Lumber Briefs: Lumber Market Quarantine? Matt Layman March 29, 2020 We are just days away from the sharpest lumber market price reversal ever experienced. It began last week with unreasonable mill panic selling in an attempt to secure short-term operational cash and a $50 drop. Next week and the following week, there will government mandated... Read More April 2020 Issue #12249 Page 110
How Important are Construction Tolerances? Glenn Traylor Back in the days before Autoset C®, Matchpoint®, and Wizard®, truss set-ups and the truss profile were dependent on the truss builder’s ability to accurately jig the truss being built using cross reference information and data. For example, a heel to peak measurement was taken... Read More March 2020 Issue #12248 Page 41
Taking the Plunge Kallen Hair One of the many realities of living in the upper Midwest is dealing with the cold and icy conditions of its sometimes perilous winter. So you can imagine as an Australian native, where the temperature rarely drops below 32° (or 0°C for the rest of the world), this was quite the... Read More March 2020 Issue #12248 Page 47
Bringing Joy and Repurposing Lumber Nancy Mansfield Last month’s issue of The Advertiser included a story from us about using, reusing, and repurposing lumber, Responsible Building at Pacific Wall Systems, Inc. In it, we talked about the ways that we use our wood scraps. In addition, pieces smaller than 6” are donated to the community... Read More March 2020 Issue #12248 Page 78
Lumber Briefs: How To Beat the Lumber Market Matt Layman The words “panic attack” in our social sphere imply being attacked by panic. It can be debilitating. Put in another context, panic can lead to the action of attacking, typically defensively. Being attacked by panic and attacking in response to panic are positions of weakness that... Read More March 2020 Issue #12248 Page 112
Are You Creating a Culture of Quality? Glenn Traylor On a recent trip to Japan to observe construction manufacturing methods, I was struck by the amount of time a plant manager spends on the production floor. Comparing this Japanese methodology to our truss industry, our plant managers and upper management spend relatively little time engaged in... Read More February 2020 Issue #12247 Page 40
Responsible Building at Pacific Wall Systems, Inc. Nancy Mansfield Whether your company is large or small, west coast or east coast, or anywhere in between, there are plenty of opportunities to practice responsible building. Established in 2007 and headquartered in Central Point, Oregon, Pacific Wall Systems is a family-owned enterprise with 80 employees and... Read More February 2020 Issue #12247 Page 73
Lumber Briefs: Always Be Buying Lumber Matt Layman In the day of a CM’s and framer’s life, lumber buying is considered the most enjoyable and easiest task to perform. Buying lumber is a huge ego booster. By your own admission, lumber is 40–50% of the cost of producing the finished product. I find it simply stunning how very... Read More February 2020 Issue #12247 Page 104
Lumber & Housing Market Forecast—Buy Expectation, Sell Reality Matt Layman In our lumber market, when presented with a disruptive opportunity that appears to create a supply shortage or demand surge, buyers increase inventory on the expectation of higher prices; then, once we realize our over-zealous preparation, we liquidate those excessive positions, crashing prices.... Read More January 2020 Issue #12246 Page 100
Lumber Briefs: Lumber & Housing Market Forecast—Year End Strategy Matt Layman We have six weeks left in the 2019 season with three major holidays inside that window. At a minimum, we will lose one week of jobsite productivity. Buyers are measuring needs against inventory on the ground as well as bought ahead. Many states have year-end inventory taxes and historically... Read More December 2019 Issue #11245 Page 92