Lumber Prices

ScottA · February 15, 2008, 07:46:35 PM

My local lumber guy just jacked up all his prices by close to 50%. He told me he had no choice since his wholesale costs had gone up. I went shopping yesterday and found everything for the same or less than his old prices in the next town over. Spent over $1000 on wood for my roof framing. Anyone buying lumber would do well to shop around, you can't trust anyone anymore.

muldoon · February 15, 2008, 08:03:52 PM

That does not sound right to me. Lumber is actually at a low right now with the building slump in housing. I have heard 5 year low and I heard lowest in nearly a decade from somewhere else. I do know that some mills are laying off because the demand is not there and they can't move material any cheaper without taking a loss on it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1019864220080110

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A01E1D8103FEE3ABC4852DFB266838A639EDE

http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/10/07/business/12774855.txt

That being said, what is up in a huge way is fuel. The lumber may be cheap, but with diesel north of 3.25 a gallon your prices will be higher than expected. I guess it would depend on your location and proximity to the source so to speak for those costs to show up at your reseller. If your local guy is getting it shipped special he would pay the premium, if the guy in the next town over is on a path that gets traveled heavily he might get cheaper prices.

February 15, 2008, 08:23:42 PM

Locally I have notice a slight drop in the prices of a couple of my "index" pieces, OSB, and 2x6 studs. That's from 6 months ago.

Willy · February 15, 2008, 09:13:19 PM

Quote from: ScottA on February 15, 2008, 07:46:35 PM
My local lumber guy just jacked up all his prices by close to 50%. He told me he had no choice since his wholesale costs had gone up. I went shopping yesterday and found everything for the same or less than his old prices in the next town over. Spent over $1000 on wood for my roof framing. Anyone buying lumber would do well to shop around, you can't trust anyone anymore.

I am sitting on a 4 ft high stack of plywood I bought this winter. I was thinking it probley would go up as soon as construction weather happened here. Soon see but $7.29 a sheet for 7/16"OSB wasn't to bad a deal. I also got my T&G floor and 9 ft siding plywood cheap. Now if the rest of it is still down in a month when I start buying more to build with. Mark

ScottA · February 15, 2008, 09:16:02 PM

I just bought 40 sheets of 7/16 OSB for $5.98 a sheet yesterday.

February 15, 2008, 09:23:30 PM

Quote from: ScottA on February 15, 2008, 09:16:02 PM
I just bought 40 sheets of 7/16 OSB for $5.98 a sheet yesterday.

Man that is yesteryear prices!! I have saw it as high as $15.00 a sheet and thought I was getting a good price locking it in? Mark

lonelytree · February 16, 2008, 04:43:51 PM

Quote from: ScottA on February 15, 2008, 09:16:02 PM
I just bought 40 sheets of 7/16 OSB for $5.98 a sheet yesterday.

$8.98 at Lowes in Anchorage. Problem is, I need a whole bunch.

peternap · February 18, 2008, 06:24:38 PM

Going down here too. 2X4X8's are 1.80 now..

Darn near cheaper to buy it than saw it.

MountainDon · February 18, 2008, 10:12:31 PM

$1.95 big box stores here today 2x4x8ft

February 20, 2008, 12:05:17 PM

I've been accumulating for my project this summer. A cabin on a lake nestled in a 100+ year old RailRoad sand and gravel pit, now fully re-forested. Having purchased 45 low-e windows, 75 or so sheets of ply, many treated timbers and 45 6" x 6" x 20's s4s western red cedar at auction, the ebb and flow of lumber at the secondary markets have been of great fascination to me. With the housing market at full tilt, excess materials flowed freely to the auctions.
When I bought my windows 2 years ago, there were 1200 windows at auction, last fall, only 200. The next major auction is in March and I will be very interested to see how the free fall in housing and construction affects the items being consigned. It will either be sparse or full to the brim, and I'm having difficulty predicting which way the wind will blow. I know this....I'm glad to have in hand my previous purchases. Although I could use 1500 bd. ft. of pine boards. May have to sneak across the border to WI and hunt down a sawmill in the pine forests.

MountainDon · February 20, 2008, 01:32:44 PM

Sounds like a nice bunch of S4S red cedar!

What have you in mind?

wingam00 · February 20, 2008, 01:33:24 PM

Lumber prices have been going down here ( South Georgia) also in the last few months. OSB was as high as $24 a sheet now down to about 5 or 6 dollars. Copper wiring is still high but less that it was. We have a lot of problem with people stealing the copper plumbing, copper electrical wiring, and copper tubing out of AC units. One church here has had their stolen 2 times out of their AC unit in the last month.

Ndrmyr, what auctions are you reffering to about that you got your windows from?

Mark

desdawg · February 21, 2008, 06:47:54 AM

I like having material in inventory. I call mine Hidden Valley Depot at opposed to the other Depot. I have so much material of one sort or another that I have accumulated over the years and I have been slowly getting it organized so I can find what I want when I need it. I can go and scrounge up a receptacle or a light fixture, pipe fitting, etc. and know where to find it. I have spent a lot buying items I already owned in the past just because I didn't know where things were. Having multiple out buildings and service trucks is not necessarily a blessing. So now when times are a little tougher and I have the time available I have been getting squared away. We don't waste much around here these days.
The other day I had a second stage propane regulator fail and thought I needed to purchase a new one. In the organizational process I found one that I had put away 10 years ago and it was an exact duplicate of the failed regulator so I didn't need to refit the piping to install it. Inventory is a good thing but only if you can find it when you need it!

Ndrmyr · February 21, 2008, 08:14:54 AM

MountainDon, my plan is to build a 20 x 30 post and beam. Frankly, as I began planning this project, I was looking strongly at the cliff hanger plan which was perfect for my building site. But as any good scrounger knows, the plan design is often affected by the availability and acquisition of materials. In this case, what steered me in the post and beam direction was the fortunate acquistion of some nice treated timbers, some very delicious 3" x 10" x 18'"s. Then I developed a bit of an addiction (Howdy, my names Ndrmyr and I am a lumber auction pig!) and good fortune and got more 6x6 treated and so on, but still not enough for the whole skeleton and to do the bents. Then I got really lucky and got the cedar 6'6's.
Walked into the auction last year and they had cedar coming out of their ears. Year before, it was clear redwood, some as long as 26". Guess I should have mortgaged the house, but, years of auctioning have forced me to learn controls. Don't buy what you don't need, unless you've got the stones to sell it at a profit immediately.

February 21, 2008, 08:37:52 AM

Wingam00,

There are two consistant material auctions in my neck of the woods. The first is www.peakauction.com
that works an area from the midwest to the east coast. Be aware, that in my opinion there are two classes of items sold, the consigned items and their own high end flooring, granite,marble,doors, baths etc.

I am usually there for windows, doors, lumber, sheets goods etc. Great source for Lams. In 2006, I bought shingles. Fabulous top of the line Certainteed, lifetime guarantee, 110 MPH, 425 Lbs to the square, compared to 200 lbs for 30 year shingles. They're on my house and I admire their lush green appearance every day. They retail for $180/Square, I paid $12. Of course I (and my wonderfull wife) got to load and unload 5 tons of shingles by hand, but hey.....

The other is a local auction that runs about every 60 days with consignments from several states. Of course I'm always watching the paper for estate sales and auctions. Some folks are "collectors" and not every one completes all their projects before they go to sing with the angels.

Ndrmyr · February 21, 2008, 08:44:19 AM

Desdawg,

I understand soooo well. I have substantial inventory, but without organization it is a curse not a blessing. I'm really turning the corner on this though, install pallet racking (industrial shelving) in my pole shed last fall and organized by material type it is really helping.

Although it still seems like I have 3 of everything so I can find one when I need it!

Now as to why I have 9 routers? That is just a sickness, but, apparently harmless to others.

wingam00 · February 21, 2008, 09:15:22 AM

Quoteby Ndrmyr "Now as to why I have 9 routers? That is just a sickness, but, apparently harmless to others."

NINE routers

What scare is that I understand that sickness.

Thanks Ndrmyr for the info on the auctions.

Mark

glenn kangiser · February 21, 2008, 09:15:55 AM

Quote from: desdawg on February 21, 2008, 06:47:54 AM
I like having material in inventory. I call mine Hidden Valley Depot at opposed to the other Depot. I have so much material of one sort or another that I have accumulated over the years and I have been slowly getting it organized so I can find what I want when I need it. I can go and scrounge up a receptacle or a light fixture, pipe fitting, etc. and know where to find it. I have spent a lot buying items I already owned in the past just because I didn't know where things were. Having multiple out buildings and service trucks is not necessarily a blessing. So now when times are a little tougher and I have the time available I have been getting squared away. We don't waste much around here these days.
The other day I had a second stage propane regulator fail and thought I needed to purchase a new one. In the organizational process I found one that I had put away 10 years ago and it was an exact duplicate of the failed regulator so I didn't need to refit the piping to install it. Inventory is a good thing but only if you can find it when you need it!

Sounds like me, des-- just haven't quite gotten to the organization part yet.

Redoverfarm · February 21, 2008, 10:12:38 AM

Ndrmyr there is an auction service similar in this area. They have really grown since my first one. A lot of contractors starting to attend and the price keeps going up. I went to one the first of the month and didn't see that the housing crunch affected the prices the way I thought it would have. They are out of Ohio and operate mostly in the northeast. They are pbauctions.com.

Sassy · February 21, 2008, 11:17:23 AM

Sounds like me, des-- just haven't quite gotten to the organization part yet. (Glenn)

Yes, Glenn is definitely a pack rat...

I'm the organizer, but he just keeps packing in things on top of things & a lot are too big for me to do anything about... so he gets to spend a lot of time "shopping" around his stuff to find what he needs

I tend to be a "collector" of household stuff... but have been trying to control myself when I think of eventually having to move everything from the other house to the cabin $:-\$ it's hard to pass up a "good sale"

February 21, 2008, 11:18:06 PM

See the best part about being disorganized like me is the fun stuff you find that you forgot you had like a old CB radio I dug out of a box of junk a couple of weeks ago. "Breaker 19, for the rubber duck, you got your ears on?"

P.S. If you understand that line you are giving away more than your age.

glenn kangiser · February 21, 2008, 11:20:05 PM

Uh, 10-4 good buddy, hey Scott could you move on to the back of the line with that load of hogs, the smell is gitten intense.

Yeah -- and we don't call each other good buddies anymore-- that's a bit west of here.

Convoy

MountainDon · February 22, 2008, 12:29:58 AM

I still have a working CB in the Cherokee along with the 10 meter ham radio.

Other than 18 wheelers I believe 4x4's are among the only vehicles commonly found with CB's any more. And some of the 4x4 clubs have shifted to FRS. Guess I'm a die hard along with my club.

desdawg · February 22, 2008, 03:45:14 AM

Seems like I should have an old CB radio around here somewhere myself...............
LOL if I needed it I would go and look. Anyway I have been getting all of my material organized. I don't have pallet racks so lumber storage get's to be a challenge. Got to get everything up out of the termite zone. I bought a strapping setup a while back when I got the lumber from the homes that were torn down so I have been able to put the dimension lumber into bunks. Thetrusses are still loaded on trailers that I am not using. I guess I should take some pictures one of these days but I haven't had time to do that. I haven't been to an auction for quite some time. The local auction in Phoenix has building material quite often but they started charging a 10% buyers commission as well as a sellers commission so I got turned off. I made some pretty good finds there in the past though so I will go back one of these days. I need to locate some rebar at something other than retail.

Ndrmyr · February 22, 2008, 02:24:13 PM

There has been a lot of pallet racking in the secondary market due to the massive hit we've taken to your manufacturing community. I bought 46 linear feet of 10' tall racks with the slats and decking for $550 off of ebay from a small cabinet maker moving out of his stripmall. Rated at 18,000 lbs per section, I consider it one of the best purchases I've ever made. The organization it has brought to my building materials and other treasures is almost beyond price.

Oh and desdawg, I'm sure I saw a CB radio out there the other day. Golly, if I could only find my old bumper mount whip antenna!

Lumber Prices

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