Lessons from the
BY TANIYA SPOLIA
N
estled at home, in the midst of a pandemic, homeowners took the last year-anda-half to invest in the space they could spend time in — their property. However, as demand for raw materials surged and production dipped, getting any work done was met with a hurdle: skyrocketing lumber prices. “I guess when [COVID-19] first happened, March or April of last year, and things got shut down — the expectation at the time was that construction would suffer,” says Mike Phillips, the executive director of the Ontario Structural Woods Association. “And so, primary manufacturers reduced operations, and whatnot, but then the reality was after a short period construction resumed and this whole sort of mania of consumers building decks, fences and home renovation projects just took off.” Demand for lumber went through the roof as people scrambled to make their work-from-home experience fit their new pandemic lifestyles. In tandem, supply remained tight as producers faced a limited ability to ramp-up production in light of atwork capacities and inventory shortages. “It’s made life complicated [for our members],
40 | LANDSCAPE TRADES
you know, having to tell your customers ‘it’s going to take me a bit longer than anticipated to get your products’ and things like that,” says Phillips. For customers, these supply issues have led to increased wait times, being unable to obtain certain products and of course, increased prices. Rajat Dham, a homeowner in Aurora, Ont., is tearing down an infilled bungalow and building a brand new home from the ground-up. “There’s two ways [increased prices] have impacted us,” explains Dham. “One is pricing itself — we were over budget before we even started the project. The second way it’s hurting us is that even though lumber prices have come down, it’s still on a very high note for consumers … since the demand is still so high, consumers are yet to see a direct benefit from the decrease.” With increased prices consuming the majority of his budget at the beginning of the project, it will leave less money for his landscaping, decks and other home-oriented expenses. Till now, Dham has been eating the majority of the increased costs and he doesn’t blame his contractor for it. “The price differential is so humongous that it will
