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Hardwood Flooring Lead Times

2 years ago

I saw some comments recently about lead times on engineered and solid hardwoods. The Virus has created an enormous amount of demand on all building components. Simply defined today; there's not enough capacity to meet the demand. Capacity in this case is defined as the amount of flooring that can be produced with quality at the manufacturing and/or finishing point.

What kind of lead times are we seeing out there? Be careful with short lead times. Naturally this will all go away in due time. If you're still in the process of planning a remodel or building the dream home, my advice is wait it out until this unprecedented boom is over.

I'm sure many are thinking the same

Ken Fisher

Comments (4)

PRO
G & S Floor Service
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
It's been a schedule nightmare this year. Contractors are seen as the bad guys due to material schedule purgatory. A perfect planned schedule will do you no good this year. Even if, you scheduled several months ahead. Not just flooring is being affected either. Finishing products are starting to become a issue. There is a lack of raw material to produce some adhesives, cleaners, stains and finishes. Causing a overhaul on pricing and products being delayed or discontuned.

I have three large projects that was scheduled a couple months apart. Due to delays, I now have all three projects stacked on top of each other. I am suppose to complete all these at a snap of fingers.
SJ McCarthy
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
Thank you KEN! We can only type it so many times...and then we get TIRED of explaining things like 'supply and demand' and 'global pandemic' and entire CONTINENTS SHUTTING DOWN (eg. NO ONE leaves the house other than food shopping).

Australia is about to enter ANOTHER shut down. China is shutting down HIGHLY POPULATED areas for the THIRD TIME!!! Just because the USA and the UK (sigh..don't get me going) have decided to 'open up' doesn't mean the rest of the world (ie. the REST of the 7 BILLION people) is doing so.

The Canada/USA boarder are not going to open anytime soon. The USA has 100 times our infection rate...but only have 9.5 times the population as Canada. The infection rate in the USA is still too high for Canada to open up the borders. And THAT'S where your soft wood lumber costs are coming from.

Canada's pipe line is A) empty, and B) the border is still closed, and C) our labour force is NOT going back to work at mills. No one wants to work in an industry fraught with danger. Losing fingers is normal...losing your life due to Covid is not. We are too cautious as a people to go back to work right now (so too China...Indonesia is ON FIRE...Malaysians are dropping like flies because of this virus...and Russia is in complete denial).

These are ALL the countries where you find lumber production. No workers = no lumber. No mills = no lumber. No one left alive = no lumber. You get the idea.
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PRO
Uptown Floors
Original Author
2 years ago
You have to stay away from the news SJ. I don't trust most of it anymore myself. I haven't for years.

We're at full production with a 100% workforce. Plenty of raw material too. However the surge in demand the last 6-8 months has built up massive backlogs.
akrogirl32
2 years ago
Three months for the wood flooring we have been trying to get installed (European white oak). To make it even worse, the second order (after we decided we liked it enough to also use it in the bedrooms) came in in the wrong wood species, so another three month delay.

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