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Builders don't pay retail prices.

This is not an exclusive benefit in the home construction industry. Pretty much every professional field has the notion of wholesale/trade pricing.

The price of a gallon of milk that you Joe Consumer paid for at the supermarket is not what the neighborhood ice cream store pays for their gallon of milk. Or what Kraft pays for their production of Kraft Single yellow cheese slices.
 
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Prices have been ridiculous for housing lumber for the last 6 months or so in the US. Seemingly doubling in the last couple of months. This has been the tipping point for holding on building a house now for me.
 
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Another perspective:

We’re headed into spring shortly and my neighbor is a builder. He was telling me the problem with inflation other than lumber, is actually the hardware that’s associated. A lot of what he uses is specialized and is outsourced manufacturing where the prices are surging when lumber is inflated, the hardware follows, which apparently is even taking longer to ship. Ultimately the cost is passed to the customer.
 
usually use inexpensive sheathing OSB board for residential construction. A manufactured wood product that is composed of small wood chips that are glued together.

everyone wants the latest greatest in the homeDepoot grey color. That is to say in 5years the next owner will be jonsing to rip it out the next fad. Only need a 5-10 year run time.

not all consumer procucts have inflated at the same rate.
 
AC Plywood is high grade- designed to be surface facing- aesthetically nice. That's not going to be used for the structural construction of a house. Structural plywood as I recall is usually called CD.

I imagine it doesn't help that there's a bit of a housing boom right now, COVID, riots, etc.
 
usually use inexpensive sheathing OSB board for residential construction.

I lived in a house once that had that crap as the subfloor. We ended up having to top it with plywood because it got really weak near the edges of the boards.
 
Where is it coming from? I would assume it's made in the USA and I remember lumber really quite cheap for you guys when I was there for a while.
But there is a worldwide shortage of shipping containers, mostly due to masses of delays meaning there's millions of tons of stuff sitting around on docks waiting to be moved.
Here in Europe prices for imports of a lot of goods have sky rocketed.
Last time I looked a container was costing about $6000 from China to here as opposed to a price last year of $1200.
So, if it's being imported by container from somewhere, that may explain it and if not, then I hope that's interesting.
 
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I lived in a house once that had that crap as the subfloor...
sorry for your experience.

me and a friend watched a you tube video and installed the OSB poroduct through out the whole house with success. The house was 1890 vintage and the existing floor was not level. Part of the old flooring was envolved in a house fire it looked like. We cut up some of the old flooring to gain access for structural up dates and new plumbing. Coverd up all that bad with brand new material. Shimed, nailed and glued the sheets down, we bought the interlocking sheets. It was still a little un even but made a big difference when we installed the laminate top flooring.

you got to think in terms of avaliability, cost and time
 
3/4" A/C plywood. 1 sheet $75. How are they building houses with lumber prices this high?
They are not using A/C plywood.
AC Plywood is high grade- designed to be surface facing- aesthetically nice. That's not going to be used for the structural construction of a house.
Exactly. AC plywood isn't used for most (any?) home construction.


I lived in a house once that had that crap as the subfloor. We ended up having to top it with plywood because it got really weak near the edges of the boards.
There or pros and cons to OSB, and OSB is a lot better made now than it used to be.

Personality, I prefer plywood for subfloors, but OSB has some advantages over plywood.


I would assume it's made in the USA and I remember lumber really quite cheap for you guys
Lumber in the US is usually much cheaper than many other places in the world.

I bet that the prices will become more stable as the world gets to a new normal with the corona virus.
 
Exactly. AC plywood isn't used for most (any?) home construction.

I think the most common material now for floors, roofs, and walls is OSB since it’s cheaper. My parents house was built around 2000 and a beach house in the late 90’s- both use plywood. My father is a bit of a carpenter hobbiest and architectural snob so finds plywood to be superior to osb as it handles moisture better (especially true in the beach environment). You pay quite a premium for plywood over OSB though. OSB can deform around the edges permanently when it gets wet, which is probably mostly a problem with floors.
 
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3/4" A/C plywood. 1 sheet $75. How are they building houses with lumber prices this high?
Plywood has gotten ridiculous. I remember $12, then $18 a sheet. People are using chip board, I dislike it for outdoor purposes, but I believe some is rated for outdoors. 😐
 
other than furniture, cabinets, i would be hard pressed to figure where a proper sheet of plywood would be a requiremet.
during the riots; even when they were boarding the windows up for the state supreme court building here they used OSB product.
 
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