Lumber lndustry and House Mod ernization

Bv C. C. Sheppard, President, National Lumber Manufocturers Association

Washington, D. C., August 25.-While lumber has recorded its business peaks in the years marked by expansion of new construction, the possibilities of business acceleration in the modernization section of the National Housing Act are sufficient to fire the imagination ol lumbermen in all branches of the industry. No industry stands to benefit more or contribute more through that one phase of the Better Housing Program.

In furthering real property alterations, repairs and improvements, the Better Housing Program seems destined to cultivate a vast new field of opportunity. For never before before have improvements to all types of buildings constituted the goal of what will amount to a national crusade. Never before has building modernization become a cause espoused by the Federal government and implemented by legislative measures aimed directly at results.

Now for the first time on a nation-wide scale property improvement loans will be partially insured, low interest rates provided, and payments extended over a period of years. For the first time hundreds of thousands in the small income groups will have a chance to enhance their property values with needeil improvements.

For all practical purposes the prospect for the lumber industry under such auspicious circumstances is bounded only by the lirnits to which the program itself may go, for only an inconsequential number of strucfuls5-wtlq1hs1 homes, farm buildings, stores, or factories-can undergo alterations without some, and in most cases extensive. use of lumber. This is true because lumber in almost every instance has formed either the principal or an important part of the original construction, and because no material lends itself more readily to the endless variety of uses called for under a program so all-embracive as the present undertaking.

Lumber as Beleficiary of fmprovements

As a matter of fact were lumber to be confined to projects on buildings technically classified as frame construction, its field of opportunity, according to the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, would still include 92 per cent of urban residences and farm structures, considering the total of those two classifications. That percentage figure was obtained by striking an average between the 82 per cent basic lumber ,construction for city dwellings, as shown by the U. S. Department of Commerce of house construction in 63 representative cities (the results of which were announced a few weeks ago) and the 98 per .cent farm structures of all kinds accredited to lumber lty agricultural authorities. The Department of Commer-ce survey in cities showed that more than 81 per cent of thc dwellings in the cities ,canvassed are of frame construction, and that 6.6 per cent are of stucco. The National Lumber Manufacturers Association included the stucco percentage in its figures for lumber for the reason that ex- cepting the mere ,coating of stucco comprising the visible exterior, structures classified as stucco are in reality of frame constru,ction. The figures compiled from the city survey refer to the principal material or type of home construction. For example, in frame construction, brick for foundations and chimney and the like are used; and, similarly, in brick houses much lumber is used.

Some idea of the alteration and modernization potentialities contained in the above figures may be had from estimates made as to structures needing repairs. It is calculated that urgently needed repairs on 6,000,000 farms in the United States would require 12,000,000,000 feet of lumber, and that renovation, alterations and repairs of woodbuilt city dwellings of which there are 24,000,000 would require about 24,000,000,000 feet of lumber. These' items, urban and rural, total 36,0@,000,000 feet of lumber, about three times the entire record-low lumber output of L932, i.e. since 1869. It should be borne in mind that the "needed repairs" and "renovation" have nothing to .do with what are generally catalogued as modernization projects. Add modernization and rebuilding and the figures would be mrrch larger.

Of course. it will be impossible to meet repair needs rvith deeds. It is to be conceded that nothwithstanding tire manner in which the National Housing Act facilitates credit and lightens the burden of interest and paym€nts on principal, the total of buildings needing repairs and alterations will far exceed the number whose owners can afiord to make the improvements. Any attempt to calculate the per'centage of olvners financially eligible would necessarily involve a large element of conjecture.

But ret u, ",,u-l XfT:T::T1;" one-tenth or the previ.ously stated need of 36,000,000,000 feet of lumber for repairs can be turned into actual lumber sales-that is 3,600,000,000 feet-and double the figure in order to include a conservative estimate of lumber sales for modernization or alteration projects. By so doing an estimate of 7,200,000,000 feet of lumber consumption under the Better Housing Program's alterations, repair and improvement campaign is obtained. That figure, it is to be remembered, has been derived for rvood-built structures only. fnasmuch as the program applies to all types of structures it is surely not extravagant to add another 2,800,000,000 feet of lumber for repair and modernization projects for store exteriors, store interiors, apartment houses, factories, office buildings and the like, plus residences not principally constructed of wood. Thus is derived a total of 10,000,000,000 feet as a conservative estimate of possible demand for repairs and modernization, a figure in excess of the entire 1932 lumber production.

Should these 10,000,000,000 feet be added to the estimated 16,000,000,000 production in 1934, and the total taken as an estimate of 1935 production, the lumber manufacturing industry next year would be placed rvithin striking distance of normal business volume, and any genuinely tangible results from the Housing Act's other provisions, for stimulating new construction, would almost certainly bring back the production schedules of. L923-29 when annual lumber output averaged between 35,000,000,000 and 40,000,000,000 feet.

If that result is obtained the lumber industry will be in a position to make signal contributions to the economic well-being of the nation.

Effects on Employment

Should the lumber industry be presented with the 10,000,000,000 feet of possible additional volume of business through repairing and modernizing projects it would be sufficient to provide a year's work, based on the present average work week, for more than 20O,000 additional men in the various branches of the industry, with total additional wages of around $150,000,000.

Some of the lumber industry's contributions to the restoration of building activity and general economic improvement already have been made or are being made, and a notable increase in the industry's business volume would be of pronounced assistance in carrying forward these undertakings to their fullest possibilities.

The contribution which should prove most stimulating to the Better Housing Program, and reward a buying public most directly, is the recently authorized 10 per cent reduction in NRA minimum cost-protection prices for lumber at the mills, plus the recent 8 to 10 per cent reduction in the so-called modal mark-up in retail prices. Both these reductions are designed to spur building activity and should prove widely effective as soon as present retail stocks accumulated at former prices are exhausted and stocks replenished at the lower rates.

No less significant as an aid to the lumber buyer, and as happi'ly timed to dovetail with the national campaign for remodeling projects, is an amendment to the Lumber Code, now awaiting NRA approval, providing for grade-marking and trade-marking of lumber. A long-sought objective of the great majority of lumber manufacturers, grade-marking as a universally mandatory practice will take the guesswork out of lumber buying and guarantee that the purchaser gets exactly the grade and species he orders. Under code regulations every piece of lumber going into the building or remodeling of a home would bear the brand of the manufacturer's association, the manufacturer's mill number or name, the grade and species.

Help to Reforestation

Another public benefit resulting from the NRA Lumber Code is its provision for the practical introduction of reforestation. The code is a conservation measure and looks to the perpetuation of the commercial forests. Such an undertaking involves large expense and may ultimately give employment, to 100,000 woodsmen in the various phases of forest care and cultivation. The forestry part of the Code is based on the assumption that tree growing can be made to pay its way, which has not been the case in the past. An increased volume of lumber consumption means impetus to the progress of s,cientific forest management, which aims at keeping the forests in a condition of sustained yield instead of treating them as timber mines to be cut over once and then forgotten.

The lumber industry has much at stake in the Better Housing Program-its own progress and the return it can make to the national economv.