OSB price check

[Jeff]

We started a project last week where we thought we would need some OSB. Checked into Home Depot last Friday night. $8.10 a sheet.  I knew it would go up. Just called for a new price. Its now at $9.95. For today he said.

I would expect it to be above 18 again before its done this go around. Aspen logs were already at a premium and will probably become impossible to buy asd the big sustainable forestry guys who preach proper use of the resource DEMAND that thier jobbers put everything into pulp or risk losing thier contracts.  I learned a lot sitting on a board as the flunky beside the bigboys. What I learned was something I didnt like but already knew. This world is run on the almighty dollar and on politics and has nothing to do with right wrong or "proper use"  SFI is a farce designed to benefit the big boys pockets and keep tree huggers just at arms length.

[Gilman]

What's SFI Jeff?

Lumber prices in WA state have already been affected.

[gary]

I have to buy 52 sheets of osb next week. I haven't checked on how much it has gone up yet. How many sheets do you think I can safely put in a 1/2ton pick up?

[SwampDonkey]

SFI = sustainable forestry initiative

http://www.michiganforestry.com/

http://www.aboutsfi.org/core.asp


I agree with Jeff. We also have some of these certification type initiatives here in New Brunswick.

You take a company like Fraser Papers, they are so hungry for wood that they don't care how it's been managed. There bottom line is what counts. They've just demonstrated that over the last two years by stopping cold of doing silviculture on their freehold. They're only concentrating on Public lands because of free hand outs by government. In the same breath they are also preaching wood shortages. They were trying to harvest 13 year old balsam fir thinnings over the last few years causing their contractors with their own money in equipment to loose their shirts. :

[floyd]

This kinda funny , logger in BC was tying to tell me the crown wasn't giving their timber away. Nice to see some who have a grip on reality

[leweee]

I have to buy 52 sheets of osb next week. I haven't checked on how much it has gone up yet. How many sheets do you think I can safely put in a 1/2ton pick up?

sounds like two loads minimum to me ;D if it's 7/16 more if it's thicker :

[isawlogs]

  30, 35 sheets if its a Dodge  ;) If you got a friend with a 3/4 ton you could put them all in and make one trip .
Then again why not get them delivered   ???

[TeaW]

How do the big guy's justify over a 20% increase in the price of OSB overnight. I could see a gradual increase within a few weeks. What's on the shelf wasn't made yesterday.

[hawby]

Capitalism.  Supply and demand. Demand has already increased. Orders are being placed ahead of the shortage. I'll be surprised if it stops at $18, Jeff. Studs will be up as well....  :-\

[Larry]

So what happens to all those pine trees down on the Gulf Coast?  Can't they be made into OSB or plywood?

[beenthere]

Sure would think so, if they can be cut, logged out, and trucked to the OSB and plywood plants, and were not yard trees. I gather that many forests and their foresters will be working on salvaging those downed trees as soon as possible to recover the wood instead of losing it. It will take some time to get organized, and there are possibly other priorities for the ones able and willing to work in those areas. Probably leaving the supply to the other areas of the country that are not under Katrina's devastation will be able to handle the needs for OSB and plywood best, albeit at a higher price. Demand does have a way with pricing.    Those supply houses that have the goods in demand 'right now' are going to 'make hay while the sunshines' so-to-speak. They are not going to think 'I'll just hold on to what I have and let someone else fill this demand when they can'.
The donated moneys and the Govt Billions will pay for goods and services which will pump a lot of cash into the economy, which may, for those willing to work, produce a lot of jobs.  But, I don't know that for sure, just suspect it will happen that way.

[Jeff]

That salvaged wood wont be in the system for a long time. The price will have gone bananas and them come down before any of it makes an impact on the market. I bet the only thing it will do by then is depress the local market it comes from.

[Don P]

If you've ever been in the woods after a hurricane its a whole different ballgame. The trees go everywhere and many never make it to the ground. Its a very unsafe twisted mess, full of giant springpoles and deadfall traps. We planted in several "Hugo Hells" after that storm, areas that couldn't be logged or even burned. Alot of that timber will be lost.

Sheetgoods, insulation and roofing materials will likely be in short supply for awhile.

[karl]

Yep, here we go agin, heard that Kat had hit, called my local yard that morning and the price of osb was already up- same with the local gas stations-it just don't seem right. Greedy SOB's.

The older I get the less I like people in general.

[Dan_Shade]

Isabel was a tropical storm when it hit here (well, it may have not even been that by that time), and it made a huge mess.  I pulled out a few pine trees in a friend's yard, and a big oak I wanted for a sawlog that was leaning.

it makes a mess, if you wait long enough, sometimes they settle out, but it's still dangerous work.  I'll take a picture of a lot of a friend of mine's thats still got a bunch of trees down from isabel, down there it will be much worse.  things get all tied together and crisscrossed.

this lot, i'm gonna cut at the stump, and use a log arch to drag the trees free with my winch, but his won't be as bad, most of his are almost all the way to the ground now, they're all playing dominoes, though...

[Frank_Pender]

And log prices for us out here on the Left Coast will not go up do the the demand for the finished product, that is for DanG sure.    Douglas fir is bringinning about $675 a thousand for 32 and 36 foot logs.  :'(

[craigc90]

 I paid $15.00 a sheet for 5/8 osb thursday. I was dragging my feet ordering the lumber for my new garage and when the hurricane hit it put a fire under my @@@. I am not complaining. I feel sorry for everyone who has suffered  from this. a little more money for wood is a minor issue compared to what they are going through.

[caryr]

And log prices for us out here on the Left Coast will not go up do the the demand for the finished product, that is for DanG sure.    Douglas fir is bringinning about $675 a thousand for 32 and 36 foot logs.  :'(

Frank,

I doubt log prices will move much anywhere. It is the perceived increase in demand for the finished goods that is driving the price. Of course since we are moving into the slow time of year for building in the US there should be adequate capacity to produce material, but for some reason disasters seem to produce strange supply vs demand curves. It's always interesting to observe that the more manufactured/processed items are the one that get the biggest percentage increase. I'm not sure if this is because everyone along the ways wants a little extra profit or because the few companies that are setup to produce the items get overly greedy.

Cary

[Jeff]

It does have a huge effect on aspen log prices in this area due to the fact that we have Georgia Pacific and Weyerhauser board plants in our market. THe demand for board will cause the board mills to go into overdrive and as stated in my first post, they get thier product. If its thier stumpage or guys working under contract, and they all do, they will demand the extra wood, which means putting the logs in pulp which means in order to get them back the price goes up. One bad thing about the price of logs is it seems it never comes back down. The loggers will get the money back they lost by not selling as logs after the demand for the raw materials to the board plants have slacked.

[OneWithWood]

For once my timing was half way decent.  I bought 21 sheets of 7/16 OSB for my kiln a bit over a week ago.  $7.19/sheet.  8)

[ScottAR]

Down here, its gonna be about availablity.  A local developer I know of purchased enough materials for 4 spec houses at once so he could be sure of having it.  Shingles and osb then later sheetrock will be hard to even get much less cost more.   

My uncle beat the rush for sheetrock for his new house...   8) 8) 8)  We'll be painting it soon.  Their first new house ever. 

[gary]

I went to the box store to get my osb .They sold out of it and don't know when they are getting more

[Stump Jumper]

Ohhhh!  Why did you have to start this Jeff.

Saturday:
The Mrs. called the Big Rapids Lowes store to to get prices on sheeting because they were having a Labor Day Sale.  She then asked them if they had what we needed in stock and the manager went out and checked and said yes they did and could they have it banded and ready to go when we got there.  Wellllllllllll when we got there the manager was no where to be found and the lady that we were dealing with said no that the 1/2" osb was not available and had been sold out as of 2 days ago and that there was nothing that they could do about it.  We then asked for another person in charge and they said the same thing.  They had also said that we could not get a rain check the price. It was for 9.88/sheet.  Well explaining to the 2nd person that the only reason we came into town was to get sheeting and now the majority of it we cannot purchase they should pay for my fuel becuase it is now a wasted trip to town this is 30 miles one way.  Well they gave us a $10 store credit for fuel. 

Now we also needed 14 sheets of 3/4" t & g osb he said that they also had this when on the phone.  Wellllllll they didn't but we were able to get it  though they said that they would take it from somebody elses order now how are they gonna replace that? :

Now we also needed 10 sheets of 3/8" plywood imagine that they had it. 8)  But it was the last ten that they had. 

Well by the time everything was said and done the person that the Mrs. talked to on the phone shows up and tried to explain what happened.  He did give us a raincheck for the 1/2" osb for the $9.88 / sheet and we need 47 sheets.  All of this took 2 hours.  Boy was this a badddddd day.  >:( >:(

[Gilman]

Looks like people might have to start sheeting their houses with cabinet grade birch.

[Paul_H]

Now StumpJumper Jeff it wasn't a bad day.You eventually got your 47 sheets at the price you wanted plus the 10 other sheets and gas money from a store plus you got to meet some interesting people.

Don't you feel better now? 

[Ron Wenrich]

Do you really think they're ready to put up houses yet?  Seems to me that you have to clean up a lot of debris and burn a bunch of houses before you can even get ready for a house. 

I know some of the stuff will go for repairs, but house building is still a couple of weeks away.  I guess they're just getting ready.

High lumber prices, high fuel prices, higher interest rates...how will the rest of the housing market make out? 

I still haven't seen the hardwood market so much as hiccup.  Grade lumber is still flat.

[Sprucegum]

My bro-in-law is a purchaser for a large plumbing outfit. They are anticipating a 30-40% increase in the price of all their supplies, way up here in northern Canada!

[bitternut]

Funny.............I have aspen in my woods that is not worth hauling out. Guess maybe instead of buying sheet stock I will have to use solid boards and save some money.

[Carl_B]

I pickup 1/2 cdx plywood om sale at menards on friday nite for$ 11.92 a sheet  went back on monday  to get the rest before the sale went off It was $17.69 per sheet . I pickup 10 more sheets but am not a happey customer . Carl

[hawby]

Ron,

I would imagine that the "Modular" builders are stocking up. I would think that they are going to be the big benefactors of this disaster.

One of the local RV dealers got a boost from the feds. They came in and paid list price for every large motor home and trailer that he had on the lot. Then they hired locals to drive them down to the Gulf area.

[TexasTimbers]

I came to this board to make this exact post. Thanks Scott.
Anyway, it's scarce here between the Sherman to Plano area. I just got back from McKinney with 4 units (80 sheets per) and paid $11.98 per sheet and after tax came to $4149.87. I feel like I got a good deal because Home Depot and Lowes are on hold as far as price quotes from distributors like Viking, Huber, etc. and the 60ish OSB manufacturers in this country are not giving quotes at least from what i was told by a sales rep at Viking. They are sitting on it for a week or so .... a different form of price gouging.
Call your local Lowes or Depot and ask them how many units they will sell you today, and if they don't have any ask them when will they get it?
I'm picking up another 2 units tomorrow at HD in Plano/Frisco store that I bought over the phone.
If anyone wants 12' or 16' sheets of it I can hook you up, but you'll pay 35.67 per sheet already on the 16'.... and he only has 2 trucks left at that price :
The local Indy has 38 sheets of 4 X 8 left ... $18.74 per sheet Foxworth Galbraith here in Bonham can't quote a price for at least a week....

[Tom]

Sounds to me that folks in the Storm area should start salvaging the wood and straightening the nails instead of trying to buy all of their supplies from the Box Stores.

[Ron Wenrich]

There still hasn't been a surge in the lumber futures market.  Prices are still below July levels.  The osb futures market isn't much of a market, so its hard to find info. 

As I check alot of those markets that are supposed to be affected, I'm not seeing any price rise.  Coffee remains the same, corn is really low, as are hogs.  The big boys aren't expecting any change in wholesale prices on nearly anything.

Must be something between the mfg and the distributor. 

[TexasTimbers]

The osb futures market isn't much of a market, so its hard to find info....Coffee remains the same

Coffee and copper both soared, right after the storm, and both have now "corrected".
A full 1/3 (Almost 1.6 million 60-kg bags) of unroasted coffee are stored in New Orleans warehouses, and most distributors are reporting good news - most of it was untouched.
Niether coffee nor copper have "stayed the same".
Copper had nearly hit $1.70 as it not only reacted to Katrina but was in fact already riding Zinc's meteoric climb (due to plethora of related AND unrelated factors), but tuesday when employees of Metro International Trade Services actually put their eyes on the Zinc (nearly half of the entire world's supply of LME-listed Zinc is in registered warehouse in N.O.!) and saw that it too was untouched by water, prices fell when long traders jumped ship.
N.O. is home to only 1.3 percent of LME listed Copper - Decemeber closed down 1.25 Fri. (COMEX).
OSB is another story altogether. Don't look to the futures market to determine what it will do. It's going to go up, yes, but it's going to be hard to get if you can get it at all. Could be a week could be a month. No one has a crystal ball but there are some of us who can't be without it, and don't want to take a chance of being without it.

[JimBuis]

I don't buy any OSB here in Tokyo.  However, I did buy some MDF [medium density fiberboard] on Monday.  The price wasn't too bad, about normal, about $30 US for a sheet 3 feet by 6 feet by about 3/4 of an inch. ;D

Jim

[TexasTimbers]

Jim,
I wouldn't recognize Japan I bet. Live there when I was a kid ... 68, 69, 70.
Went to Sagamihara 4th and 5th grade and Atsugi 6th. Atsugi didn't get an American school til 70 on the base. Is the base still there or did they close it? My sister went to Camp Zama.
We lived out in the middle of a bunch of rice paddies on sort of an island the first two years, about 10 miles from the base.
It was still "old" Japan then. Still lots of WWII vets left, and nearly ALL the old mamasans were "hunched" from a lifetime bent over in the paddies and using their backs as human fork lifts, and hauling babies around on.
Our Landlord would take me and my sister to the genza regularly and taught me and my sister to trade the Japanese way, and after we learned enough language (kids pick it up alot quicker than adults) what we were doing, my parents would take us to do all the buying and trading.
My hair was bleach blond so it got rubbed (it would bring good luck to the "rubber") so much I didn't even notice after a while.
We had a grand view of Mt Fuji out of our back door most mornings, when she wasn't vieled in mist.
Too many memories to even get started.  I used to wander all over about a ten square mile cluster of paddies and hills by myself and my parents had no fear that anything would happen to me. I'll bet it's different now. People who've never been can't imagine how much stuff the Japanese can squeeze into a square mile :D.

[Jeff]

As of yesterday, September 11th, price for the 7/16 OSB has gone to $12.95 a sheet. 3 bucks more in a week.

[dewwood]

While at the Logging Congress I had the opportunity to tour the Potlatch stud mill located on the old Air Force base at Gwinn.  They said they would not feel the effect of the hurricane for about six months as far as their pricing is concerned.  I asked how many bundles I could get on my one ton flatbed but they apparantly don't sell that way.  It was a very interesting tour however.

[pappy]

Just called the local hardware store ... 7/16 osb $20.19 plus Me sales tax of %5    :(


time to hit thoes jags of cedar and pine fer some more sheeting  ;D



glad Jen and I got 50 acres of mixed growth of hard and soft wood   

[Jeff]

September 16th  7/16 OSB now at 14.95 a sheet.  Up from the start of 8.10

[bigblockyeti]

Yeah, OK so I know this is necroposting but it's the most relevant to what I was looking for based on recent observations.

I've been tracking OSB as it's the only lumber I can't make myself and it's gone from $9.99/sheet (before the 68+ discount quantity) to now $17.38/sheet all at the same Lowe's in ~3 months.  I'm not waiting for things to normalize with construction and realestate costs so I'm building my next house myself.  I have about 1/2 the structural lumber bought or milled already and I want to start stockpiling OSB.  The price jump is disappointing but not unexpected.  Is there anything beyond a gutted dollar value driving up OSB price in the timber world?

[Southside]

Supply and demand. You are still buying it, so why lower the price?

[bigblockyeti]

Supply and demand. You are still buying it, so why lower the price?

I'm intimately aware of how supply and demand works.  My question was specific to what might be happening "in the timber world" that could be driving the price.

[rusticretreater]

You read in other threads of mills shutting down, certain species not being available, etc.  Economic pressures, Canadian wildfires, over regulation, revised NAFTA trade agreements all mess with the price.

Fuel costs, labor costs, availability, price increase on products that are selling to offset revenue declines in other areas.  Current prices reflect past costs to produce the item, not current costs.  

We also had a huge construction slow down because of that Covid crap.  When housing companies start building again, they can suck the market dry.  How much OSB would a million housing starts require? 

Suppliers and construction companies with contracts get the product first, we get it last.  On top of all that is the markup and price gouge.

[doc henderson]

I remember the 70s and 7/16th was 3 bucks, and it was a low cost alternative to plywood.  now the price is about the same.  might as well get plywood.

[SwampDonkey]

Some mills had to close for the fires, some were only temporary closures. A lot of the fires in Ontario and Quebec are remote and not feeding the supply at all, no roads or rail up there. But north of the prairie land is timber supply and fires are affecting supply there and also BC supply.

No house building going on where I'm at, been a bunch of flip flop on old houses going on. One newer house has sat a year with no takers. I'm seeing a newer house once in awhile selling, ones that are barely 5 years old. Some have really long driveways and open field to fill them up with snow. :D :D Best be prepared with snow equipment if you're going a half a mile back from the paved road.

Seeing some barns going up, cattle and potato storage. Government handout for those, not for houses. ;D

[Southside]

So supply and demand. Supply is negativity impacted and demand is high. Folks still paying the higher prices, why reduce your margin and lower the price? 

[21incher]

So supply and demand. Supply is negativity impacted and demand is high. Folks still paying the higher prices, why reduce your margin and lower the price?

Record inflation and  record corporate profits now make me wonder about the supply and demand explanation we used to get.

[Ianab]

You actually are seeing it in action. Supply and Demand doesn't guarantee consistent low prices, never has. Corporate profits is the incentive to increase production, which eventually settles the prices back, to some degree. 


But it hurts us in the pocket while this is happening.  >:( 

[Erik A]

We had no covid slow down, never missed a day building around sacramento during covid!

Also, im guessing 10s of thousands of homes per year going up in the area right now!

This area is probably sucking up alot of the supply.

[Ianab]

There was a couple of pauses in activity here due to lock-downs, but they were relatively short, and affected both the construction and the manufacturing side, so it was a net zero on the supply chain. It was after that the supply disruptions and increased demand caused some shortages and price jumps. 

But it all comes down to demand still being there, but supply is still somewhat limited. Theory of supply and demand says prices will rise.