Lumber Pricing
General Topic
Just letting any contractors or DIY guys know if you need any building supplies you best get them ASAP. The Lumber and Panels market are in full blown panic mode right now. In a 4 week span lumber has skyrocketed anywhere from 60-120%. The plywood market is up big and OSB has begun to follow in the plywood market footsteps. New housing permits just come out and looking like 1.6 million new homes, that's about 12% higher than last month and much higher than anticipated. Most drywall manufactures have a price increase of 30% coming the first of January. Looking like 2022 will be as bad or worse as 2021 was. Buckle up
This the first I’ve heard about prices going up again. Doesn’t surprise me, lumber and plywood companies are price gouging. The proof is here in the northeast they are not raising the price of the raw materials aka softwood logs. Spruce, and fir log prices have dropped, Hemlock has slightly increased and only White Pine has had a significant increase.
And the problem is not with timber on-the-stump. Timber/logging prices have remained mostly constant. The mills, wholesalers and retailers are gouging.
On the bright side if then we home builders can sell the new homes at the increased price to cover this, everyone should see another year of great appreciation on home values.
Stupid question - will this include base boards etc.?
BC’s green government just alienated a bunch more timber, causing more mill closures in the near future. Supply will get another choke hold.
The magazine Random Lengths will be out tomorrow. Once that publication hits the price will go up instantly.
An 8ft 4x4 cedar post in april of 2021 was 30$ at the big box stores, by June it was 45$, last month it was 57$ when I looked
Pretty much all wood products are going up and home improvement stuff in general. Power tools I had my eye on in spring are now 20$ more across the board almost
I had a builder in WV tell me last week that lumber was in the process of exploding and worse than it was earlier in the year….all my other contractors said they didnt notice anything. I went and bought the lumber for a project i am planning to demo in a couple months anyway, just in case.
"The magazine Random Lengths will be out tomorrow. Once that publication hits the price will go up instantly."
Mills this week are selling anywhere from $100-300M over Random. Just nuts
About to build 2 decks and an outbuilding. I guess I better finalize the plans get a material list and be ready. I was born a hundred years too late!
Squash X 2
currently have 2 logging jobs going on. white pine is up a bit, hemlock is pretty strong and red pine is up considerably this puts hemlcok and red pine at about half of white pine stumpage. Currently the hemlock and red pine are going to canada on back hauls directly off the landing. The canadians would love to have the white pine but the local mills are currently pretty aggressive after several have run out of wood to saw for a week or three this fall. Too many "inside baseball" factors to list as reasons. It is currently the best stumpage markets I have seen since the markets crashed in 2008 for any kind of log or firewood. Hardwood pulp is just OK and softwood pulp is poor. More to do with multiple mill closings a few years ago capped off with a mill's digester blowing up 2 Aprils ago.
Was just announced a couple of weeks ago that there is going to be a 18%tax on any lumber going into the states. Should help the industry south of the border!!
Engineered Wood (Joist LVL) continues to be on allocation from most suppliers. Has been all of 2021 and I would expect the same for 2022. It is often the hardest category of material to get and most suppliers have programs with Mills that are borderline marriages--some good some bad!
I spoke to our main Lumber buyer this morning and this week is set to be the highest weekly increase in Random Lengths history. As for Building materials suppliers gouging. Understand that the industry is based on margin tiers. The margins we are making are the same but when the material costs from the mill triple it means more margin dollars for the sales rep/company. Example: When 7/16 OSB costs a dealer $10 a sheet and we make 20% the cost to you is $12.5, most would say 20% in this instance is reasonable. When that same sheet of OSB costs a dealer $40/sheet, we still try for 20% margin and that ends up costing you $50/sheet. Businesses run on margin and sales reps are generally paid this way. Can an LBM dealer survive on $2.5 gross profit a sheet--yes, but if you can now make $10 gross profit a sheet then why not. Is that gouging? If 20% margin is reasonable in one instance, it should be reasonable in another. That's my perspective anyway on this wonderful industry!
I have exported 100’s of thousands of board feet of spruce and fir logs to Canadian stud mills. Canadian stud mills are paying less today for spruce/fir logs than they paid 30 years ago, and on top of that they have tightened specifications.
My son built a 50’x96’ barn this summer for his beef cattle. The contractor purchased framing lumber that was stamped , “product of Austria,.” Because it was cheaper. Pretty sad we can buy lumber from Austria cheaper than lumber from North America.
As for hardwood, my cousin owns and operates a hardwood sawmill in Elkins, WV. He told me over the thanksgiving holidays, hardwood lumber business is the best it’s been in 20 years. Certain species of hardwood logs are paying decent prices, but others like Black Cherry have never recovered from the 2008 crash. The hot hardwood log in my area now is anything that will make a 16’ crane mat log.
Squash is right. Our stumpage prices have not recovered to pre-2008 prices, certainly not even close if you were to include inflation. the owner of our company had a rule of thumb that held true from the 1960's until 2008. 100MBF of white pine stumpage would buy you a new 4x4 pickup. Of course trucks used to be utility vehicles, nut luxury club cabs with built in computer systems.
I saved 50% by waiting til the end of September. This is price gouging at all levels. I'm dealing with delayed deliveries on almost everything right now... some materials cannot even give me a date. Terrible times... Ed F
And now there is all the damage to be rebuilt from the latest storms. Surprised to learn that the stumpage prices haven't caught up to pre-2008?
arlone, we have speculated that the number of logging companies is decreasing but getting much bigger and there is also some consolidation in milling. The logging business has transitioned over the last twenty to thirty years from primarily owner operator cable skidders to mechanized crews to single companies owning multiple mechanized crews. The big mechanized crews need to move volume and they make or used to make about as much to move a load of chips, pulp or logs. before, a cable skidder owner made a decent bonus cutting a load of logs over a load of pulp. So the owner operator shopped hard to sell logs. A mechanized crew with employees focused on moving numbers of loads. A mechanized crew could be pretty profitable even cutting poor quality wood. So with a bunch of big crews operating there would be lots of logs made even if each crew didn't make a lot. And the other markets subsidized the production. And with the economic down turns there seemed to be an endless number of land owners dumping cheap wood on the market due to financial stress. That didn't help astute land owners trying to hold out for better prices to return. Those bigger crews were pretty uniformly owned by more astute buisness owners. They also squeezed out smaller competitors and could hang through the adversity. Then when there was any improvement in markets they had the capacity to fill the demand and profit at the opportunity. There were a couple cycles of this greatly concentrating the wood harvesting and milling businesses. So the short of it there is not enough competition in the market place or nearly as much as there used to be. Additionally, if you believe national forest inventory data, there is far more volume of wood available today than 40-50 years ago. In the north west demand is reasonably close to supply and the annual harvest is not much less than annual growth. In the noth east and south east, harvest is not even close to annual growth. in the north west, much of the wood on private land is owned by knowledgeable owners and get the best prices. In the north east and south east there is a significant amount of wood owned by small private land owners who are truly ignorant about growing and harvesting and marketing timber and thus frequently sell their wood at the buyers benefit.
so these factors contribute to the disconnect of raw material prices to retail prices. But in fairness to loggers, the cost of production has gone up. Skiders have increased $75-100K in ten years. Parts are stupid expensive. it just goes on and on. A pair of skidders, a feller buncher, Crain and chipper will be an easy 2 million, or a ctl machine and forwarder will go a bit more than a million. And all the operators around her prefer to put a feller buncher in front of a cut to length crew.
Blue spot, nailed it. My area is seeing less and less small hand felling cable pulling contractors. This is going to be a problem in the future for small acreage Timberland owners, because it will not be economically feasible for the remaining large Fully Mechanized Contractors to set up on a woodlot smaller than 100 acres. On top of that many small forestland owners do not want the large equipment used by Mechanized crews on their property. As for softwood framing lumber costs, in my area we have had a large increase in Amish sawmills sawing softwood logs, but they too have raised their lumber prices. Many building codes that require graded inspected framing lumber to be used in any home construction, so that inhibits using locally sawn rough cut in many areas. Even though most of the country was built with rough cut, with many structures over 100 years old still standing.
I wish I hadn't procrastinated so long on building my deck. dammit.
Lumber and sheeting is creeping back up here also.
Dimensional lumber prices are as low as they are going to get.
Nick,
I hear ya about the deck. My wife and I have been kicking around getting a shed. The garage is getting a bit full with the mountain bikes kayaks, etc... We had one quoted in 2019. Amish built 12 x 14 on a stone pad. Total was just over $3K. Same shed, and just the shed, is just under $5K. Gonna be a hard no.
That pile on the right musta been in the pool…
I've noticed the quality of the lumber is also poor in addition to the rising costs. I needed three 2"x6"s for a project not too long ago. I probably sifted thru 40 boards at Home Depot to find three straight ones. I'm so glad I'm not building custom homes any more. One of my pet peeves was getting wet, crooked lumber delivered to the job sites. I can't imagine what it's like now.
Matt
Premium, select, prime grades, etc have been very difficult to source. I try my hardest to keep a good stick in stock but it's been a struggle these past couple years with limited mill offerings.
I've noticed a bit of crooked lumber too. Is that a sign of poor quality wood to start with or a milling/storing/shipping issue? Or all 4??
JL,
In my experience, crooked lumber is usually the result of milling it before it's dry enough. It used to drive me mad when I was framing houses. Some lumber would be so wet, it would ooze water when you cut it. Even if it's straight when you nail it in place, it will inevitably twist or bow when it dries. I can't tell you how many thousands of studs, headers, rafters, posts, etc... I've had to tear out and replace by the time the house was ready to be drywalled.
Matt
Most framing lumber is typically dried to S dry standards which is around 16-19% moisture. I have contractors that like to let the house sit for 3-4 weeks after it's dried in, wired and plumbed to get the studs down around 13-15% before they put the drywall on.
Crooked lumber can come from many different things. Eastern spruce tends to be cleaner than western spruce but does bow easier when left un banded. Yellow pine is very strong but volatile and will go every which direction when left unchecked. Hem-Fir is fairly straight but weak and splits worse than any of the spruce or yellow pine. That's not even considering grades of lumber yet.
Brett,
#1 or better Douglas fir was what I usually spec'd for my dimensional lumber here in Colorado. It always seemed to be hit or miss with respect to dryness. I always attributed that to demand outpacing supply in our exploding Colorado housing market, causing the mills to fudge a little on their drying standards. But I don't know it for fact.
Matt
JL, Bad lumber comes from logs with defects or imature wood When the market is strong, log sellers try to get as much as they can in the pile that pays the most. Pretty basic human nature and supply and demand. Logs with sweep, oval stems, crook or other defects that result in grain running in and out of the lumber or to not be symmetrical, it causes the wood to twist or be deformed as it dries. The dark part of the annual growth ring is much denser. As this dries, it contracts disproportionally more than the low density part of the growth ring. So if the grain is not symmetrical within the sawn wood it causes the board or beam to deform. Cupping is a common defect from the growth rings contracting and pulling the board out of square. Now the other cause is juvenile wood. The first few years of a trees life the wood in the stem is much more flexible so the tree is not killed when it is under stress. Now I confess I cant remember the number of years. "strong enough to bend" As a young tree needs to be able spring back after a heavy load of snow, ice etc. But as a tree matures the stem becomes stiffer and more ridged. As we have more and more wood grown in plantations or heavily thinned natural stands the core of juvenile wood is fairly large, maybe 4-6", or even 10" in southern yellow pine. If a spruce in Maine developed in a natural dog hair thick stand, the juvenile wood might be 1-2" at most. The density and strength of slow grown natural wood from the outer part of the log is much higher than that from fast growing young wood. Grade stamps reflect this as well. Just walk down the isle of the lumber yard and look at the growth wrings of the wod.
Matt, I've been seeing lots of lumber that is definitely not dry enough, even the pre-primed finger joint trim that I've been using. I ran crown and base in my entire basement, primed it again and painted it. Now the length of each stick has shrunk at least 1/16-1/8", makes my joints look like crap, it's really aggravating.
I have no knowledge of lumber price fluctuations but want to add this: if a permit isn't required OR if your local code official will allow ungraded lumber OR if you can find a licensed grader to grade locally sawn lumber, consider finding a local sawmill. I've got a small hobby mill for my own use and I cut a few of my own trees and do some removal and salvage. I price rough sawn for small projects very reasonably and there are other similar operations in my area who do the same.
I went to Home Depot yesterday and it was $7 for a 2 x 4 x 8
I've always wanted to build a house using ICF construction. I bet the price gap between that and conventional has closed considerable.
FWIW.....I went to HD about 3 days ago to get some PT 2x4x8's to build a fish cleaning table. When I did the math, it was about 30-something cents cheaper per board foot to buy the 2x4x12's.
JL yep you gotta do the math, sometimes it's counterintuitive.
7/16 OSB is back up to $35 a sheet here last week. Kiln dried 2 x lumber is still twice what it was if it’s spruce. In this area that’s everything under a 2x6. Yellow pine in the 2x8 and up sizes, is easy to find. It’s running full cost plus 60% of what it was selling for in late 2019.
The framing lumber in spruce is pathetic. Twisted and bowed up. The yellow pine stuff is more straight, with less twist then I’ve ever seen.
Fuzzy, the problem with home sawn lumber is unless you have a kiln or a place and time to dry it it's junk. No offense.
I bought a semi load of OSB in December 14 bunks . 7 of 15/32 and 7 of 5/8. Market now compared to them . I have already saved 5500 dollars. And it’s is still going up. Hunt
Two days ago I bought a 11/32 sheet of plywood for $40 at the local Lowes (minus my military discount). It wasn't until I cut it and placed it next to the existing, older plywood that it dawned on me it's not the same thickness as the old 3/8's piece I was replacing.
Tons of new home construction still in my area. Surprising. Trying to beat the impending rate increases I guess? We were wanting to build another barn on our farm, but it is more than twice what we paid just a few years ago. Sheet metal is also up. Can’t justify it right now.
I bought 8k in lumber for my spring home addition on jan.19th. Prices were rising fast so I bit the bullet and am storing it in my pole barn until spring. Since I bought, prices are still rising every few days on some items. 1/2" osb has gone up 20% in the past 2 weeks. I have also heard the will be a lvl shortage so I am sure prices will sky rocket on those if you can get them. Demensional lumber has remained stable with just small increase on some material in the past 2 weeks but took a big increase just before I bought. No matter what the market does, prices will continue to rise as we get closer to construction season IMO. I am waiting for finance approval as we speak to buy 90% of other materials I need. I was told resin prices are increasing with will effect window pricing also. As soon as I sign on the dotted line I will be buying, buying, buying. I am using a styrofoam concrete form system and put a down payment of those yesterday to lock in a price. He told me his styrofoam prices are rising and he will have an increase on Feb.15th and again before spring arrives. Everyone I have talked to has told me to expect prices to mirror last summers prices. Thank God I can do the work myself. I can't imagine adding labor to these already insane prices.
FWIW....The gutter guy I'm working with (in Florida) said he was notified by his supplier last week that the rolled aluminum for making seamless gutters is going up at least 10%. If you have a gutter project coming up...heads up.
xtroutx........I assume that you are talking about ICF construction. We have done a lot of ICF construction in the last 25 years. I think you will be well pleased!!
OSB 3 yrs ago was $12/ sheet. Now $42
Politicians blame it on mills gouging….when in reality its liberal policy decisions. Yes Mills have better margins now, but that only a small part. Mills cant get anyone to work. Folks paid not to work has increased demand with a constrained supply. Fuel prices are a direct effect of liberal ‘green’ policy and has a multiplier effect. How many times does that wood get handled?
Truckers getting blamed by the politicians…but current policy has them handcuffed at the border and picking up goods at the ports.
The current Trudeau and Biden policy has a big influence on this high inflationary mess we are in….
shiloh, yes icf. I went and looked at his set up a few weeks back and was sold. Prices are very reasonable, esp if you don't have forms. With the price of lumber for making your own forms and the styrofoam insulation the price was good, esp with all the other benifits that come with them.
Nick don't look now but lumber futures went limit up today after a couple weeks of mostly limit down. Was hoping for at least two more weeks of futures correction before the market turns and probably runs hard again. Volumes sold are crazy high which is an indicator many think the market bottomed already or feel $1000M wood will be a good price come spring/summer season. One thing everyone seems to agree on is the market is poised to have a historic price run this late winter/early spring.
OSB is impossible right now. If you ain't holding contracts, you either ain't getting wood or paying a 20% premium for the very rare load available.
It's hard to find a product in the building industry that isn't at least 20% higher than just 2 years ago.....and much of the industry is WAAAAAAY higher than 20%.
Prices are still rising. I am glad I took brettpsu's advise and bought when I did. The 8k I spent on lumber jan 19th would have been almost 10k today feb 14th. osb being the biggest culpret, but all lumber is inching its way up every few days. If I did not buy when I did, I doubt I would be doing my addition the spring/summer. I am sure prices will continue to rise, and more rapidly, as we start getting near construction season. Most other things I need I try to buy when someone has a decent sale going. I shop around every morning while having my coffee.
Some friends having a debate about the cause of the insane lumber prices. $67 for a sheet of 3/4” plywood at Lowes right now. So Brett I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.
They’ve gone back and forth with the usual arguments. Biden sucks and it’s the Dems fault. It’s the Repubs making things suck to make it look like Biden sucks. It’s Covid related supply chain issues. Massive beetle kill? Blame it in the wolves? Do we need to do an EIS to determine that trees have feelings and should be saves by the Endangered Species Act? Or maybe there are multiple contributing factors so we need a graph or pie chart?
I refer to this thread all the time when I need lumber. It’s been helpful and educational. Great to have someone in the industry with the inside scoop. But I’m curious myself… what’s the deal Brett?
Not building anything anytime soon!
There's so many underlying issues causing these absurd prices. Every week has a different blame game but it all equates to higher prices and shortage of supplies.
#1 Would be high demand. Housing starts are still very high at almost 1.7M. The entire housing market has been modeled to handle 1.4M for years.
#2 Covid has reduced worker output in all aspects of the building industry. Lumber industry is more automated every year but still a lot of man power involved in production.
#3 Canadian mills are keeping a lot of wood in Canada right now. So many logistics issues from the 1 to 70 trucks to loads ratio, shortage of rail cars, border crossing issues. Plus not having to pay any US tariffs. What ignited this current rally back in November was the massive flooding in BC. Several major rail lines got buried in by mudslides and mills had no way of getting wood out for several weeks.
#4 Futures Market. It's like a toy for the big investors to play with.
#5 Energy Cost. Takes a pile of energy to harvest, haul, saw, surface, dry, and ship the finished lumber product.
#6 Resin Cost. Not related to lumber but does apply to plywoods and OSB. The resin mills have been hammered for 3 years now. From a couple hurricanes, freak cold snaps with long power outages to one of the largest adhesive manufactures was hacked by Russians in Oct and didn't have any production for several months. Very difficult to source subfloor adhesive, construction adhesive and drywall adhesives right now. You might find the wood but can't find anything to glue it together with. Resin is in so many products from vinyl siding, windows, doors, paint, glues, etc.
Right now there is no end in sight for the current lumber and panel markets. Will be cheaper today than in a month and possibly all spring. Will there be a correction? For sure but there's no idea if or when that will happen in 2022. It will take a pretty good and long recession for the whole building industry to come back down to earth. Lumber is highly volatile and could come down fast but everything else would take many months or even years till it come down to pre pandemic levels.
When I moved into my house a few years back previous owner left 3 - 12"x 20 foot LVL's in there. Annoying to move and where would he put them. Last summer I sold them on kijiji for $800 ;)
But I made a big order for a project in January hoping that was the right call instead of waiting until April when I will actually need it.
That semi load of OSB is going to buy me a sheep hunt:)
I agree with the resin issue. I am ordering my windows , siding, and roofing tomorrow, also picking up all my glue. It seems more like a chess match than a building project. One wrong move could cost you thousands on a decent size project right now. I retired 10 yrs ago after being a carpenter for 35 yrs. I would hate to be trying to bid projects right now. When I bought my 1/2 osb sheathing Jan 19th, I paid $28.00 a sheet and had a tough time swallowing that. Today its $43.00 a sheet. 3/4 subfloor $65.00 a sheet.
What about timber prices to the timber (landowner) in PA? Good time to sell?
Tom it's a great time to sell hardwoods. PM sent
I was given a Bitz jig by an older archer at the club. (He quit shooting due to arthritis.) The jig is mounted on a small piece of plywood and I can't calculate which is worth more ;-)
Joking aside, I'll probably give it to a young archer, who won't appreciate the value of either...
"That semi load of OSB is going to buy me a sheep hunt:)"
Hunt that load of OSB would run you around $45,000 right now
Mad Trapper, all markets are local. But if your hardwood markets are similar to ours, markets are very strong. Access, volume and other factors will affect price up or down from the average. If you are very astute to logging and selling wood you can read the tea leaves on when and how to sell it to your best advantage and how it fits within your broader land ownership goals. If you are not an expert, hire a forester to sell your wood. Specifically a private consultant acting as your fiduciary agent. Every mill and most every big logger has one or more foresters on staff representing their best interest. A very recent example of mine. Just sold timber from 60 acres that are being cut for site conversion. About half clearcut and stripped clean and half partially harvested a bit heavier than ideal to come back in ten years but probably less hard than most loggers would smack a lot they didn't think they would ever be back to. WV Mountaineer made a career out of buying wood. And i have no doubt he earned his pay. Meaning if he did his job well he earned a good living, but he also worked hard to do it.
The land owner had shopped the wood around a bit. They had a quote from a local logger who offered them $50,000 lump sum. I conservatively estimated we could cut the same amount of wood/prescription and gross $80,000 before my fee and would have netted them an additional $18,000 above the lump sum offer. Well, I sold the wood by bid, and just got my all time high w pine price per unit and very strong prices on the broad mix of hardwood logs and firewood. Based on my tally I am estimating we will generate over $100,000 gross stumpage. I think the land owner got a pretty good return on their investment by hiring a forester to represent them and market the wood.
My15% sales commission might seem high but it gained them an additional $35,000. More than doubling your money with no out of pocket cost is a pretty good return on investment, I think. The pine price was $315/mbf straight through for good logs and pallet. This is $65/mbf better than what I had figured was worst case scenario just negotiating. Now granted the logger worked pretty cheap cutting the pine, but there was more money made milling and retailing the lowest quality board than what the mill bought the wood for. For most of the wood there was a$1.00 to $1.50/ board foot in milling and retailing over and above what the mill delivered price on the logs. A sawmill is just like a printing press every time the log goes back and forth on the carriage. Never mind when the cant goes through the gang saw!
Got my entire house up Brett. Our timing was pretty good. Lumber was purchased in November. I would liked to be a little earlier but it all worked out. Thanks
Glad it worked out for you Jonathan. November was very good timing wise to buy the materials. Most lumber and panel items are up 100-200% since then.
I wish I would have gotten started sooner. Like nov. I have been talking about this addition for a few years. First week of Jan. I drew it up and decided this was the year. At 63 I needed to get it done sooner than later. Thanks to brett for all the PM responses and info. It was great talking to someone that knows what they are talking about.
Building my girls new bedrooms and father in law is a contractor so I’m getting cheap labor :) good lord, I might have to sell a kid
Pop-r no offense taken, everyone has the right to be wrong. LOL
^^^^. This ^^^^
I looked at a house yesterday that was built 121 years ago. The 2 by 8 floor joists were as solid as Masonary blocks. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sawmill lumber if you got good logs and a good saw guy. It’ll outlast the spruce that is used for dimensional lumber. It’ll last just as long as the yellow line e used in larger framing lumber too.
Brett, appreciate the great info, where is lumber sitting now? Interest rates rising may slow new construction, so maybe lumber will come down a little?
Very mixed bag right now. I've never seen species separated by such large amounts as they are right now. A 2x12-20 #1 yellow pine is running $80 while a 2x12-20 spruce is running $50, but a 2x6-16 #1 yellow pine is $12 and 2x6-16 spruce is $17. Everything is trying to find a trading level right now with things still being sorted out a little. For the most part lumber has dropped anywhere from 30% to 60%. Yellow pine(treated or white wood) has dropped the most across the board except for 2x12, timbers and decking as they are still dropping......not 2x12-20 yellow pine as they are non existent right now. Western and eastern spruce has dropped but only 30-40% with studs holding fairly strong and showing increases across the board. OSB and CDX declined 30-40%. Most items stabilized 10 days ago with a few still dropping and a few rising. Demand is still very very high but there's more doubts starting to creep into home building.
Building materials are a different story.....total cluster f*^k! We went from 3-6% yearly increases to 15-18% the new quarterly norm. One sector shows improvements while another shows regress. I keep thinking one more year we surely will be out of this mess but I truly believe the only way to get out of this is a 2-4 year hard recession to slow consumption way down.....which is what the fed is trying to do with the interest rate levels.
Great post . Thanks Brett
Speaking as a guy with a pending timber harvest plan, scheduled to log next year I'm hoping prices don't drop too much.
But also speaking as a guy with a fixer house project starting, dang these prices are high!
Last week I purchased from Menards four treated 4X4X12, two 2X4X16, one 2X8X16, and one treated 2X12X16 all for the lovely sum of $247.00
Bought these stick few days ago. 2 8' 4x4 treated, 9 8" 2x6 spf and 2 2x8x10. 166$. Un fricken real!
Great info, thanks Brett!
I just poured the footings for my addition last week. I am glad I bought all my lumber back in January. It hurt then but still about 25% less than what it is now.
Bought 7 2x6 10 spf yesterday. 128.00 Uffda!
I priced a deck with a finished porch over top, an addition, and a new roof on a house three weeks ago. And, arranged to have the material delivered. It was something I never do because Lowes employees do t care about lumber condition when they pull them.
Anyways, I took back sone left over treated and untreated 2x6 in 10’s and 12’s. The same lengths for 2x12’s too. Each board was three to four dollars higher. I tried to get the returned lumber for the new price. Unfortunately ate my, they didn’t see it that way. lol
My point t is, yellow pine treated or untreated is going up say here. So is the spruce stuff. Nothing is backing down in the slightest.
Very helpful Brett, thanks.
I think you guys can still buy more competitively south of the border. We’re at $50 for 7/16 OSB on the shelf. Spruce 2x4 studs are at $10 What’s it look like down there?
All depend on a yards inventory levels. 7/16 should be around $28-33 per sheet. 2x4-10 in a good spruce stick are around $10-11. Yellow pine 2x4-10 are selling around $6.50-$8.00. Again this all depends how the dealers want to get rid of older high priced inventory and replace with lower cost material.
I guess we are late to the show in these parts. 7/16 osb is selling for $38 and change plus tax this morning. $10 less then last week.
I got a happy meal for under $11 dollars ??
Brett - What is the deal with red pine and poplar? We have 160 acres of land in Northern Minnesota. Would it be worth my time to rent a sawmill and spend the summer making dimensional lumber?
"Brett - What is the deal with red pine and poplar? We have 160 acres of land in Northern Minnesota. Would it be worth my time to rent a sawmill and spend the summer making dimensional lumber?"
I'm probably not the best guy to answer this question. Hopefully some upper Midwesterners chime in but yes if you have the time then saw up some lumber. Very satisfying to be able to cut your own lumber and put it to good use. Red pine and Poplar have many uses.
What's he gonna do rent the kiln too? It'll never match the quality if you don't get it dry. Most climates it'll never happen unless it's put in a kiln.
What a kick in the nuts! Just tore out my rotting deck in the backyard and getting ready to lay clay pavers. In doing so I had to finish my dog run because the deck accounted for part of the run. (9) 1x6x8ft cedar planks and (4) 4x4x8ft cedar posts $353.54. Posts are $30 and planks $25ea. Ridiculous. Literally paid less than 1/2 that 3 years ago on the initial build.
Edit: double post. Won’t let me add photo. 500 internal error message
Aint looking forwards to my trip to Menards today.
Pop-r you sure are hung up on the kiln-dried thing. If you're building furniture, doing flooring or trim kiln dried is necessary. For framing barns, sheds, garages, hunting blinds etc it's a waste of money. Stack, sticker, air-dry for a year, plane for dimensions if dimensions are critical and (to name a few) eastern hemlock, eastern white pine, tulip poplar, and cucumbertree lumber will treat you just fine for sills, joists, framing, sheathing, and siding. My dad and I built a house in 1978 ( I was 15 years old at the time) from lumber cut sawn and edge-planed on the property,. by us (mostly by m)e in 1976 and 1977. We stacked, stickered, covered, air dried then edge planed. Subfloor was plywood, siding was masonite, interior walls were commercial wood paneling, trim was commercial stuff. Everything else, joists, plates, sills, rafters, studs, purlins, sheathing, soffit, etc were eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) and Tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)
The house I mentioned above, though "dated" in appearance now is still sound, still occupied, still square and solid. It sports vinyl siding over the site-cut sheathing, has the original metal roof, some new carpets and new windows. That's about it.
Sawmill lumber is every bit as good, if not better then the kiln dried crap being sold today.
I bought material for a big deck and roof last week. I was busy and stretched out so I agreed to have Lowes pick it off the shelf and deliver it. I ended up taking back almost 40% of the stuff they delivered. Warped, crowned to bad, dead knots that left holes. Barked off stuff, etc…. Their dimensional framing lumber is no better.
Saw it, air stack it, cover the top, let it dry, plane it out and build. Just be sure to use enough stacking Perlins to keep the lumber from bowing while it dries. It’ll build as good a house as the best kiln dried lumber.
Keep an eye on it though. To keep the bugs out of it.
I was up in Amish country the other day. There are lots of sawmills in the area. But there was also a fair sized lumber company. Big sign in front said “Land clearing services and we buy logs” I’m thinking that the Amish might serve to keep their prices in check too. Next time I’m up that way I’m going to look at their prices. Time to walk away from big box stores that do as they please because they never run out of customers in the cities. While I’m at it I’ll be checking the prices on local beef up there. My furniture builder will point me in the right direction I’m sure. He likes my cash and he also loves the elk meat I give him. I can tell you that it’s like 1965 up there and with what’s going on in the world that’s a good thing. Once the effects of the war in Ukraine cause all the issues with availability and prices of food I might be doing all my shopping up in the woods!
Joe was you in Smicksburg?
Depends on where you're at. Most of the southern states where most of the southern yellow pine is grown (which is the main supply in the south) you're wrong. They have a formulation for it and it never would get dry in the south to equal kiln dried "dryness" unless you went through a 100yr drought and had record high temperatures. I've built many things out of it. Love it. I wouldn't consider building a house with it though and think I had the quality of the guys house next to me. The bows in the sheetrock in every room of the house is all I'm talking about. Stucturally it's great. Same exact stuff for sale down at the lumber yard.
Brett… yes! And Dayton. How the hell did you guess that??? They are everywhere.
Just paid $62 for a sheet of 19/64th plywood. Just a little bow holder project for the quad. Gonna cost me $100 for a bow size wooden box. I didn't need any, but couldn't help but notice the 2x4s were about $10 apiece too. 8% inflation, yeah right.
Pop-r I'm in the South and there's a reason I left SYP out of my post .... it's crap for most uses, kiln-dried or not
Popr, kiln dried lumber draws moisture the minute it leaves the kiln. And, will stabilize to the environment it is in. And, yellow pine isn’t straight kiln dried. Far from it.
Structurally it is so superior to most any wood on the planet. But, I can’t imagine using it in sawmill form as crooked and twisted as it usually is kiln dried. But, it’s a big world. And, yellow pine is only an option for a small part of it.
Joe, just a guess. One of the closer Amish communities to Pitt. Around 50% of my business is done in the Dayton/Smicksburg market.
So what are your thoughts on the pricing at Dayton Lumber compared to HO Starr or the places closer to the city? I live in Sarver near Saxonburg so that’s only 45 minutes away for me.
$90 here for a 4x4 piece of Pine plywood unreal!
Lumber seems to have dropped quite a bit around here lately. I bought (2) treated 12' 2X6 last weekend and they were like $17 each.
Bowfreak, those will be $12 or less very soon. I just went to $12.89 this morning on #1 treated 2x6-12.
My last update above was from week 15. Prices could not maintain the rebound and have crashed pretty hard the last couple weeks. Spruce 2x4 lost $300/M in the last 2 weeks alone......that equals $1.59 drop on a 2x4-8. Been very bleak news coming out that is driving the futures market down and it's dragging most all lumber and panel products down with it. Many of us dealers bought 60 days or better of inventory back at the end of April. Well those purchases are just starting to show up at the yards now and we're already underwater on them. Good for the consumers though.
Then you understand SYP frames 95% of the houses in the south for lumber 2x6 and larger. It's a HUGE market. It can actually be fairly nice lumber. Sure not equal to some but serves its purpose very well. Cheaply.
yes I'm well aware that most modern homes are cheaply built of inferior timber
Good, maybe my lil project, won't be so crazy now... ;-)
yes lumber dropped but diesal is going up and up balancing the price drop on lumber
Just a quick update. Lumber futures are tied to the hip with the stock market right now. New housing permits took a pretty big drop.
Lumber is getting close to a bottom. In a couple weeks look for 2x4-8 premiums to be sold in the $4.50 to $5.50 range. 2x6-8 premiums will be $6.50-$7.50
7/16 OSB has a little bit to give back yet but should see it around $16-22 and possibly cheaper.
Some manufactures have started rescinding price increases announced for the upcoming weeks or months and some are no longer on allocation. Steel, Aluminum, PVC and Vinyl products are all seeing prices slide some but this could take weeks or months to see much change. Fuel cost are eating up most of the price reductions for now so don't expect to see much if any change for a while. Availability of some products is getting a little better, not great but better. We could be back close to normal lead times on 90% of the housing market by years end if this slow down keeps up.
24.99 per board for 7/16 osb this morning. Almost four times what it was 2.5 years ago to date.
How do these prices this correspond to hardwoods or do they all?
WV no real relief coming for manufactured wood products. Scarce skilled labor and high energy costs will keep it high. I am seeing increased demand for rough sawn stuff as people start realizing that you can do raised beds, barns, sheds, chicken houses and the like without dropping thousands at the big box stores. Residential construction will continue to be a "Lowes delivery " proposition for anyone who doesn't have the time and determination to meet code with rough sawn.
Hoytsdad, kiln dried furniture grade hardwood retail prices were already very high. No relief coming for that but also not a corresponding increase for them to the "junk stuff" like OSB, underlayment plywood, lauan, and #2 SYP and fir that houses are built from. As I said before (and was side-tracked by Pop-r) better materials can be had much cheaper for non residential projects like hunting shacks, blinds, stands, sheds, barns, ag buildings, coops, hutches, raised beds, etc.
$40.20 today for 4x8x7/16" 10' sheets in my world. Down about $10 a sheet in the last 60 days. Headed the right way but still a long ways to go to get back to a reasonable price.
I was told the futures were going to get back down around $300 here pretty soon. We'll see.
