What is happening to lumber?

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Has anyone out there been buying lumber/wood lately? I went to the yard today to get some 1" x 8"'s & 2" x2"'s and the wood was horrible,bent with knots,etc.,and I ask for grade 1, when I ask about them having any other better wood around the guy told me that I would have to ask for Premiun-clear at double the price (1"x8" grade 1 cost me $.89 a ft.)or go to Asia where most of the wood is being shipped to. It just seems like everything is just going downhill here in USA. Service,quality,etc. but yet we are suppose to pay good money for it.

-- Tom (tjk@cac.net), May 12, 2001

Answers

We here in N. Mississippi are being told to buy now as prices are increasing by 1/2 this summer (right around our corner). I have been told that by several builders, supply houses and furniture makers. I would like to know what gives too? I wonder if the steel homes market is getting better visited now!

-- Sonya (clb@watervalley.net), May 12, 2001.

A trade agreement with Canada has or is about to expire and the lumber industry is very concerned about it, I am looking a steel framing in my monolithic dome due to poor quality and cost.

-- Deborah (theant00@yahoo.com), May 13, 2001.

Well, first of all, we cut down all the good trees a long time ago! (and a mature Doug Fir or Hemlock takes something like 70 years to reach harvest stage....maybe it's faster these days...anyway I hope so.) Second, the trade agreement with Canada has had an impact. Third, most of the good logs still get exported. Fourth, unless the lumber buyer for your local lumberyard is *very* savvy, chances are that the best quality/pricing is going to some other company, especially if they have the dollar-power to buy in huge quantity. It's getting really cut-throat out there.

I used to work in a lumber yard 24 years ago. My husband still does. The quality of lumber has declined steadily since then and we have watched it, sadly. We salvage old buildings, etc., to get the best of the old stuff.

I hope folks embrace/continue the idea of salvaging good building materials, esp. wood. And think twice about just choppin' down any old tree....

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.


It's gonna get worse. International Paper recently bought two huge lumber mills in Maine and almost immediately shut them down -- along with 230 jobs. The mills were turning a profit!!! IP's reasoning? By closing the mills, they reduced pressure on their other lumbering operations and put pressure on the market to drive up prices.

Welcome to the Glomart world.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), May 13, 2001.


well, contrary to popular belief, a mature douglas fir DOES NOT take 70 years to reach maturity. 20-25 will do. i know, we logged our property last nov. with the advice that lumber prices (buying) were going down and by this spring would be less than last nov. when we got a quote for logging, (what we would get for our lumber) it was sept. 2000. when we logged in nov. 2000, the price dropped by 40%!!! we go to canada for our lumber for projects, but again, that trade agreement is going to end, please write your congressman and/or senators about this!

-- jeannie (mmp@theofficenet.com), May 13, 2001.


Well, thanks for the update on how long it takes trees to grow. That's a relief. And I wouldn't want to hold a popular belief, anyway! ;-) Seriously, I'm glad to hear that. Perhaps I was remembering that the trees they were cutting down happened to be 70 years old...

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.

I don't know about other parts of the country, but here in the Pacific Northwest if I want good wood with structural strength, I have to buy Doug Fir at 1-1/2 to 2 times the cost of the hem/fir garbage being sold now. A certain multi-state home improvement chain advertises their "select" cut lumber. All garbage. You're lucky to find one straight 2x4 out of every ten in the stack. There's a lumber yard near me that caters almost exclusively to contractors. (Open only M-F, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) They have better than average wood at lower than average price. I'm not sure where they get it, but they must have some unique sources. I think you can generally get better quality and price at a true lumber yard over the "sell everything under the sun" stores.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), May 13, 2001.

I just about fell off my chair laughing when I read this. No offense intended, though. This, my dear Americans, is a case of FreeTrade You Reap What You Sow. If I'm not mistaken, and I may be, this is probably due to the Softwood agreement. We've been very worried about this up here in Canada, because the old agreement has recently ended. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Canada is no longer allowed to send softwood into the US. I don't believe there is currently a trade agreement covering this. I think that your US mills weren't happy at the Canadian Softwood agreement (considered dumping? at cheap $), claiming they were having to close mills. So maybe this is now why you're getting garbage wood? Are the suppliers now scraping the bottom of the US wood barrel to get what they're selling you? Please do write, email, or call your representatives, and 30 million Canadians would be happy to be able to once again sell softwood to the US.

-- Rheba (rhebabeall@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.

Well you guys have certainly answered the problem, now the next thing is what is the solution?, we'll we stand up and demand more quality wood here or will we just pass it off and say "well thats the way things go". I am going to find out more about it and the Canadian agreement and I am going to speak to my representive and see what can be done.

-- Tom (tjk@cac.net), May 13, 2001.

Rheba, that' very interesting. I wasn't aware that we no longer got lumber from Canada.

I was quite surprised when the cost PAID for standing timber actually went down from an all time high, back in 1993 (or 94?) when I sold a lot of timber to the mills, due to a bad bug infestation. A couple of years later, I checked the price again, and it had gone down a bunch, maybe 30-50 percent, if I remember fairly accurately. Right before the peak, the price had moe than doubled in a year.

I found out that the prices had gone back down below the ozone because we were "buying Canadian timber".

Jeannie, et al, not to be argumentitive; you can't give a firm number for how long it takes a Douglas fir to grow to maturity. There are too many variables. Soil type, aspect, average rainfall, distribution of rainfall, rainfall intensity, elevation, genetic suitability of the particular tree to the particular site.

Etc.

If your trees grow to maturity in seventy years, I'm envious. Some of my trees on my poorer sites are three hundred years old, and only about thirty inch diameter. I just counted the rings on a stump yesterday on my "good " forest soil, which is rated I believe 11th out of 110 in this county (SW Oregon).

This tree was about eighteen inches in diameter, and 102 years old. Now we have to decide, "was this tree MATURE when it was cut"? How can I answer this question? I guess it must have been, on a level, or I wouldn't have cut if it hadn't been dead. But there are lots of trees all around this stump which are as big as three feet in diameter which appear quite healthy still, and so I suppose they are NOT "mature"? They are very mature acting. They rarely drive fast, have unprotected sex., or anything like that)

If maturity indicates sexual maturity, certainly all these trees are mature. They start reproducing when they are quite young, actually.

Sorry to make this discussion take so many strange twists, but I really am not sure what you mean by "mature".

Can someone please define the word, as used in this context?

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 14, 2001.



Oops, Jeannie, I meant to say, "If your trees grow to maturity in twenty to twenty-five years, I'm envious".

Even at 70, I would be envious, if I were comparing my south slopes, though.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 14, 2001.


The timber industry is hurting big-time... Boise Cascade has shut all of its mills in Idaho, and is planning on shutting two or three more in other Western States. Potlach was shut for a while - don't know what happened, but the cedar plant is open.

Rich works for a lumber holding/wholesaling company. They are having a really hard time right now. Most of what they used to do in wood, they are now doing in steel. Whoever told you that we are shipping all our good wood to Asia is kidding himself. Even Weyerhaeuser, though it just merged with some other company, is having major problems.

Yes... most companies ship overseas... But they ship to the folks that will pay their prices... Right or wrong - that's what's going on.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), May 14, 2001.


For anyone interested, MSNBC.com has (I think) a fairly even handed story on this softwood agreement situation/ramifications at:

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/553631.asp?cp1=1#BODY

Sounds like a touchy situation for the US. Cheaper homes and construction jobs for the US, vs. jobs in mills. I guess it all depends on your perspective what would be best. For the Canadian point of view, they talk about a potential loss of 1 million direct and indirect job losses. Now I'm very nervous, we only have about 31 million people in Canada.........

-- Rheba (rhebabeall@hotmail.com), May 14, 2001.


I guess we are lucky here, we got 60 acres of hardwood forest, if we need lumber, we cut the trees, haul them out of the woods with the Ford 4000, and take them to the local Amish sawmill and have it custom cut for $60.00 for 1000 boardfeet. So we get quality hardwood, not cheap, weak pine that won't last 30 years, yeah, you got to predrill your nail holes, but... you get what you labor for! This area of OH has locust, wild cherry, black walnut, and white and red oak, so we have plenty of lumber choice, and it hasn't been timbered since 1975, so there are plenty of maturing trees to chose from.

Buy land that has "lumber" already on it, and do the labor yourself to save money!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), May 15, 2001.


Annie, I like your choice of the word "maturing." I think that should be used for humans as well. After all, just as trees grow and continue to mature over the years till they die, so should we.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), May 15, 2001.


The answer is GROW YOUR OWN, just as you grow your vegetables and chickens.

Also, homesteaders might look at this as an opportunity. Just as small farms are making a comeback, small woodlots can. For a description of how several relatively small landowners cooperated to harvest their timber in the most remunerable fashion, see The Community Land Trust Handbook, Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA.

Happy homesteading.

-- Bob in Ohio (robertblessum@netscape.net), May 16, 2001.


My partner and I have been doing woodworking for years and had a nice little sideline business from our garage selling to craft shops and tole painters. Suddenly the craft market is overrun with cheap craft imports (China), we can`t even buy the raw wood for what they sell their finished products for! The wood available is junk. If I am the first one down at the local chain home improvement store the day they re-stock I might find a couple of useable boards out of the whole stack tho any that are somewhat clear will be warped, or if straight will be full of knots. This is supposed to be #1, priced accordingly, what a joke. The local mom and pop lumberyards went out of business so only two giant chains to buy from, the other one is even worse. We were looking to build another small storage shed recently and the cost of the building materials was so high and the quality so poor we decided to just buy an older travel trailer instead for storage. On top of that, the electricity in CA is through the roof, we can`t afford to run the shop equipment anymore. We were looking at retirement a few years down the road with the woodworking supplementing the social security, now we can`t even think of retiring and are trapped in CA where everything works against self-sufficiency...my animals are almost zoned out and the water is going so high from the cost to pump it that I can`t garden anymore. Where will all this end? Sue

-- Sue Hudler (catzrus@webtv.net), May 17, 2001.

In my HO, this is just another of the clarion calls that Gabriel has been tooting on his Horn-O-NAFTA which should inspire us all to become more adaptable and to think like businesses instead of like the old codgers that we sound like. Wood shoddy and expensive? Do like any business would and find another, more cost effective, material - straw bale, rammed earth, cordwood, etc. to build with. Use it to your advantage. Get gvt. tax breaks for solar usage. Reap the rewards of lower utility bills. If you're a contractor, take a few workshops, learn the skills, get a crew together and start advertising yourself as the areas only Lean Green Building Machine, complete with environmentally friendly/low waste house plans, high- efficiency appliances and building methods, etc, etc. Then you can charge more profit than you are now, and still be charging less over- all (relative to a similar, traditionally produced market product) due to lowered material costs.

Don't bang your head on falling sky-bits, guys. Make like opportunists and work with lifes little ouchies, rather than soldiering on mindlessly in the face of an unstoppable change.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), May 19, 2001.


Wise words, Soni.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 21, 2001.


What JOJ said.

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), May 21, 2001.

Soni, (or anyone else) Here in Florida we don't get any tax credits for solar. What do you know that I have not discovered regarding solar tax credits?

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), May 22, 2001.

If you go to one of the "big box" chain stores to get a decent stick of lumber, you are wasting your time. Those places are designed for folks who wouldn't know a good board if you whacked'em between the eyes with it. Go to a small, locally owned sawmill to find the good stuff. There are hundreds of little backyard mills out there in most areas of the country that can fill your needs, whatever they may be.

In response to the original question: Nothing has happened to lumber. It's the industry that has gone whacky. Remember the pork crisis a couple of years ago, when farmers were shooting hogs because they couldn't get enough for them at the market to pay the gas to get there? Do you recall the price of pork chops in the supermarkets going down???????? NOT!!! Is the current energy "crisis" caused by a shortage of crude oil? Nope! It is caused by the big oil companies creating a false shortage so they can gouge the consumer, claiming "supply and demand." The same thing is happening in the lumber industry. Click over to www.woodweb.com and you can see all the sawyers and loggers crying because the bottom has dropped out of their market, yet prices at the "Big Box" are higher than ever. If you still don't understand what is happening here, get a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and read it.

-- Dan G. (stagecoach@hotmail.com), May 23, 2001.


Well I have done some checking and a few things have surfaced. One is that some dumping is taking place by Canada but also because of NAFTA and GATT. The lumber I speak of came from a local lumber yard although it is also a regional chain. I have talked and searched and I have found a small out of the way sawmill about 12 miles away he usually only deals in hardwood but we talked and because I could order in quanity (for my furniture making)from him he is willing to handle my softwood milling of prime cuts of wood and all this for only $1.10 a ft. which is just 21¢ more then the knots and bends I was getting. He did tell me that most of the good lumber is for sure going to Japan and other Asia markets.

-- TomK (tjk@cac.net), May 23, 2001.

Here in Indiana the wood has gone from good to worse to horriable. I built a small barn and if I got center cut wood that was even some what in good I took it. This was from a major Home Improvement store.

-- Don Dearth (pdearth@indynet.com), May 24, 2001.

Dan, that may well be true in some geographic areas. (I have read Atlas Shrugged at least twice. Very good read.) In our area, the lumber really is crap (relatively speaking) because a good percentage of the best trees have all been logged. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and it's been a huge part of our economy for a very long time. But we have overharvested and now we have to wait again for good quality (if indeed we ever will...)

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), May 25, 2001.

I too was amazed by the high cost of lumber, especially when w elived in VA. Anyways, the farm we purchased here in AR has a sawmill, we have tons of and i mean tons of bundles of lumber for sale reasonable if anyone is interested.

-- Bernice Raymond (geminigoats@yahoo.com), May 25, 2001.

Yes, like what was said, there are alternitives to buying lumberyard wood for building. If you want a well built, and efficient house for a low price, check out the alternitives. Cob, cordwood, earthships, papercrete, strawbail, and a few others. If you do some research on these bulding materials, you will find better, and less expensive ways to build. I have built/rebuilt a hewn oak log house, 400 sq ft.,1 1/2 story, covered with a slate roof. I have less than $3000 invested. And most of that(pine, crap) was lumber from the local big chain store. And it looks like something from a fairy tale storybook. OAK

-- Oak (StrugglingOak@aol.com), July 21, 2001.

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