Lumber & Plywood Update 7/30/21

Hardwood Lumber

The building market has experienced significant price swings in materials over the past year, some have corrected while others have not. Hardwood lumber prices remain high relative to last year but have at least stabilized. Availability remains an issue, but we have made strategic purchases in both White Oak and Walnut to allow us to offer our most requested sizes and grades. You can view estimated production footages by visiting the following link. These are estimates and are subject to prior sale.

Baltic Birch Plywood

We utilize Baltic (Russian) Birch plywood for our engineered flooring based on its stability. Over the past two years we have purchased our plywood in advance of orders to avoid spot market disruptions. This has enabled us to maintain pricing and supply up to this point, but cannot carry us through the remainder of the year. For those unfamiliar with the situation, there is a global Baltic Birch plywood shortage that can be attributed to 3 main factors:

· A warm Russian winter limited ability to get logs out of forests to the plywood mills

· COVID shutdowns limited production

· Shortage of containers for ocean freight and 3x increases of rates

This has led to an approximate 140% price increase (of flooring grade plywood) and is tied to limited availability. We are still seeing strong demand and have ordered containers at these increased costs to be able to produce engineered flooring. Orders will be allocated to these shipments on a first come, first serve basis with preference to our regular customers.

The increased costs to produce engineered flooring are no different than other industries, only that it has lagged behind. It is our hope that as production and shipping come back online, plywood costs will come back down. Until proven otherwise, we still feel confident that Baltic Birch plywood provides the stability required for high grade engineered flooring. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email.