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Small Cabin Forum / Off Topic / Pressure treated lumber shortage
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lburners
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 17:21
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I have been seeing some cleared out PT at a couple local Lowes and a couple local lumber yards. Checking online looks like a shortage going on.
Seems like prices are about to get jacked up. Hoping its and honest supply demand issue with the Carona situation and not some shady price hike.
This guy has some interesting insight with several more updates since this vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtVs0bWKdzc

ICC
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 17:33
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If you watched the 15 min video, why not leave us a succinct sumary of what his theory is, along with the link. If I watched every youtube someone used to make their point I would never get my own stuff done.

lburners
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 17:44
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He speculates that Wall street has gotten into purchasing large tracts of lumber property and might be creating a demand to increase future prices. Starts talking about it at 10:40.

ICC
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 18:29 - Edited by: ICC
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Thank you very much.

Wall St can be blamed for a lot of things and many have a lot of truth. Speculation along with overly high compensation for CEO's of megacorporations have a lot to do with pricing and wages of ordinary people. However, not everything has a conspiracy behind it.

jsahara24
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 20:02
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I am in the process of building a deck in PA on my house, I have half the deck boards down and I literally can't find any more to finish it. I bought everyone I could find when I started the project a couple weeks ago and figured they would turn up, but no luck yet.

Houska
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 20:11
Reply 


Well, I'm not going to watch someone speculating in their car for 15 mins.

Up here in Canada, there is also a lumber shortage. The news has been covering it and giving as explanation labour shortages in the spring, followed by a huge demand spike as people who can't travel or do other stuff decide to do projects. Both DIY, as well as with contractors who are super busy this summer.

That makes sense, and don't need conspiracy theories or the evil hand of speculators to justify. Which doesn't mean that's wrong, but I'll wait to see someone more credible make that allegation, in writing and with facts to back it up.

lburners
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 20:25
Reply 


I hear yah just some food for thought. I don't blame you for not watching but the guy has some interesting insight as he has been working in a lumber yard for 20 years and does the orders for them. I thought it was informative to hear from someone on the front lines as opposed to a journalistic study. Im guessing journalists have their hands full at the moment.
A bit of a bummer to see prices hike up when your working on a project. If you can even find materials.

skootamattaschmidty
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 21:28
Reply 


I just recently re-did my back deck at home. I live in south western ontario. I knew there was a shortage so prior to ripping apart my old deck, I called a local lumber store to see if they had 16' deck boards. I called on a wednesday and they had over 800 so I figured I was good to go. My bad i didnt buy the 65 that i needed...i tore my deck apart then on the Friday i went to buy my new materials and it was all gone. I called all around the London area and deck boards sold out everywhere. I was able to buy my joists and figured worst case I'd slap some plywood down temporarily. I ended up finding deck boards sn hour away from my house and jumped on them. I've been told they are not expecting more till possibly the new year. Guess a lot of our pressure treat comes from China and the factories were shut down. Luckily i was able to finish my project. But yah people are going to have a hard time finding stuff for projects. I feel bad for fence/deck builders...

Princelake
Member
# Posted: 27 Jul 2020 21:43
Reply 


I work in construction and in the building stores daily here in northern Ontario. I'm told most lumber mills were shut down or working at half capacity due to covid. The pressure treat companies have been buying up all the lumber that they can due to the high demand from people doing outdoor projects cause they don't want people in their homes.im told is only going to get worse with lumber yards running out of regular lumber. Lumber and plywood as almost doubled in price in the last couple weeks and I'm told they can't find anywhere to order more lifts.

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 28 Jul 2020 05:34
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Wall street had already owned large tracts of land prior to 2020. I know for sure that the international paper company (traded publicly) owns many many thousands of acres in the north west Adirondacks. I believe they mostly just make cardboard boxes though.

I look at it as people are home with nothing to do so they are doing home projects. along with a dip in supply and you have what we have today.

toyota_mdt_tech
Member
# Posted: 28 Jul 2020 08:17 - Edited by: toyota_mdt_tech
Reply 


I'd say its in the middle of deck building season. Went to get some Behr outdoor stain in a factory premixed color "chocolate" at Home Depot and there was none, yet, on their website, most popular item. So I chalked it up to being sold out. Nice weather, everyone must be staining their decks.

FishHog
Member
# Posted: 28 Jul 2020 08:35
Reply 


My neighbor owns a lumber store. He has been buying as much PT as he can due to the huge demand from people home due to Covid doing backyard renovations.

At the height of the lockdown it seemed like every other pickup driving past my house had a load of PT in the back

It’s simply unprecedented demand since people had time on their hands

hueyjazz
Member
# Posted: 28 Jul 2020 12:05
Reply 


I went to buy plywood for a project. The day before I looked up online what the price was and what buy it was in the store. The next day I went in to buy it and they had jack up the price by more than a dollar.

I had been planning to replace a dryer. I been looking at the same model for months. I looked at it again recently and the price was $200 more than what it was.

Alaskajohn
Member
# Posted: 3 Feb 2021 10:06
Reply 


A good friend manages a large hardware store. He told me that if I wanted lumber for any summer projects that I needed to stock up now. He didn’t think this summer would be any different than last, and wood will be in very short supply.

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