Deck builders experiencing high demand, supply chain issues

By Jose Davila IV / The Blade
Sat, 08 Aug 2020 13:00:00 GMT

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Local contractors are facing high demand for decks and a treated wood shortage during this coronavirus summer.

The wood shortage first emerged after lockdowns in the spring when lumber companies had to halt cutting and treating operations. Since then, high demand for decks and other home improvement projects has extended the shortage and the resulting growth in prices for wood. So, contractors have made a host of changes to their businesses in order to keep up with their call volume. Now, other materials are becoming harder to find and some businesses will struggle to finish all of their orders this year for decks and other projects.

"There was a little dip initially at the start of COVID," Joe Blythe, owner of CRD Construction, said. "But after a rough month or so, business has picked up as people are staring at stuff in their homes that they had been ignoring while they were at work."

CRD, which serves all of Ohio, is the largest construction company The Blade talked to for this story. With a staff of 20 employees, CRD specializes in custom decks and interior custom projects, as well.

Mr. Blythe says he has been able to rely on his relationship with Carter Lumber, a lumber company based in Akron, to get decking products set aside for CRD, but he noted that the big box home improvement stores are struggling with their stocks. Even with an existing relationship with a large lumber company, it takes a month or more for wood orders to come in when it usually takes two to three weeks, Mr. Blythe said.

Local lumber yards, like Wayne Lumber, can be more flexible in how they source their wood.

"We have good relationships because we are a loyal buyer to a lot of our suppliers, so they ship to us on a regular basis," Jim Harms, co-owner and president of Wayne Lumber, said. "As such, we order as much as we possibly can, but we can barely keep it on the ground before it's out the door."

Mr. Harms said, besides dealing with three coronavirus cases at his business, Wayne Lumber is seeing a much higher than average call volume from small contractors and regular people undertaking their own home improvement projects because those people would normally go to big box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's to source their wood.

Mr. Harms said that prices for the pressure-treated wood normally used for decking are up 62 percent year-over-year. Prices for other types of wood, like the wood use for the framing in houses, are up 80 percent, he added. Local contracting companies reported different numbers for their wood expenditures with CRD saying prices were up 10-15 percent and Handyman419 reporting prices had more than doubled. All agreed prices had risen.

Mr. Harms said he has no choice but to pass along the prices to his customers, while Mr. Blythe said that CRD has not yet increased their prices, but will do so if prices continue to rise.

It is up for debate what is the cause of the shortage. All companies pointed to the initial lockdowns meant to help contain the coronavirus slowed down production of decking lumber considerably, especially because treated lumber can take three to four months to produce.

"It is both [a supply and demand problem]. I was told by a wholesaler that when COVID started they cut back on their production in anticipation that there would be less demand," Mark Clark, owner of Handyman 419, a small contracting firm that focuses on outdoor projects, said. "What turned out was the opposite because people are staying home, there's more demand."

Now, because the process of cutting and preparing wood for the market takes so long, companies are struggling to increase production. One contractor even said they were suspicious that the lumber suppliers were slowing production to drive up prices.

Demand-wise, some of the contractors said their customers are using the federal government stimulus money to help finance their new decks this summer. Extra cash coupled with a desire to stay home amid the ongoing pandemic are driving the demand.

Local companies have been forced to tweak their operations to deal with the demand and shortage. All of the contractors The Blade spoke to said that they have started to carry their own wood supplies and order more wood than they normally might.

"We've done five decks so far this summer. Every one of my decks I've had to build structurally beforehand and the deck boards are what take some time to get in," Cody Dazley, co-owner of Catalina Construction, said. "When I order the deck, I'm ordering a little bit more inherently, because if I'm one piece short I'm going to call them and they're going to say 'We don't have any for another two weeks' and I'm one pierce short of getting a deck done."

Mr. Dazley also said that he is trying to be more transparent with his customers when discussing timelines and pricing this summer. Mr. Blythe also said he was looking to hire more workers to help meet the demand for home improvement projects, but said that the "hiring pool isn't what it normally is."

Other materials are becoming more scarce, too. Mr. Dazley said he has been having trouble finding deck screws where he normally gets them. Others said that composite decking is becoming hard to find, while Mr. Harms warned that Wayne Lumber has less wood paneling and plywood often used in commercial buildings than normal.

The shortage, the pandemic, and the high demand have contributed to a backlog of orders for decks among the builders The Blade talked to. Only Mr. Clark was sure that he would be able to finish this season's deck orders. Even then, Handyman419 is booked six weeks in advance.

Overall, the local contractors are happy to have demand, but larger companies like Wayne Lumber and CRD which also work on bigger building projects did express concern that, if prices for lumber remain high, the home building and home improvement industries would take a hit.

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