Topic: Lumber shortage

[Jake]

I wanted to build a deck this year, but am having to postpone the project due to shortage of treated lumber and other materials. This is really a big deal around the industry as many large scale projects in construction are on hold as well because it affects everyone.

This morning this video came up on my YouTube feed. Long, but really pretty great investigation from this guy. Worth a listen

[Perspective]

Meanwhile, Canada (who traditionally exports a huge amount of lumber to the US) has extra capacity to the point that mills are being idled

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-11/trump-s-lumber-tariff-is-forcing-canada-producers-to-idle-mills

[ober]

I'm in the same situation Jake.  I was ready to build a privacy wall/pergola and can't get the lumber.  Oddly, the company that just built my new deck didn't have any issues.

The story I heard was that there is a Canadian company that makes a lot of the chemicals to do the pressure treating and they were shut down for almost 2 months and that caused a huge delay in a lot of the pressure treated stuff.  But I haven't verified that or seen it otherwise.