A board from Sweden

I went to the home depot today.
Not my favorite place cuz they suck.
Menards is much better but my town only has a home depot and I don't want to drive 20 miles to pick up one board.

Anyways, I bought a 1" x 6" x 12' pine board.

$12! Ugh...
For those that haven't been paying attention, lumber prices have skyrocketed.
A 2 x4 was $2.50 six months ago and today it was $5.71.
Apparently it's a supply issue with closed borders, covid shutdowns and I've heard of lumber mills burning. Arson? Hmmm.

That's not the weird part though.
On the bar code label was the words "made in Sweden"

It makes absolutely no sense to send a board across Europe, put it on a boat to sail across the Atlantic and then drag it 700 miles to my neighborhood.

Canada is so much closer..
Hopefully this will all blow over soon and prices will drop. Probably not..
I remember when oil prices went way up and wood finish went up with it. After oil dropped the wood finish didn't drop... Go figure.


www.marketwatch.com...

a reply to: Bluntone22

This is something that I was pondering a few days ago. Curious how well new construction is fairing from the pandemic.

More than doubling the cost of a 2x4 would hamper that industry harshly me thinks.

a reply to: KKLOCO

Especially when you consider that contractors price out homes many months in advance and are usually locked into the quoted price.
15 to 20 grand extra cost for lumber will surely hurt their bottom line.

a reply to: Bluntone22

I could see if it was good Norwegian wood, but not Swedish.

a reply to: Bluntone22
I was shocked when I bought a ball peen hammer with a fiberglass handle for 2 dollars maybe 10 years ago.
I thought about how the hammer head had to be forged, the handle fabricated, then the assembled hammer had to ride a ship across the Pacific Ocean. Then a truck had to haul it to Pennsylvania.
Doesn't leave much room for profit.
There is no way it wasn't made by slave labor.

a reply to: butcherguy

Buy American made if possible.
It's usually worth the price in terms of quality.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: butcherguy

Buy American made if possible.
It's usually worth the price in terms of quality.

The hammer was specifically for a crap job.
It didn't break doing the intended job and I could afford to throw it away instead of cleaning it.
When I say crap, I am speaking literally.

I agree that there is something that isn't adding up with lumber. I needed lumber to build a small shed. Naturally, I went to my local box stores - Lowes & Home Depot. When I saw the ridiculous prices, I started calling around. I currently live in central Arkansas. There are several lumber mills located around the state AND a thriving lumber business as many families run renewable tree farms. Yet even at local lumber yards, prices were often higher than at the box stores. Normally, I would write this off to "supply and demand" EXCEPT that many of these local lumber yards have numerous stacks of lumber just rotting away in the elements in their yards. I have heard stories that the pandemic has shut down or impacted various mills...but I'm pretty certain this hasn't been the case locally. So why are prices so high with lumber just rotting away and not being used?

a reply to: CIAGypsy

There are lots of stories like that floating around lately.
There has been some screwy stuff happening since the COVID thing started.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Recently there was a report that said most native WILD species of Maple trees in Canada and the US are in serious danger of extinction, the culprit OVER LOGGING because of course maple wood is prized.

Pine wood though you should have dirt cheap, fast growing tree's.
www.theboltonnews.co.uk...

a reply to: CIAGypsy

I can't say with your area.
But I'm told that they are having trouble getting lumber around here. "Indiana"

It's possible the type of lumber matters too.
Around here we have lots of hardwoods but need to ship in pine.

a reply to: Bluntone22
Globalisation in action.
Completely unnecessary,and hugely wasteful yet everyone seems to do it.
An example from the UK:
Seafood fished from UK/EU waters gets sent to China to be washed and packaged,then sent back to UK and EU to be sold.

(Im not sure if this still goes on siince the virus outbreak but it did a while back.)


Utter madness unless you are one of the 1% who make millions from it.

It's the same in the UK. Price hikes. Shortages etc. The reason being is because the lockdowns and furloughs everybody has had time on their hands and decide to catch up on building maintenance. Now these DIYers do not buy building materials regularly so the suppliers hike the prices up. Everybody has to suffer.
In the UK it was not only the price but delivery times and shortages. Where you could get a ton of building sand delivered the same day as ordering the delivery time shot up to 3 to 4 weeks. The suppliers just took advantage of the situation.

Perhaps it was made in Sweden town in New York state? YK

People will pay for a board being shipped from far away as long as they can tell their friends it´s Swedish Design.

-MM

Maybe the bar code tag was made in Sweden

a reply to: Mark08

Lol...no

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: CIAGypsy

I can't say with your area.
But I'm told that they are having trouble getting lumber around here. "Indiana"

It's possible the type of lumber matters too.
Around here we have lots of hardwoods but need to ship in pine.

We have a lot of naturally occurring hardwood forests. It's the Ozarks, for crying out loud... But the renewable tree farms I mentioned are usually pine. Last weekend I went to visit a close relative who lives further up in the Ozarks than I do. (I'm closer to LR for business reasons.) I passed at least 2 mills on the way to their house. I wish now I could have taken a picture of all the lumber...still good, but starting to grey from exposure to the elements....which was stacked 10-20 feet high. I made a comment to my husband that they clearly are not moving the lumber or it wouldn't look like that....so why the high prices? Makes no sense.

I follow commodities as a side hobby....especially precious metals. There have been many times when news about the lumber has eclipsed all the activity in the metals markets. Lumber is clearly scarce in the market. I'm just not seeing evidence of that at the mills themselves....at least, not around me.

Here the prices that shocked me this year were hay and straw. Two bales of hay and four of straw cost me almost $80! Due to a rabbit virus I've been buying it imported from either washington or alberta for the last few years, as local hay may not be safe, and I always paid a bit more but now it is through the roof and I haven't a clue why as it was a fairly normal growing year and haying is a pretty safe job with covid. Maybe shortage of farmhands as they are all getting government pay outs? Don't know but I do know it won't go back down any time soon.