FEATURE
Supply
Squeeze
One local lumber yard weighs
in on the effects of the
current lumber shortage
By Mark Halsall
Residential construction contractors and do-it-yourselfers
throughout Manitoba continue to be confronted with
an ongoing shortage of treated lumber that’s jacked-up
prices and caused many projects to be put on hold. Due to
COVID-19 and a number of other factors, it’s a situation that doesn’t
appear to be going away any time soon.
Building Rural Manitoba spoke with Kevin Marcin, store manager
of McMunn & Yates Building Supplies in Brandon, to get his take on
the shortage and how it affects lumber yards like his.
Marcin says his store started to have supply issues with treated
lumber products early in the year, when the company which McMunn
& Yates acquires its treated wood from ran out of lumber to treat.
“At our supplier in Neepawa, they just didn’t have enough material
to treat so they were scrambling to try and get product,” Marcin said.
At the time, he was told the problem was the result of lumber mills
unable to supply treating companies with the amount of product that
they required for their normal output.
Then, of course, COVID-19 hit. The pandemic led to a strong surge
in demand starting in May and as a result, even more supply pressure.
“With people staying home and doing more projects at home, we
saw an uptick of over 70 per cent increase in treated lumber sales for
the first part of this year over last year,” Marcin said.
“A lot of those projects really get going as soon as the weather gets
decent and people start doing fencing and decks. So you find out in
a pretty short order that you’re going to be up against the wall if you
can’t get material right away.”
The combination of a treated lumber shortage and increased sales
meant Marcin’s store simply couldn’t keep up with demand.
“We had a hard time getting product. We were always depleted,”
Marcin said.
“Stuff was almost presold before it even got there. We’d get a
truck with brown treated lumber in and a lot of that product would
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