"What’s a fair resolution for us as homeowners when we’re paying time and material to handle broken or junk material, and then endure delays for replacement?"

Unfortunately it is what it is. The builder is more than likely not getting any sort of discount for material that he needs to fix or work on out of the ordinary prep work. You do not show us what you mean on the quality but the mills very well may be short handed on supply of logs and help to mill and sort it properly. Unfortunately your only option is what you are doing or find another material and change your direction.

I don't know about Maine, but here in coastal Virginia lumber is being sold on an allocation basis. It is sky-high priced and many components simply aren't available in the size we need. We're glad to get what we can, glad to have the work, glad not to be sick, We all look forward to a return to normal.

Your builder isn't ordering defective materials so he can sort through them on your dime. If you're on a cost-plus basis, please pay him for his extra time as well as the replacement materials.

My question was really about the responsibility of the lumber supplier for delivering broken defective material and driving up our costs with delays and extra work sorting through their mistakes?

Unfortunately like I said it is what it is currently. Material supply is tight and on allocation as Charles Ross says. You either work with what you can get or you regroup change the design to painted or to a man made material (pvc or composite)

I’m not in the trades in any way - no connection whatsoever other than as a homeowner pouring out the $$ on a project. It just blows my mind that the response in construction seems to be “it is what it is.”. “you get what you get and you don’t get upset.”. What would happen if the rest of us in other fields and professions had this attitude? You get served spoiled food in a restaurant and are told “if you want to be picky, cancel your order.”. A store sells you ripped clothing, and you’re told “if you want to be picky, cancel your order.”. Car dealership sells you a defective car and they tell you to go somewhere else if you aren’t happy... Supply is tight so too bad for you? If you can’t fill orders with reasonable material, it seems to me you shouldn’t be representing that you can fill orders, and you shouldn’t be taking people’s money?? What am I missing here for those of you how aren’t spokespeople for the trade...

Haven’t complained about the 20% price hike. It’s the quality issue. I don’t need toilet paper to last fifty years!!

Small-volume builders and remodelers have no price leverage on material costs. When materials are available on allocation you get what you get. We don't like it any more than you do, but it's how it is at the moment. Your builder doesn't know if his order is going to be filled let alone what the quality is going to be.

So, let me go the other way... You are entitled to get what was promised in the condition it was promised.

However, every lumber yard will have a hold harmless clause somewhere in their documentation for supply issues. The long and short of it is that they can't be held responsible for costs you in incur related to supply and probably quality issues when they are not the cause.

Now to your analogy, a retailer selling you defective clothes will accept a return, they are not going to pay you for the gas you used to return it. A car dealer may take back a defective car but will charge you for the miles you drove it, etc. You are getting the same, or better, resolution that you would get in any of those situations. The lumber yard is apparently allowing you to return defective lumber, and just like the car dealer and the clothing retailer, that is probably the extent of your rights for recovery.

Good luck

I'm not a spokesperson for any trade and I agree with the advice you've gotten. It is what it is. The times we are in right not are not normal by anybody's description and lumber related issues are just one of a million examples of everyone getting through this thing the best we can. Lots and lots of other industries are also having to adjust for extreme delays and product replacements and many of those have a ripple effect to areas you don't even realize. I get that it's frustrating, but nobody, including the lumber distributor, is trying to rip you off here.

It is what it is. A saying that will never sound the same as pre-Covid.

You are lucky to only have a 20% hike. Wholesale lumber is really up a lot more than that.

No one should build anything right now if they are concerned about quality, expense or timeliness. No one should have told you differently. That has been obvious for at least 10 months.

And the amount of leverage that you, or any single contractor has on the lumberyard is limited. And there's no yelp for lumberyards. They have more buyers than they can support. If it doesn't get sold to you, it'll get sold to the next person. So........ accept or not - totally up to you. But they're not gonna change.

Not comforting, but reality.

Good point. We need a Yelp for lumberyards. When the current building boom dies down and demand goes down, it would be nice for homeowners to have a record of how customers were treated . There are hundreds of thiusands of other industries struggling through the pandemic without jacking up prices through the roof...

Some wood comes from Canada, there were high tariffs recently, and there still are tariffs today. Canadian mills may have intentionally reduced supply due to the tariffs.

I live in Northern Ca, mills were shut down as non essential for 6 weeks last year, then many employees caught Covid. They loggers and millers work as teams, one guy gets sick without symptoms, the entire team may get sick.

I know of a logger who got sick, didn’t go to work until he received a doctor’s clearance, his team did not him back. He said, if you get Covid, don’t tell anyone.

Julie, your comments are based on Target/Walmart experiences, have you ever been to a commercial building supply yard?

Wow. I was asking if people have had issues with quality of product, and how they would handle. No snowflake here JuneKnow, but I think covid is taking a toll on lots of people’s moods! Feel better!

There are hundreds of thiusands of other industries struggling through the pandemic without jacking up prices through the roof...

With all due respect, that is simply not true. May 2019, Chuck Roast price per lb. $5.476, May 2020 Chuck Roast price per lb. $7.049.

This isn't the lumber yard screwing you over. Commodity markets are just not that hard to understand, as they are a very simple supply and demand curve.

Just to be clear, lumber is at $941 today... On March 30, 2020 it was at $259.80, which is 262% price increase. There is nothing the people you are dealing with can do about that. There is just way more demand than supply.

So helpful - thank you! And good luck!

Julie,

Many people on this site have had problems with quality and supply, some fore ever (these sites attract people with problems) and some due to the economics due to Covid.

You are not the first one with problems.

The cabinet person I am looking to use told me that now they spend a much larger chunk of their time watching the wood futures/financials, so they can order the container load of wood that they need, at the best price possible. They said they never had to micro-manage that side of the business as closely before covid.

Julie, there are some super grumpy folks here as of late. Yes what they are saying is true and it is what it is. However, I agree with you that it shouldn’t be that way. I don’t have a solution but it is stories like this and response like some have given that tarnish the entire industry I would never accept a table I purchased that came damaged and not the quality I ordered but many on this forum expect homeowners to accept crappy workmanship, poor quality products simply because that’s the way it is.

You would end up paying more but you could go through the delivered materials and then only use what you deem to be good. What isn’t you could resell or give away. Not ideal and more work but could mean you end up with materials that work for you.

Julie:

You're like the guy that's jumped half way across the creek. You're committed now and have little say over supply and demand. This no one's fault and even if it were there is nothing you can do about it. You can suck it up and move on, or you can pout, complain, stomp your feet, make you and everyone around you miserable, and then suck it up. Powerlessness stinks and you've got it. Acceptance is the path.

She was just asking if there is recourse.

Joseph,

It is what it is. BUT,

To tell someone they are powerless and Acceptance is the path, is wrong, and your comment is better left to yourself. Joseph, you have an excellent on on this site for quality assurance, but your politics are severe.

It is what it is.

Julie,

I am in the beginning of a construction project. It rained, before and during the beginning of the project, that delayed bringing in heavy equipment and when the heavy equipment was brought in, my yard became a mess.

My lumber is local, purchased a year ago and in storage.

My labor is local, but when Covid restrictions are removed, I expect those homeowners who were delaying maintenance and improvements will begin those projects and the demand on the local workers will increase. I have heard, some homeowners are delaying work “because they do not want workers in their house”.

Joseph often brings up a valid point. Much of our construction labor is from south of the border. Many of the loggers in my area are Hispanic. Close the borders, reduce the supply of labor. How many high school kids today want to be a framer/electrician/plumber ?

It is what it is to those who have common sense and experience.

Keep asking questions, contact your politicians regarding tariffs.

Let us know how your shower tile job works.

@JAB it is unfortunate what Covid has done to pricing and quality. It sounds like you have a good builder that is working their hardest to build a good quality home for you. I bet they are just as frustrated! We got into our house May 2020 and I’m still dealing with some quality issues from a bad exterior door, drywall seams and pops showing up to creaky flooring even though we keep everything humidity and temp regulated. So having a builder that cares is sooooo important!

I live in a conservative area of Northern California. The loggers working on my property “blame” the mills. The mills “manipulate supplies to control the prices”.

In my area, mills were shut down for 6 weeks.

While this is a discussion about Lumber, has anyone noticed gas in my area has gone from $3 to $4 a gallon in a few months?

Saw this and thought it sums it up for the cost of lumber. May even be worse than this now. So glad we built in 2018 and lumber was starting its rise even then.

And today!

@User I heard something similar to this actually last week. At the time, it seemed unbelievable but the person who made the statement would not have had any incentive to lie. I am in the the southeast, and while discussing my build and the cost of lumber, I was told that loggers (i.e., tree removal companies) are having a difficult time getting any money for the logs due to excess. Btw, my territory is full of white oaks, pines, poplars, etc.

I have heard similar rumblings of super high inventories of logs, but the mills aren't producing fast enough. The story I was told is that the mill workers are not deemed "essential", so they had major shutdowns despite every lumberyard, big box retailer, & construction worker being "essential" so we (they) kept selling and building. Now we sit here scrambling.

I would love if anyone has firsthand knowledge of this? Or if a journalist has done a piece somewhere that you'd be willing to share a link to?

The rumors are something, but would be nice to know if they have any merit.

@D B Funny that you mentioned if there were any articles about this "surplus." I came across one this morning by the WSJ : "Lumber Prices Are Soaring. Why Are Tree Growers Miserable?"

Also, yesterday, we received a quote back from a hardwood flooring company and were somewhat surprised to learn that the price for about 7,000 sq.ft. white oak flooring did not change significantly from when we had our initial quote (for contract purposes) performed in 2019! We were, also, given the opportunity to upgrade to wider plank boards for no cost. Another Houzz poster, from my area, mentioned the same thing when asked about the price of his white oak flooring because some other posters' areas had seen a significant spike in the price of hardwood flooring and, therefore, had been priced out of that option.

Who knows what's going on. All I know is that I live in a state with A LOT of mills and, unlike other parts of the country, we did not have major covid restrictions or shutdowns.

I live in a forest in Northern California. One of my fishing buddies works in a mill. I am having some trees cut and milled on site. There are two local mills I drive by.

My fishing buddy’s mill was shut down for 6 weeks last year, we went fishing.

The local mills have mountains of logs.

I drive the same roads as the mill trucks.

I wonder if “just in time manufacturing“ has affected the lumber industr.y. I do not know of shortages, only comments about high prices.

edit: I do not know about lumber shipped by rail. My local wood is: Redwood, Doug fir

@User That's very interesting.

For many aspects of our project, we have had--in one way or another--direct dealings with mills and have found unbeatable pricing that way. The majority of our build has consisted of white oak, sapele, cypress, and cedar. This equates to nearly all of exterior finish-work, including siding and custom trim, in addition to custom hardwood trim and flooring on the interior. And, though the pricing is up at our local big box stores, based on my SO's experience, there doesn't appear to be a shortage here neither is the quality "poor." Again, this is all very interesting.

Maybe, the shortages, high prices, supply issues are “complaints“.

Maybe, many do not want to acknowledge the economic impacts tariffs have.

We have amish mills near us which don't have a shortage but the lumberyards are seeing shortages and the quality is poor. One of our neighbors is going to build and he plans to mill all of his own lumber! What a chore but at least he will be able to sell everything at the end and not be gouged by the current situation at the lumberyard.

As original poster/homeowner, I’ll chime in — six months into our addition/remodel, I have been so confused by the pricing- it seems so random. Our hardwood flooring and tile and lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, siding, roofing — all seem very comparable to what we’ve paid in the past. The charge for our foam insulation was beyond obscene, and we had no choice of service providers there - he complained of material shortages. As people have commented here, the single biggest issue seems to be with milled lumber - I don’t know how much we will end up being over budget just due to that one line item, but I expect by a lot....

"Maybe, many do not want to acknowledge the economic impacts tariffs have."

I am beginning to have quite a few questions about many things including "outsiders" purchasing large amounts of American companies. Many of the mills in my area have been purchased by non-domestic companies. Unfortunately, this is outside of my scope of knowledge and understanding.

@K H we worked with an Amish mill last year (2020). Phenomenal prices and customer service! I think you have seen my build, and those large corner pieces were custom milled for us locally, last year. Ninety-nine percent of all of our exterior trim was custom milled. And, none of it was from "soft" woods. Also, our siding was a custom mill. The prices were not inflated or high. So, I think that I am going to have to agree with @JAB that this may be a lumberyard (and, big box) issue though I am not completely certain since my GC's go-to lumberyard did not seem to have an issue getting quality lumber to our site with covid. And, I don't recall any significant pricing issue. Perhaps, it may have something to do with proximity to both the mills and logging?