Wood prices - buy now or wait

[Larry1990]

Hi chaps,

It's a bit of a crystal ball question I appreciate, but if you were doing a DIY project in summer (garden office) and had the space to store most of the wood, would you buy now or wait?

I guess I'm asking for your best guesses if OSB/cls stud/6x2 etc will be more expensive in roughly 6 months or not.

Cheers

Larry

 

[RandomGrinch]

Hedge your bets?
1/2 now, 1/2 later?

 

[BlueLoo]

It isn't going to get cheaper.
Real inflation is high (5% pa?).

Balance the cost of storage, and the risk of ownership (theft, job cancellation, etc) against the potential for cost increases and availability.

Personally, It's availability that would be my main concern.

Covid hysteria is coming to an end and people have a lot of cash sat there waiting for an opportunity to spend it (hence infl is rising fast).

 

[Larry1990]

Thank you for your insights chaps. Getting half now isn't a bad shout, to be fair I hadn't thought of availability. I'm pretty certain I'm going to do it this year and will be majority DIY apart from some electrical bits and can store it reasonably safely (will do some homework first).

Cheers

Larry

 

[fillyboy]

Price for timber in Canada crashed by 70% last year because people largely stopped buying due to price. I doubt the same will happen here but I'd certainly expect to see a fall in price rather than an increase.

Lumber prices crash 70 per cent from record highs as party ends for producers - The Globe and Mail

 

[^woody^]

The reasons cited for last year's hikes were typically covid related and summer plant shutdowns.

Omicron is now making its way around the countries that proces the timber, so it's not going to get better in the short term, and then the spring summer demand will kick in.

 

[conny]

And when demand kicks in prices usually only go one way and that is up.

 

[gas112]

you want to grab any wood you can just now it will be in short supply its not as if it just grows on trees

 

[IT Minion]

Hedge your bets?
1/2 now, 1/2 later?

No hedge would ever grow in enough to be useful lumber this summer.

 

[motorbiking]

It’s the insulation I’d be more focused on hedging. If your are building a home office you’ll need at least 20 sheets of celotex or similar. Then you also have the external cladding to consider.

 

[Larry1990]

It’s the insulation I’d be more focused on hedging. If your are building a home office you’ll need at least 20 sheets of celotex or similar. Then you also have the external cladding to consider.

Yep good point, I was looking at doing some form of sound proofing so need to check if that acts as insulation as part of one of the systems had 100mm rockwool as part of it.

I've got planning permission and i specified cedar cladding, now that's gonna hurt!

On the plus side ground screws are the same as I got on a quote a year ago so maybe I should order them first before they put the prices up. Should of pulled my finger out and done it last year lol!

 

[motorbiking]

I'm assuming this is a large office then? 20-22 sheets of 70-100mm celotex will do a 15m2 room + about 6-8 for the floor. depending on the size of windows and doors. Its pretty good sound insulation. With 75mm you would get a U value of about .28 and 100mm 0.22, but this sounds like it needs building control approval. In which case you may need to hit 0.19. my rough calcs suggest you need 90mm Celotex allowing for standard plasterboard, and an inch of cladding. That gets you <.19

Concrete is another major cost on a project like this and you should probably go with an insulated slab on a DPM.

 

[kingandy2nd]

Summer 2020, I bought a load of 8 x 4 ft 18mm OSB boards for £20 each from Wickes as a 'cheap' temporary floor for my extension while building.

Fast forward to October 2021 and those same boards were £49 each at Wickes However, this month I needed to buy another one and got it from Wickes at £42... so the price is moving in the right direction.

I'd say wait until end of February as the end of the winter with a lull in building/DIY projects due to the weather might help the prices move more in the right direction before all the Spring projects start.

(At the moment, it's 15% of everything if you are have a Trade Pro account (I got one even though I'm a DIY'er) and the boards would be a 'reasonable' £36 each).

 

[ajohn]

I just checked a local timber merchant and 18mm is just short or £30+vat a sheet. That tells me that some builders merchant will be cheaper.

 

[Larry1990]

I'm assuming this is a large office then? 20-22 sheets of 70-100mm celotex will do a 15m2 room + about 6-8 for the floor. depending on the size of windows and doors. Its pretty good sound insulation. With 75mm you would get a U value of about .28 and 100mm 0.22, but this sounds like it needs building control approval. In which case you may need to hit 0.19. my rough calcs suggest you need 90mm Celotex allowing for standard plasterboard, and an inch of cladding. That gets you <.19

Concrete is another major cost on a project like this and you should probably go with an insulated slab on a DPM.

It's a fairly modest 5x3 metres, I went for pp so I could have a 3 metre height 1 metre from the boundary, reasonable length garden but quite narrow.

Access isn't great through house then upstairs and it's on a bit of a slope so I'm gonna go for ground screws.

I'll have a look at celotex as well, the soundproofing stuff is great but is £££.