Thread: Western Red Cedar, where do ya get it?

More than $100 per m?!
I have between 50 - 100m of 200 x 50 WRC in my storage. bought it 18 months ago thought I was going to start making and selling hot tubs but might as well off load and make quick $$$... think I paid $3000 for them.

I was getting a utility grade 200 x 45 rough for $2200/m3 last year. This year it is over $6000.
I bought 7 m3 for the house when the price was$1800. I can’t imagine paying 42K for a truck load of timber.

WRC prices may soften a bit, but I don’t think they will ever again be under 4K unless there is a long crippling recession.

Originally Posted by Greg Q

I was getting a utility grade 200 x 45 rough for $2200/m3 last year. This year it is over $6000.
I bought 7 m3 for the house when the price was$1800. I can’t imagine paying 42K for a truck load of timber.

WRC prices may soften a bit, but I don’t think they will ever again be under 4K unless there is a long crippling recession.

Well how about this!, just about made my eyes pop out of my head. I got a quote from a big timber business in Launceston yesterday and the price they gave me per metre length of 200 x 50 was $125 per metre. This morning they called back to say they had UNDER-QUOTED on the price and is was in fact going to be dearer.
They told me it was $13,000 a cubic metre.
That really takes the fun out of it.
I can only put it down to Bass Straight, surely it is not that dear in the big mainland towns.

price is the same across the ditch, just called my local merchant, $15000 NZD per m3.

It depends on who you buy it from I guess. I get mine wholesale from Pacific Cedar who used to be located adjacent to Carbatec here in BNE. Convenient for one stop impoverishment ��

I will see what their current price list is and report back. I think your quote may be a tad sporting.

On edit…the two cubes that have been in my rack for a couple of years just doubled the value of my shop. This isn’t funny anymore. I wonder how joinery businesses will find customers with what they will have to charge for materials now?

I am looking at my scrap pile and a bottle of glue. Suddenly I can’t afford not to laminate offcuts into wider boards.

Just got off the phone…wholesale prices are $5800 + gst for 200 x 45 utility grade which I find has about a 10-20% defect rate…ok, if your required sizes can be cut out of the boards. For making windows and doors it has been fine.

Clear grade is around $8000+ , but again these are pack prices.

Thanks for the info Greg. I am not really used to buying cubic metres etc as I am a one man show.
How much or what sort of volume is a "pack" size. I guess you mean cubic metre?.

I think the smallest pack I bought contained 1.4 m3. I am a hobbyist, but built our period home myself, so chewed through a lot making doors and casings for the windows and doors, and window shutters. . I have yet to make porch railings etc, and a curved beam bridge over our stream. But frankly I am a little queasy about using my stash given current values.

At this rate a bag of sawdust once was worth $500.

This is the construction industry right now. I work for a commercial builder delivering project up to ~$10m in value and at the moment builders and subcontractors are all being held to fixed priced contracts that could have been signed 6 months or 12 months ago.

It doesnt matter. Everyone at the moment is feeling it big time except for clients. I have a colleague who has had a large hardwood order (just F27 structural generic aussie hardwood) increase by over 40% since the start of the year. Prices are crazy at the moment.

Reminds me of my first job 20 years ago as a teenager working at a local building supplies hardware store. Selling 290x19 Meranti at $50/m or whatever it was to non-trade customers. I was embarrassed to tell them the price and ended up always giving them 20% discounts.

To cut long story short, timber is really expensive now no matter what the species. Wait for jarrah and karri to go through the roof due to the native logging ban in WA in 2024.

I have been tipping this price hike for quite some time. I think you will find it has only just begun. Suppliers are going to have to factor in replacement value on the timber they currently have in stock. What that factor is going to be is anybody's guess.

I got a quote on some timber for a table during the week and it was about twice what I was anticipating. Does anyone know of recycled timber sources in Southern Sydney?

There are several reasons why Canadian forest products tripled in price- fires, floods, covid, demand. All of those reasons are much less in play now, for the moment. US timber prices are now less than half of what they were in January, and the massive US market is what drives prices worldwide.

Climate change is affecting the forests in several ways…mild winters allow the next year's insect population to kill off millions of trees which burn before they can be felled. Fires result, followed by floods, followed by landslides that wreck the railway tracks.

Way over here across the Pacific we also had to eat the tripled shipping costs which are very slowly easing. An importer told me that two of the three ship operators who used to run North America to Australia have ceased the route owing to punitive stupidity from the Australian government during covid. So I guess we can look forward to high prices for a long time for WRC if nothing else.

Overseas demand for NZ pine products should ease, lowering prices for that at least, hypothetically speaking.

How any of that results in higher prices for domestic hardwoods is beyond me.

hmmm investment time.
I have 15 120 x 120 x 2.4m lengths of recycled jarrah posts that I grabbed from a deceased garage sale 18 years ago $100 the lot. family werent interested in dads shed or cleaning up, just grabbed the money & ran.

It's been nearly 20 years since I lived in Canada but was talking to my brother six months ago and he said then logging trailers full of cedar are now a target for theft because it's worth so much. I can only imagine what it costs now...

I have at least 3 cubes of NSW Rosewood I paid 4k and thought I over spent then but couldn't resist the once in a life time opportunity... Now it would be worth a fortune.