Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lumber prices down 11% YoY

calculatedriskblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 156 posts

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#51

Post by ehnto »

pcurve wrote: post #39

From the same blog: vehicle sales are up 15% YoY https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2023/10/vehicles-sales-in... Not necessarily a sign of health, but playing catcup with hisotrical trend.

Used vehicle markets seem to have slowed, after a dramatic and surprising spike during the pandemic. Specialty vehicles in particular.

For new cars, there was a dealer/scarcity dynamic that seems to have allowed dealers to charge more than RRP, and consumers were paying it. I wonder if that has had an impact.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#52

Post by angry_moose »

anarazel wrote: post #50
angry_moose wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate a little more: Board thicknesses are measured in the "quarter system" - 4/4 (pronounced "4 quarter", that is 4 quarters of an inch) is a 1" thick rough-rough sawn board; 8/4 (8 quarter) is a 2" thick rough board. As this is rough sawn (super rough and unsightly finish), you usually lose at least 1/8" while finishing the board, so a 4/4 rough board gives you something around 3/4" finished product. This le…

Isn't the loss for dimensional lumber more due to drying than finishing?

That is some of it and it varies a lot based on the species, though I'm a lot less knowledgeable there.

In the hardwoods I usually work with (walnut/maple/padauk) its fairly minimal. A nominally 4/4 board usually comes in about 1/16" small; which is a lot less than I lose running it through the planar. Some of that could be the sawmill skimping out too and cutting just a bit undersized....

I'm finding quoted numbers between 2-8% volumetric shrinkage (https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shri...), which is still quite a bit less than you find in the small dimension of a 2x4 (2"-> 1.5%, or ~33%)

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#53

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

anarazel wrote: post #50
angry_moose wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate a little more: Board thicknesses are measured in the "quarter system" - 4/4 (pronounced "4 quarter", that is 4 quarters of an inch) is a 1" thick rough-rough sawn board; 8/4 (8 quarter) is a 2" thick rough board. As this is rough sawn (super rough and unsightly finish), you usually lose at least 1/8" while finishing the board, so a 4/4 rough board gives you something around 3/4" finished product. This le…

Isn't the loss for dimensional lumber more due to drying than finishing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaJFudED5FQ

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#55

Post by greenie_beans »

ggm wrote: post #47

Treating "price" purely as a supply signal, and not as "value" or "worth it" I think it's true the price of lumber worldwide related to supply chain shock, and the consequences for just-in-time dependencies in the building sector. I am a little surprised things like chip and plywood suffered, I guess when you cannot get timber, you go to manufactured wood (which in some circumstances actually has better mechanical st…

> I guess when you cannot get timber

i thought timber wasn't the bottleneck here, at least not in the US? from what i know, US timber has a glut of supply, something like 40 years worth of inventory.

maybe you meant "lumber"?

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#56

Post by olyjohn »

jpitz wrote: post #35
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

metric system is so much easier: m³

Metric makes the math easier, but it is much easier for me to relate to 40 board-feet of lumber than to 0.0944 cubic-meters.

Just like temperature. F is easier for me to relate to. 0 is very cold. 100 is very hot. We like it pretty warm, so 70-72 is great. Also F has a much finer scale for adjustments. I don't have to set my thermostat to 22.5 degrees to be comfortable. I don't really care about the boiling point or freezing point of water in my day to day life.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#57

Post by ggm »

greenie_beans wrote: post #55
ggm wrote: post #47

Treating "price" purely as a supply signal, and not as "value" or "worth it" I think it's true the price of lumber worldwide related to supply chain shock, and the consequences for just-in-time dependencies in the building sector. I am a little surprised things like chip and plywood suffered, I guess when you cannot get timber, you go to manufactured wood (which in some circumstances actually has better mechanical st…

> I guess when you cannot get timber i thought timber wasn't the bottleneck here, at least not in the US? from what i know, US timber has a glut of supply, something like 40 years worth of inventory. maybe you meant "lumber"?

Yes. I think the fine-grained differences of meaning here matter. Good call.

I am less sure why the same thing happened here in Australia because we have a huge logging, processing and distributing system domestically and for export, but we also had massive shortages of framing supplies. I suspect it was the timber/lumber distinction, maybe the woods available on-shore weren't being directed into framing and this depends on cheaper sources off-shore, which just disappeared.

Our cost of construction has gone up so much a lot of builders are going bust. It's causing angst in a hot market, house prices and rents out of control, and the government intervening but the industry says it can't build that much more than is on the table, its not lack of desire, it's lack of capacity in construction overall.

Most of the fixes simply increase housing cost inflation. But this glitch on framing wood and related products, was really bad for us.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#59

Post by mcculley »

ramesh31 wrote: post #48
mcculley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Florida, citrus greening has devastated the groves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_greening_disease Seems this is could be a direct result of warming: "The Asian form, Ca. L. asiaticus is heat tolerant. This means the greening symptoms can develop at temperatures up to 35 °C. The African form, Ca. L. africanus, and American form, Ca. L. americanus, are heat sensitive, thus symptoms only develop when the temperature is in the range 20–25 °C."

I don’t understand how this follows. The Asian form could develop at temperatures less than 35°C also, right?

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#60

Post by ramesh31 »

mcculley wrote: post #59
ramesh31 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_greening_disease Seems this is could be a direct result of warming: "The Asian form, Ca. L. asiaticus is heat tolerant. This means the greening symptoms can develop at temperatures up to 35 °C. The African form, Ca. L. africanus, and American form, Ca. L. americanus, are heat sensitive, thus symptoms only develop when the temperature is in the range 20–25 °C."

I don’t understand how this follows. The Asian form could develop at temperatures less than 35°C also, right?

Point being the American form is the issue in Florida. Warmer winters means more time spent at 20–25°C, increasing the overall disease burden.
Post reply on HN