My opinion (and we all know what those are worth) is that 1/8" material with a decent finish is used in cabinetry, i.e. construction, and all construction materials have skyrocketed. The “laser crowd” are not a target customer base.
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At least you can find it locally for a decent price. I don’t think there are any lumber yards around here that sell that type of wood.
No, I think we are just collateral damage.
It took a lot of work this time (it usually isn’t…) I did have a quote from a distributor for $32 a sheet delivered. But I had to buy a unit worth - which is 100-something sheets. Plus, I had to have a loading dock and forklift — I have neither 
That said, everything is STILL a mess from a supply perspective. I can’t even get the puzzleboard that I normally use (comes out of Denmark). They told me maybe February. Not sure if it’s production, shipping, or demand problem (demand being that I’m a very small player compared to others who use it). So thankfully, I can at least find the wood right now to keep making product.
I was doing the math the other day with a wood supplier (resells sized for laser stock), and the money just wasn’t there even at $32 a sheet. He was at around $15 dollars profit per bundle after shipping. Not including labor (ripping down, packaging, etc.).
I would just start calling lumberyards, I suppose. The place I usually buy from would make the crosscuts for me to break it down into 24x60” sheets and then I would do the final rip at home. It’s a lot easier doing that than messing with full sheet goods, at least.
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That’s not the major portion of the costs of our new house - framing lumber is a bit less than 10% of the total cost, cabinetry is about 6%…my foundation is nearly 15%! Slop (errors, changes, cost overruns) is normally 20% of a new build so I’m not seeing the doom & gloom of high lumber prices translating into unaffordable houses. It’s not substantially worse than I expected based on my last house build.
Labor is probably a bigger issue - either accept lengthy delays waiting on crews or pay extra and get things done more quickly.
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I didn’t say home prices have doubled.
Just that the raw materials have, on-average, and that cost is passed along.
I don’t have his records but my friend generally builds $1M homes that are now probably $1.1-1.2M due to material price increases. It’s not much of a hardship for his buyers but it is a significant increase.
… and, yes, labor is a huge issue when people are being paid to sit at home vs. actually working. Fortunately here, there is no shortage of people willing to work.
I did some quick mental math on a shed I built about 7 years ago, that at the time probably cost me around $2k. The same materials would cost me well over $3k today.
Who’s being paid to sit at home? Expanded unemployment benefits ended long ago, and construction businesses never laid people off to start with. They were on the list of “essential” workers, from the federal level on down, that never had to do a lockdown. My neighborhood is still being built (since 2007 somehow) and home building has been uninterrupted.
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Nor did I.
Be great if we could find some of those. We’d pay them more to work. Unfortunately, many have retired (over 60s who now aren’t prime employees for most employers) or mothers who have chosen to stay home vs sending kids to day care which were disease factories in the best of times.
Unemployment is at historic lows. If there are lots of people sitting around being paid to not work I’m not sure how that’s happening since virtually all expanded unemployment benefits have expired.
That’s about right. And within norms for cost overruns on a house and planned into the build. On a 30 year mortgage and current interest rates, most people won’t see the impact of a 10 or 20% overall cost increase - especially since most of them won’t spend more than 5 in the house before moving on.
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i think part of the issue is just as much people moving on to do different things in a lot of industries. food service people just aren’t coming back. and it’s not just because they were paid to stay at home. i’ve seen people moving to different types of opportunities because those jobs quite often suck. some of the lower-end construction may be feeling the same pain. that plus there’s been SO much construction the past 2 years that the industry needs more workers than they had before, so losing anyone just puts them further behind.
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if you give me a 20% increase in price, i’m likely to step back 20% of house if you’re already near the top of my budget. now, i’m looking for $650-750K, not $1m+, but if i was building at that price and you told me, “no, not $750k, it’s $900k now,” i’d walk away. $150k is a lot of difference to me. even at 2.375%, on a 30 yr fixed that’s $583/mo. and $35k in mortgage payments over 5 years. not insignificant.
That’s my limited experience and where my comment came from.
Many folks my daughter previously worked with in the service industries are sitting home on unemployment for whatever reason.
She joined the military.
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One of the issues builders I know talk about being a problem (at least in the East) is the impact of reduced immigration over the last couple of years.
For a lot of the “low end” or lower skilled jobs, immigrants provide the bulk of the workforce. These are not just “clean up debris” kinda of jobs but ones like roofing, siding, rough framing, concrete work, painting, etc.
Those are all hard labor jobs and aren’t of huge interest to most kids - especially with the focus we have in “all kids should go to college”. Same issue for auto mechanics, welders and other high skill jobs that require years of training & experience.
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Ganahl is no longer 11 a sheet. It went up sometime during the summer. I went there a couple weeks ago, and the price is still 43 dollars for a 5x5 sheet of 1/8" BB, and that’s at 2 of my local stores. However, it’s definitely in stock, where as over the summer they were out.
On the plus side, they are now also carrying other 1/8 in materials. They now have 1/8" maple in a 4x8 foot sheet for the same 43 dollars as the BB. I also saw walnut and cherry there for the first time in 1/4" thickness for a very reasonable price. And they had 1/8" cedar sheets, but they were sold out, I only saw the label on the shelf.
Cherokee wood, last I checked, was selling uncut 5x5’ BB for 27/sheet, which was the cheapest I’ve seen in a while around here.
@Deleted if you’re getting it that cheap near Vegas, I think I better plan a trip to buy some wood…yeah… totally going just for cheap BB…
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Just called A&M supply my cost is $ 17.50 for 5x5 BB but they are out at this time. 1:30 pm eastern
Peterman lumber has 56 - 5’ x 5’ - 1/8" Baltic Birch in stock
price is $16 per sheet (up from $13)
Yes but the shipping to Va is the killer .being I get it with no shipping
$31.22 for 5’x5’ sheets at Rugby here. It’s a 60 mile round-trip for me.
The Purebond from THD is a better deal.
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i think woodworkers source is your best / bang / baltic birch
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PureBond from Home Depot is what I have been using.
I am just a hobbyist though; I haven’t gone through my stock pile from last year, so I haven’t bought anything recently. But that is my go-to.
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I’ve found that gs2awards.com/ has excellent pre-finished baltic birch for around $6 (gf size). Shipping is reasonable. Yeah, I know I can finish it myself, but they do a MUCH better job. At least equivalent to proof grade.
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