Home Improvement

Falxy-US said:

I know you know this, but just to expand. It’s not just lumber. It’s concrete, sheet rock, shingles, and worst of all, labor. Very facet of building a house is more expensive.

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You know what else is fucked? Foam. Foam for couches.

We went to 4 different furniture stores yesterday (3 national brands, 1 local company). Lead time on anything you want that is standard (don't want to change the color or fabric) is minimum of 15 weeks.
The only stuff you can get within 2-4 weeks is whatever they have in stock, and there is a reason it's in stock...

I'm curious how building prices would affect how much coverage you have on insurance in the event of a natural disaster. Could building prices outpace that replacement cost of a structure?

Falstaff said:

You know what else is fucked? Foam. Foam for couches.

We went to 4 different furniture stores yesterday (3 national brands, 1 local company). Lead time on anything you want that is standard (don't want to change the color or fabric) is minimum of 15 weeks.
The only stuff you can get within 2-4 weeks is whatever they have in stock, and there is a reason it's in stock...

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Lot of stuff similar to foam is getting very hard to get. Plastics and such as well. Already supply was thinning out due to reduced workers at chemical plants that supply the mains tock. Throw in the reduction of oil being refined which is where a large part of the stock starts. Reason most refineries have a chemical plant on site or next door. Then the freeze on the gulf coast caused a lot of further issues. Talk to someone that makes things made of plastic actually in the US they can't get resins at all and has been happening now for a few months.

Timber has a variety of reasons. One of them was during the first shutdowns they had to rework some of the mills to spread out their workers. All the guys after the saw and mill that grade lumber literally stand almost shoulder to shoulder doing it. A lot of it has been replaced by machine and cameras but someone still stands there at the camera and pulls the boards into different lanes going down through the mill. A LOT of mills now are either illegals or damn near illegals and it would not take a rocket surgeon to figure out a lot of them found out they could make more on enemployment than working. Gone are the days of long term mill workers that had X number of years of experience on the line. Now it's all low wage short term (for a lot of them) manual wage earners that are here today gone tomorrow, one of the benefits of mechanization. Also when they make plywood the "peeler bolts" bolts of wood that are peeled with a machine. As each layer comes off in long pieces those pieces are shifted and aligned by actual humans standing side by side. Guessing that had to change. Plywood is also granded by guys standing side by side, that had to change. They also work in teams patching places in plywood and all that was shoulder to shoulder work. One guy with the special tool to cut the football shape out, guy with the glue gun deal, and guy with the patch. All day everyday standing shoulder to shoulder. No idea if they changed it or just told them to suck it up. Lot of work in ths country was still shoulder to shoulder people when everything went social distancing. It adds up.

Also shipping. Most loggers have long term guys that haul their own timber to the mill. That really hasn't been an issue. But all the other kinks in supplies and the number being drastically reduced in the amount of truck driving school graduates the pool of drivers moved up the pay scale. Throw in the amount of people that overnight wanted all or most of their stuff delivered to almost their door and not in bulk locally which requires less shipping and is much cheaper.

Also as far as a timber company goes there's a management plan in place before the tree is even planted that they typically follow except in some cases of "feed the mill". They can only juggle things around to feed the mill without totally fucking up their long term supply of timber and the management plan they were following. You can't stockpile timber stands long term so a steady demand that allows for thinning, harvesting, replanting and such works out to keep the mill busy. That has totally been thrown out the window now. If it stays this way long term it will start to impact timber companies. Also super low interest rates, money printing, and people having time off of work to do "things" didn't help. It all adds up.

Toured a brand new state of the art heavily mechanized mill 25 years ago. Had to flowchart out the process on an exam. Professor did not like my "Illegal standing with a chainsaw to cut the board that wouldn't make the turn on the line after the saw". Which is what he was doing, but it was new and they were working out the kinks.

Point being politicans always come up with something that sounds pretty minor and it gets magnified each step of the way because they didn't bother to ask and sure have never held a real job.

No idea but I imagine the poison and shit has really been cut back from the federal government. In my lifetime it used to be common to put out cyanide trap bombs for coytoes. The coyotes would smell the trap, put their mouth up to it and it would go off and blow up injecting them with cyanide. Guess they don't do that any longer either lol, or at least reduce.

Deathwing said:

Fuck, that sounds awesome.

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Apparently Trump reauthorized, sure Biden will strike it down soon. Effective apparently but I've never used one. Used by profession trappers and killers hired by the government I think.


When the trap is triggered, the spring propels a dose of sodium cyanide into the animal's mouth, and the sodium cyanide combines with water in the mouth to produce poisonous cyanide gas