"Swingman" wrote in message
...
Thought the following may interest some of you wooddorkers.

Tom's with "The Detering Company", one of the big building material and
millworks suppliers in the Texas Gulf Coast area. Here is what he had to
say this morning on lumber and material prices:

quote

Within the last four weeks there has been a large spike in lumber
costs. In past years we could contribute this jump in prices to the
increase in demand as spring approaches. Although business is picking up,
this increase in activity is not the cause of the increased material
costs. The increase is due to an empty supply chain and the weather.
Consider the following factors:

1. The inventory glut, caused by the housing freefall, has been used up.
2. A large number of domestic and offshore manufacturers have either
shut down or gone out of business. Unfortunately, a number of the domestic
mills will not reopen due to EPA concerns.
3. Ocean freight rates have increased. Not only have rates gone up; the
shipping companies have lowered their ships speed for fuel economy and to
reduce their carbon footprint. This slower speed has increased transit
time from the Far East by 4-7 days.
4. Weather...Due to the severity of this winter's weather, the number of
logs removed from the forest has been greatly reduced. The effect of the
earthquke in Chile, a major producer of MDF, mouldings and plywood, is
already being felt. Domestic MDF suppliers have placed their material on
allocation and at present, material is being sold "priced at time of
shipment".

The cost increases have currently effected lumber, mouldings, plywood,
jambs and frame parts. I expect the increase to start appearing in doors,
windows, and other products which use wood fibre in the near future.

/quote

What else is new, eh?

Everything he says is true and then some, the economic carnage at the
mill/logger level has taken a chunk out of the available production.
If there were any serious uptick in construction it wouldn't be
unreasonable to expect lumber prices to triple or quadruple.

personally, I think the housing market recovery is going to be slow
and don't expect extremes like lumber prices quadrupling over night,
but then again, my crystal ball has been on the fritz.

basilisk