketed during the Covid 19 pandemic.  It was reported that the increases were because of supply like disruptions a f government mandated shutdowns.

Well, the pandemic is past history, and while gas prices have moderated some, and major appliances no longer have 6 month lead times, the price of lumber and plywood have not decreased.

I suspect that manufacturers have decided that since people were now accustomed to $90.00 to $140.00 per sheet, that they can stick with that pricing.

So, is this profiteering?

 

[jeh]

I’m not sure where you are shopping but prices for wood and other building materials have plummeted. Other things keep increasing or leveled off.

 

[PaulMarcel]

The prices here only went crazy for imported ply like Baltic Birch. It is now back to normal. What I don't like is that my hardwood dealer advertised proudly that their hardwood prices didn't increase... but every 4/4 board is now pre-planed for your convenience to 3/4". Previously, they were pre-planed to 15/16". Long gone are the days when my favorite hardwood dealer was in business selling rough stock 4/4 that would be 1.1"
That said, though, some suppliers are definitely price-gouging assuming you'll blame inflation instead of their greed. I bought out the last of Beech lumber for my kitchen remodel. I got a great price because I took the last bottom-of-the-barrel boards and worked around all the issues. These were the only ones left at any Arizona store that I could tell (didn't check one kinda shady place in Mesa tho...) They weren't getting anymore in because Germany (our supplier) wasn't bothering to ship any during COVID with all the shipping issues. Now that COVID is over, my dealer said the German supplier greatly increased the price likely to make up for COVID losses. As he put it "why would you use Beech when you could save some money with Zebrawood?" haha

 

[rmwarren]

I've read theories that pre-pandemic sellers were reluctant to pass along any price increases as they feared buyers would bolt over anything. The pandemic taught them this was not the case/buyers became inured to price increases. This led to a new belief that they could pass along price increases without decreasing overall profits, increasing earnings in many cases.

I tend to buy this theory, people gripe but still pay up if they have the ability. The test will come if/when consumers hit challenging times and are forced to scale back on discretionary spending.

Personally, I had the habit of buying extra during my salad days (I needed a sheet of plywood/bought 3 to "have it in case") and now I'm working my way thru material that has been stored for some time. I have hardwoods that spent more years of their existence in my storage areas than they did in the forest... A good problem to have.

RMW

 

[MikeGE]

I’m not sure where you are shopping but prices for wood and other building materials have plummeted. Other things keep increasing or leveled off.

I am happy for you if that is true where you live, but it is not true where I live.  The cost of A/B beech plywood is still over €240 for 18mm full sheets (2500mm x 1250mm) and A/B birch is about €265 per sheet.  A full sheet of A/A oak plywood is about €300, when it can be found. 

Prior to the pandemic, a full sheet of 18mm A/A beech plywood was about €80. 

Strangely enough, the cost of kiln dried lumber has not changed and is at the same pre-pandemic prices.  I got tired of waiting for the price of A/A and A/B plywood to drop, so I bought three 65mm thick slabs of American cherry, one 25mm thick slab of American maple, and one 65mm slab of American walnut for a bathroom project.  I only needed a little walnut and maple, but had to buy a full slab of each.  At about €960 for the lumber, which will span several projects, it was still less expensive than buying enough A/A plywood for one project.  Fortunately, I have the equipment to dimension the slabs to the dimensions I need.

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

This topic has been covered in a variety of venues, most notably Shannon Roger's "Lumber Industry Update" podcast.

From what I've gathered, current lumber pricing is a long-overdue pricing correction.

 

[semenza]

The price where I live has come down. Not all the way back to pre-pandemic but down enough that factoring inflation it is probably about right.

Seth

 

[kevinculle]

Price is determined by the balance of supply and demand.  During the pandemic supply was greatly squeezed while demand for new housing went through the roof, turning $2 2x4s into $10 2x4s for a while.  We signed on a new house build in August 2020 and 6 months later the house price had increased by 25%.  Ordinary construction lumber is back close to where it was.  Premium hardwoods and sheet goods not so much.  I'm a bit more judicious when shopping but I have projects I want to do and I'm not getting any younger.

 

[woodferret]

Container shipping rates.  Peaked about '22 but still high.  It was all slowly rising before COVID due to demand but freight cars got reprioritized and all hell broke loose with wet lumber waiting in stacks for a free car.  Maybe with an across the board economic slump, we'll see it ease.  COVID economic was fascinating to watch as those with money got richer, exasperating a tight logistic chain.

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

Price is determined by the balance of supply and demand.  During the pandemic supply was greatly squeezed while demand for new housing went through the roof, turning $2 2x4s into $10 2x4s for a while.  We signed on a new house build in August 2020 and 6 months later the house price had increased by 25%.  Ordinary construction lumber is back close to where it was.  Premium hardwoods and sheet goods not so much.  I'm a bit more judicious when shopping but I have projects I want to do and I'm not getting any younger.

Exactly this. Also, it is my understanding that there is a strong export market for several species of North American hardwoods, for instance Walnut. Also, it's my understanding that several sawmills went out of business in the last few years, so, again, high demand, low supply yielding higher costs. From what I've heard from colleagues in the lumber industry, the profit on hardwood lumber is in the pennies per board-foot, so they're hardly profiteering.

In terms of plywood, since it's a manufactured product with steep competition and razor-thin margins, you're getting exactly what you paid for. So, if you go to two lumber yards and one has a sheet of the "same" plywood for $10 less than the competitor, you have to ask where the manufacturer saved those $10:
-- Did they use thicker internal veneers?
-- Were the veneers properly dried prior to assembly?
-- What wood species were used for the veneers?
-- What quality of glue was used?
-- Did they skimp on glue?
-- How long did the assembled sheet spend in the press?
-- I forget the rest, but there's about a dozen or more criteria which can inform the quality, and therefore cost, of plywood.

Many of my colleagues are professional furniture- and cabinet- makers, they don't blink at $250+ per sheet for good quality plywood. It really all depends on what you're willing to spend/what quality you expect.

 

[kevinculle]

One interesting case is white oak, where the crazy demand for bourbon, which must be aged in new white oak barrels, has seriously expanded demand and raised prices.  It has been a favorite wood for me in recent years, but I find myself using more walnut these days.

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

One interesting case is white oak, where the crazy demand for bourbon, which must be aged in new white oak barrels, has seriously expanded demand and raised prices.  It has been a favorite wood for me in recent years, but I find myself using more walnut these days.

Shannon covered White Oak pricing in one of his recent podcasts. In addition to the demand from coopers (barrels), on the architectural woodwork side apparently the demand for quarter sawn and flat sawn White Oak is nearly non-existent, with the primary demand being for rift-sawn. Shannon goes into great detail about how labor-intensive it is to produce rift-sawn lumber, never mind the waste. All of which leads to a situation where many sawmills just won't process White Oak anymore since they can be more profitable with other species/cuts, which further decreases supply, and therefore further drives up costs to anybody willing/needing to buy it.

The other thing I noticed recently and had to laugh is that the much-sought-after Cherry lumber costs less than Northern White Pine (clear), and is nearly the same cost as Knotty Pine, at least at the lumber yard I visited.....

I build a lot of replacement window sashes (Pella, Marvin, Andersen, others), so to match I use clear pine, and it has been a real challenge at times to track down a reliable source, at least locally. Sometimes a truck comes in and they're flush with material, but when they're out, they're out for months, so I've taken to carrying my own inventory so I can keep production going....

 

[six-point socket II]

Speaking of Europe/Germany, it's partly the Russia sanctions. One of Russia's biggest manufacturers of birch plywood is on that list.

Russia introduced an export ban on softwood lumber in 2021. And by now added export bans for hardwood lumber and veneers.

Sanctions against Belarus, they had been a massive exporter of milled softwood lumber for packaging and pallets.

Logistics. Russia lowered the number of border checkpoints where exports of lumber into Europe are permitted/possible.

A large amount of truck drivers before the war were Ukrainians.

Speaking solely for Germany, I doubt we will ever see pre Covid/ pre Ukraine prices again. The time for 80 Euro/sheet plywood is gone.

And if you ask German carpenters, quite a few would say that, as Tom already pointed out, this was a much needed correction regarding plywood prices.

But then again, thank you Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are a-Changin’".

We gotta improvise, adapt and overcome.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[WastedP]

Locally, framing lumber and sheathing have dropped back down almost to pre-pandemic levels.  Most of our local stock comes from Oregon or BC, and BC mills appear to be running full blast.

During the pandemic, I switched to exposure-rated birch ply because it came in larger sheet sizes, which reduced waste, and increased stiffness of the garage doors I was building.  My supplier informed me in early 2021 that the Russian mills that produced all of their birch ply were starved of logs after two years of warm winters had left forests inaccessible, since they can only be reached via permafrost roads.  The price for unit quantities pretty much doubled over a six-month span.  The Ukranian invasion a year later effectively eliminated Russian birch ply from the market.  At that point I had taken a year off, so I didn't care what the price was or what other options there were, but I did get material inventory lists from that vendor showing that Italian poplar and other European materials were the substitute good.

I had a couple of white oak furniture commissions in November/December, and since then the price has gone up 50%.  The price for 8/4 wides feels like I'm buying gold bullion.  The planed 4/4 does gauge out to a few hundredths under a full inch.

 

[ChuckM]

Here in Canada (at least the west coast), the plywood and hardwood prices have gone up and stayed high, according to my friend who runs a custom furniture/cabinet making business. He said his quotes are valid for 30 days only, and he adjusts the quotes after the validity to cater for any price fluctuations.

 

[peter halle]

Well, for all of us who love white oak and red oak, there is / will be the oak wilt disease in the future.  https://www.invasivespeciescentre.ca/invasive-species/meet-the-species/invasive-pathogens/oak-wilt/. Hard to fathom that a tree which has survived decades or even past one hundred years can succumb in 2 to 6 weeks.

I am not a large purchaser of lumber by any means and have a local source but I haven't really seen a decrease in prices but I have seen an increased availability of plywood and in particular baltic birch types.

Peter

 

[squall_line]

Well, for all of us who love white oak and red oak, there is / will be the oak wilt disease in the future.  https://www.invasivespeciescentre.ca/invasive-species/meet-the-species/invasive-pathogens/oak-wilt/. Hard to fathom that a tree which has survived decades or even past one hundred years can succumb in 2 to 6 weeks.

I am not a large purchaser of lumber by any means and have a local source but I haven't really seen a decrease in prices but I have seen an increased availability of plywood and in particular baltic birch types.

Peter

When we lost almost all of our trees to a storm in 2020, the arborist who came out to evaluate the damage told us that it was even odds whether Oak Wilt or some form of Maple blight was going to be the next thing to sweep the country on the same level as Dutch Elm Disease and Emerald Ash Borer.  He seemed to be leaning more towards Maple being the next big culling if for no other reason than they have been so significantly over-planted in so many cities and private lands.

Luckily our Red Oak survived and is healthy to this day, but we replaced our snapped Ash and Maple with a Yellowwood and a Coffee tree (and then I planted some apple trees because I'm a glutton for punishment).

It doesn't look like prices around me are down much, but I haven't visited any non-borg locations to see what I would pay for actual quality stuff lately, either.

 

[Packard]

One interesting case is white oak, where the crazy demand for bourbon, which must be aged in new white oak barrels, has seriously expanded demand and raised prices.  It has been a favorite wood for me in recent years, but I find myself using more walnut these days.

You would think that with the whiskey barrels having to be new for each new aging, that there would be a glut of used white oak staves on the market. They are available, but they hardly sound like bargains.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/752875...0_123094343401_506995322060_aud-2007167693669la-305301859582_c__752875019_101365801&utm_custom2=12559942210&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5fetBhC9ARIsAP1UMgEOuFGjF1F5Hw_9QhgdeeJQIrmA3pwAGkl81cTltTtcTlEL6ktcZ6oaArR4EALw_wcB

 

[kevinculle]

There are a number of other beverage varieties (wine, beer, some liquors) that use previously used bourbon barrels to age their product.

 

[Packard]

There are a number of other beverage varieties (wine, beer, some liquors) that use previously used bourbon barrels to age their product.

It sounds like they should not sell the white oak barrels; they should lease them, first to the bourbon distillers, then to the wine people.  And finally sell them to the I-make-stuff-from-old-bourbon-barrels craftsmen.