Eastern Railroad Discussion > Lumber being imported from Germany?

Yesterday after Easter church services I went for a walk in my neighborhood in Greenville County, SC.  A builder has added a new street with 26 home sites to our subdivision and has started work on four houses; so I walked up the street to check things out. In front of one of the houses was a wrapped package of 2"X4" X16' lumber by the street. I was curious to see where the lumber was from and went over to check it out, figuring I would see an American or Canadian company identification. I was amazed to see the package was labeled "European Spruce , Made in Germany!" The package was labeled 2X4X16 instead of metric dimensions so obviously for the US market. The company's web site was on the package as well, www.ante-holz.de. I checked it out and it is a big lumber company with several mills in Germany and one in Poland. 

I know lumber prices are high because of shortages as a result of the covid-19 pandemic but Germany and Europe have been hit hard too. Anybody on the board familiar with the lumber business care to explain why it is cheaper to build a house in South Carolina with German lumber instead of lumber from North America?

Charlie

1019X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yesterday after Easter church services I went for
> a walk in my neighborhood in Greenville County,
> SC.  A builder has added a new street with 26
> home sites to our subdivision and has started work
> on four houses; so I walked up the street to check
> things out. In front of one of the houses was a
> wrapped package of 2"X4" X16' lumber by the
> street. I was curious to see where the lumber was
> from and went over to check it out, figuring I
> would see an American or Canadian company
> identification. I was amazed to see the package
> was labeled "European Spruce , Made in Germany!"
> The package was labeled 2X4X16 instead of metric
> dimensions so obviously for the US market. The
> company's web site was on the package as well,
> www.ante-holz.de. I checked it out and it is a big
> lumber company with several mills in Germany and
> one in Poland. 
>
> I know lumber prices are high because of shortages
> as a result of the covid-19 pandemic but Germany
> and Europe have been hit hard too. Anybody on the
> board familiar with the lumber business care to
> explain why it is cheaper to build a house in
> South Carolina with German lumber instead of
> lumber from North America?
>
> Charlie

The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped the "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much all the lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and California for example, are all out of business and gone.

A lot of the lumber on Florida East Coast trains comes from Irving in New Brunswick Canada.

Posted from Android

> The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped the
> "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much all the
> lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and California
> for example, are all out of business and gone.

I don't claim to be expert on the subject, but I have lived in the Pacific North Wet for the past 15 years. Almost every day I see trucks and trains hauling freshly cut timber heading for a mill. I know that Weyerhauser and others have shut down some mills in the area, but some are still operating.
Bill Pyper
Lacey, WA
 

I concur.  There is still a lot of timber being cut in Washington and Oregon.  Whether it is being milled here, or shipped overseas, is another question.  The proximity to ports might be why it gets shipped elsewhere.  Foreign customers must be paying well for it.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:D_ht8dR7HdcJ:https://www.timberindustrynews.com/european-countries-gaining-market-shares-us-lumber-imports/+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
 

wjpyper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped the
> > "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much all
> the
> > lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and
> California
> > for example, are all out of business and gone.
>
> I don't claim to be expert on the subject, but I
> have lived in the Pacific North Wet for the past
> 15 years. Almost every day I see trucks and trains
> hauling freshly cut timber heading for a mill. I
> know that Weyerhauser and others have shut down
> some mills in the area, but some are still
> operating.

C'mon now, don't let pesky facts get in the way of a good ol' right-wing rant. 

Interesting link! Thanks for that info about how certain tariffs altered the U.S. lumber market.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> wjpyper Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > > The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped
> the
> > > "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much
> all
> > the
> > > lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and
> > California
> > > for example, are all out of business and
> gone.
> >
> > I don't claim to be expert on the subject, but
> I
> > have lived in the Pacific North Wet for the
> past
> > 15 years. Almost every day I see trucks and
> trains
> > hauling freshly cut timber heading for a mill.
> I
> > know that Weyerhauser and others have shut down
> > some mills in the area, but some are still
> > operating.
>
> C'mon now, don't let pesky facts get in the way of
> a good ol' right-wing rant. 

Hey there, Patch. Sounds like you've been hanging out to much with the likes of Nolan Rosenkrans, Wynne Everett, and Keith Burris.

See my reply on the western board. Hotwater, please don’t just repeat simple tropes, it’s most unbecoming.

Posted from iPhone

wsj had an indepth story last month. the shortage is being caused because 3 canadian lumber mills came in over the last 4 years and bought up us lumber mills. the tree owners in the us are actually getting record low prices for trees right now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lumber-prices-are-soaring-tree-growers-miserable-11614177282

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> wjpyper Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > > The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped
> the
> > > "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much
> all
> > the
> > > lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and
> > California
> > > for example, are all out of business and
> gone.
> >
> > I don't claim to be expert on the subject, but
> I
> > have lived in the Pacific North Wet for the
> past
> > 15 years. Almost every day I see trucks and
> trains
> > hauling freshly cut timber heading for a mill.
> I
> > know that Weyerhauser and others have shut down
> > some mills in the area, but some are still
> > operating.
>
> C'mon now, don't let pesky facts get in the way of
> a good ol' right-wing rant. 

Lots of lumber mills still working full blast in CA, OR and WA.  

HotWater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The "tree huggers" have pretty well stopped the
> "lumber industry" in the U.S.. Pretty much all the
> lumber mils in Washington, Oregon, and California
> for example, are all out of business and gone.

OMG!  Where do people get these dumb ideas!  Oh wait, been hearing a lot about crazy ideas now days, this shouldn't surprise me.

I've lived in the PNW for the last 45 years; yes, back in the 1980's(!), the spotted owl issue, and the restrictions on logging, closed many mills and turned the domestic lumber industry upside down - however, those effects are LONG GONE!  Back then, the forest were being logged at an alarming rate.

Now to the present day, the lumber industry here has been mostly affected by ECONOMIC conditions.  Many mills closed back during the 2008 recession when the housing markets collapsed, and the need for building materials dried up for many years.  This contributed to a heavy consolidation of the industry and a loss of many more lumber mills.  In addition, many mills were closed because they were old, inefficient, and couldn't handle the smaller logs that came out of the forests now, because the old growth large trees were mostly gone (or what little is left is protected).

So now we have far fewer mills, but most of them are large, efficient one's.  On the downside, at least for domestic lumber, most of those mills are now owned by only a few lumber companies, thus domestic competition has been reduced.  Just watching an eastbound BNSF frieght shows this out, almost endless cars of Serria Pacific lumber (the dominant manufacture in the PNW now).  However, there continues to be a large, steady supply of lumber coming down from Canada (often times at low prices), so over all lumber competition is still there in the markets in a big way; but the domestic production of lumber is way down from the past.

Wasn't there an issue about export wood from the US not being cut to metric precision? 

Apparently, in some parts of the world builders want a 2 inch by 4 inch board to actually be 2 by 4. Not 1 3/4 by 3 5/8 or something like that. 

Imagine that!

Thank you to all who have given logical, reasonable responses and not just catch phrases.

Posted from iPhone

Was waiting around today for a lumber company in Royston GA to finish unloading 4 centerbeams. Looking around and they had some lumber fron Germany, company was ilim, based in Russia but wood was sawn in Germany. Also has some for Sweden.