Have lumber prices gone up significantly at HD stores country-wide? I just went into our local one last week and OSB seems to have doubled in price, with many other wood products also showing significant price increases.
Maybe they're going up all across the industry? I know I'd read reports of supply and demand problems pushing up prices in Europe as of a few months ago.
(sorry if this has been discussed to death here and I just managed to miss it :-)
cheers
Jules
I have not looked lately but osb does fluctuate a lot based on demand. Other lumber usually less so. Bummer if you need a bunch right now.
I was talking to a kitchen appliance person at Lowe's that I have come to know. He said that prices at Lowe's change with the product market. He said that most items stay pretty stable, however, stuff like lumber can change 2 or 3 times a day.
Lumber is priced as a commodity. It fluctuates constantly like oil prices. I'll bet that if you look around the lumber department, there are signs that mention this.
Yeah, for the last couple of years it's been between $8 and $9 for a 4x8'
1/2" sheet (I don't now if it varied much, I just recall it being in that range) - then, within the last couple of weeks, it's jumped to over $15 up here. That's a pretty huge increase!Maybe they've been selling the stuff at a loss for quite a while up here, and they've only just set it to a 'fair' price related to whay they're actually buying it for these days.
I think other 'commodity' stuff, such as 8' 2x4" lumber hasn't gone up by such a crazy amount, but it's still gone up by 15% or so.
Oh, I bought some baseboard trim the other day, too; last year the bundle I got was $40, but I paid $67 for that same amount the other day. I've not been keeping an eye on the cost there though, so don't know what it's been doing in the meantime.
I was worried it was a "sign of things to come" and prices are going to go up significantly for all lumber products US-wide (in which case I might stock up on a few other useful things I know I'll need this year), but it sounds like others haven't been having the same experience.
cheers
Jules
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