Have plywood prices gone way up?

[Brian Elfert]

Last year I bought a bunch of BC plywood for a project. I recall the 3/8" plywood I bought was around $10 a sheet. I need to buy more plywood to continue the project this spring. The price for 3/8" BC plywood today is over $16 a sheet! The price has gone up by 60%! Has the increased home building caused materials prices to increase?

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't think it has anything to do with increased home building, but the prices have skyrocketed. I have a repeat job for a customer that is made from 19/32" OSB. A year ago, it was $11.95 a sheet. Today it's $19.95 a sheet.

Then again, what used to cost $5 for lunch, now costs $8, so my guess is it has nothing to do with housing.

[Brian Elfert]

I haven't noticed the cost of lunch increasing by nearly that much in just the past year, but the prices of eating lunch out have certainly gone up over the past several years. The cost of food in general has gone up quite a bit so I am not really surprised.

Maybe the economy is now doing well enough that there is no longer a glut of wood products. A lot of logging companies shrunk dramatically or closed during the recession plus a number of sheet good mills closed too. I'm not going to go broke paying an extra $100 for my project, but I certainly have better things to do with $100.

[David Weaver]

There was just a post here not too long ago about a tariff or something on chinese plywood.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Has it ever occurred to someone to just ask a person in charge at a lumberyard why the price has increased?

Most of what you will get here is skeptical personal opinions with little unbiased facts to back up the opinion.

When we saw an increase in our cable television and internet service, we called the provider and they told us why the rates went up.

[David Weaver]

Duty on chinese plywood - 22.63% to 27.12%

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...91Q1CE20130227

http://www.aa-hp.org/#!news/c73g

(see the top article at the second link for the duty charged to two different groups).

The second link is the american alliance for hardwood plywood. Note by the dates on the articles how current this issue is. That would explain why price increases are recent.

[Brian Elfert]

Has it ever occurred to someone to just ask a person in charge at a lumberyard why the price has increased?

Do you think the $8 an hour workers at Home Depot or Menards have a clue? There are no retail type lumberyards I know of to ask.

[David Weaver]

Most of what you will get here is skeptical personal opinions with little unbiased facts to back up the opinion.

I must be reading a different forum. While those exist, the right answer is usually in a discussion thread, even if the armchair types refuse to recognize which answers are backed up by fact (you can lead a horse to water...).

[David Weaver]

Do you think the $8 an hour workers at Home Depot or Menards have a clue? There are no retail type lumberyards I know of to ask.

I would agree with that. It took me much less time to piece together a prior discussion (which was accurate) and go find a link than it would've taken me to find someone at any yard I'm aware of. I could've called the local commercial plywood supplier here to ask them, but I'm not making an order from them any time soon, and it would be kind of rude to waste their time if I'm not.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I haven't bought lumber, plywood or hardwood at Menard's or Home Depot in years..I buy my wood several local lumberyards...I said quote "someone in charge at a lumberyard". I don't think the $8/hour guy is in charge either.....Talk to a department manager or store manager at Menards or Home Depot. They might know.

However, a couple years ago I was in HD locally, the plywood they were carrying was manufactured in this country.

[David Helm]

Sheet goods prices are very volatile. They change dramatically with world conditions. When a hurricane causes damage, sheet goods prices go up. When things are stable, prices go down. Sheetgoods may be the most classic example of supply and demand pricing.

[Lee Koepke]

Dave's links are correct regarding the tariffs on hardwood plywood. The chinese hardwood plywood is generally 'paint grade' sheets, domestic hardwood plywood is the stain grade types. Of course as the imported prices rise, the domestic prices are sure to follow. The part of the 'other' sheet goods (OSB and pine plywood) pricing stems partkt from that, but we do have an increased market now for multifamily and single family new starts. A hotel we are working on is migrating its design away from wood construction due to the rising labor and material costs.

Unfortunately the price seemed to JUMP rather than creep.

[Matt Meiser]

Do you think the $8 an hour workers at Home Depot or Menards have a clue? There are no retail type lumberyards I know of to ask.

http://www.hiawathalumber.com/
http://www.siweklumber.com/
http://www.youngbloodlumber.com/

I've actually been to the first helping my brother buy materials for a project. Seems decent.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I must be reading a different forum. While those exist, the right answer is usually in a discussion thread, even if the armchair types refuse to recognize which answers are backed up by fact (you can lead a horse to water...).

While in this instance after I made my statement, you did post some links pertaining to this topic Dave....I would suggest that a vast majority of what is posted especially in the OT Forum is personal opinion without any unbiased facts to support the statements. Just because one can find "information" on the internet, doesn't mean it's unbiased, doesn't mean it's not a one-sided, narrow view of a multi-dimensional problem and therefore it is not necessarily completely true or factual.

All I am suggesting is that one can gather information from the someone "in the know" at the source rather than spreading rumor or speculation at a website on the internet.
What is wrong with asking the manager of HD or Menards...."Why has your price on plywood or any other materials risen so much, so quickly?" rather than asking here inviting a wide range of speculation........ most of which is inaccurate, rumor or personal opinion without any or a complete factual basis?

While the internet can be a good source of information, the internet is also the largest source of misinformation the world has ever seen. JMHO.

[David Weaver]

Ken, I agree, it's nice to get something from where you know it's the right answer. In a case like this, though, the topic was covered elsewhere already. It wasn't so much your comment that sent me looking for proof as it was laziness that didn't send me there on the first post.

I think topics like this are one of the most valuable parts of the general WW and discussion forums, because I wouldn't have ever looked for anything about ply prices having just spent $1,500 on ply a couple of months ago, my orders are few and far between. But it was an interesting topic, and I'd rather know it if for no other reason than just to know it.

There's all sorts of aspects left uncovered by this, but there's enough there now that we know that the price increase isn't just one of those "big oil" kind of conspiracy things. Things we didn't touch on (and I have no reason to really track down):
* is the price increase across more than just hardwood plywood
* if there is a 22-27 percent tariff, then why do the price increases seem to be more like double that (maybe some suppliers were expecting to get more than what was shown in the most recent stories).

All that said, I personally like these kinds of topics, someone usually finds some factual information and with a little glint and squint, we can usually tell if the source is a credible source or if it's just an opinion article. Of course, I looked through the source that I posted to make sure it wasn't an advertising agency, I doubt much more credible could be found.

The one thing that would be worse than sifting through a few sources and using our minds would be dismissing everything immediately and not using them at all.