Building Costs after Katrina

[John Raabe]

Here are two articles of interest to people planning or building a new house or remodel.

Demand for materials and skilled labor is likely to get even tighter in the coming months due to the massive requirements in the gulf coast states.

http://www.buildingonline.com/news/viewnews.pl?id=4455

On the other hand, just such demand may force the authorities to open up the US markets to Canadian and Mexican wood and cement imports. This could soften the demand side and help keep prices from spiking.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Business/News/2005/09/13/1214621-sun.html

[Amanda_931]

Brazilian pine plywood--apparently BK around 40% of the east coast plywood supply.  

A really good argument for building with local materials, whatever is around.

[Robert_Flowers]

Prices are going up already the Lowe's price for 7/16 OSB went from $9.59 thursday morning to $14.39 thursday afternoon here in middle  georgia. and they are out of it so is homedepot.
Just wait untill  they are done with the clean up an start rebuilding indecember or january down here you will not be able to get any osb or plywood ,and lumber prices will be thru the roof.

 FEMA need 9000 sheets of osb a week  an that just for tempory housing.

[Jimmy C.]

http://www.retailnet.com/story.cfm?ID=24160

Home Depot Holds Pricing
Thursday, September 15, 2005
 
 

Despite the soaring costs of building materials in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, The Home Depot is so far holding prices steady, thanks to its policy of locking in prices for months at a time and of freezing prices that its stores charge following disasters.
Lowe's has raised prices slightly since the hurricane. "But they are still lower than they were last year," said company spokesperson Karen Cobb. Nationwide, builders and consumers are paying from 10% to 50% more for certain types of lumber.

Experts are attributing most of the current price increases to speculation and panic buying.

[Lady_Novice]

I posted on another thread that my local building supply salesman (northern Idaho) said they could not supply plywood/OSB during the next couple months (i.e., not at any price) and he felt this would be case at other suppliers, too. He said all plywood/OSB was being shipped to the Gulf Coast and that one factor was that a couple of big plywood mills near the Gulf Coast were demolished.

Yet today in the Sunday paper, a circular from Ziggy's, another supplier, shows plywood and OSB available at prices that don't seem too bad. So I don't know what to think.

In the expectation that prices will only get worse once the Gulf rebuilding is seriously underway, I feel more pressure to build quickly and I've got visions of myself shivering in the snow and rain this winter in order to get it built.

Not helping is the fact that my plumber seems to have disappeared. He has to place the sewer pipe before the slab can be poured. But that's a whole different topic, one called "do subcontractors ever return phone calls?"
Lady Novice

[Amanda_931]

What hunting season just started?

(when I was calling garages in Arkansas, they all shut down for the first few days of squirrel season, and probably for a week at the beginning of deer season, maybe not turkey.  Imagine plumbers do the same thing.  Remember that there are bow, muzzle loader, and regular hunting seasons.)

One of the big box people said OSB has been going up about a dollar a day retail for them.