The price of timber!

Anybody bought any timber lately? 

I am trying to buy some 9mm plywood for a project. I only want 3ft x 4ft, tops. 

My usual builders merchant has closed, there is a Rembrand, but of course that means buying an 8x4 sheet. (or 2440x1220 if you like metric!) So, looking to find smaller pieces. Now, I'm in the middle of nowhere, so thought "I know, I'll look online". Ha ha, yeah, right. Nearly £30 for a piece of 9mm ply (plus delivery... If they will) 

Last time I was in the merchants I noticed the price of ordinary PAR red and white wood had almost doubled... If they had it in! Most of what I was asking for was out of stock.

Delivery problems? No supplies coming in to the country? Covid? Brexit? The excuses are endless, but nobody gives the same answer. 

Oh well... Aha! Here's a thought! Maybe they are pulping it and making toilet paper out of it! That must be it!

What do you expect, it doesn't grow on trees you know.

I'm beginning to wonder......

Ply I kind of understand, as most/a lot of it is of Far Eastern manufacture, so import taxes etc, but I wouldn't think brexit would effect that.

Another excuse I heard was that lockdown caused many more people to do DIY, so they ran out of product.

Just profiteering I reckon.

And about 10 times a day a 20t lorry of timber passes the back of our house, straight out of the forests. Crazy.

I recently went down to the local builders merchants with my trailer for 1/2 ton of concrete sand.  The chap serving me said £30 please, I replied sorry, I only want 1/2 a ton, he replied that was for 1/2 a ton.

Usually cost me £18 for the 1/2 ton from them or £20 a full ton if I went to the local quarry direct.

And don't mention the price of fence posts!

Our nearest builders merchant has no cement either!

Nearest... 114 mile round trip. It pays to ring and ask first!

Our son is a carpenter and is having to tell customers that the quotes for work are only valid for one month as the materials are increasing every month 
As for buying smaller sheets of ply have tried the larger diy outlets if there are any in your location (if not use it as an excuse for an overnight trip away) as they sell part sheets ?

Slightly off track but re quote validity time, in the case of T&H as above.

Many, many years ago we were having to buy Titanium from one of the only UK suppliers.
Quote life was 1 hour!!!

Supply and demand rules never change I'm afraid!

I like the idea of an overnight to buy timber!

We used to have a Homebase in Wick, but that went a few years back. So next nearest would be Inverness I think... Couple hundred miles round trip.

I never thought I would ever say "I miss Homebase"!

I was chatting with the wife of a local joiner recently and she told me that he’s busy cladding holiday chalets with cedar. It’s currently costing him £14000 per cottage for the wood, last year it was closer to £7000.

I visited our local builder's supplies to order decking last week, I only needed 10sq m and they had at least 20 times that in stock in their yard. However the quote validity was only one day..
Looking at a previous invoice from when I last laid some decking about 5 years ago the price has approximately quadrupled.
However I heard on the news yesterday that the wholesale timber price is now back to pre pandemic levels, so I think I'll be waiting till it filters through to the end user..
Al.