The soaring price of lumber and construction materials nationwide is forcing Haines residents to delay projects, eat the high cost of materials and buy more locally sourced rough-cut wood.

Hardware stores are dealing with price increases on a weekly basis and a dwindling supply that is taking several months to stock.

The price of lumber such as plywood and studs have increased more than 200% since this time last year, Lutak Lumber owner Chip Lende said, and his store is unable to fill about 30% of their orders due to lack of supply.

“Lumber and plywood is going up. Metal roofing is going up. Windows. Every month we get announcements of (prices) going up. Availability is terrible,” Lende said. “Because we’re a global economy everything is dependent on everything else.”

The price increases are largely due to shortages in supply. When people were stuck at home during the beginning of the pandemic, they worked on their houses, built decks, sheds or other improvement projects, Lende said. At the same time, logging operations and mills shut down. The winter storm in Texas this year forced the closure of chemical companies that make resins for plywood. California wildfires also worsened the dwindling supply of lumber.

“(People) used up, basically, all the supply in the supply chain. A piece of plywood you buy today was probably manufactured a year ago,” Lende said. “It took a year to go from a logging yard, to a sawmill, to a plywood plant, on a boat or a train to a lumberyard and to your house. It all takes time. Over the last year we’ve used up that supply and it wasn’t replenished.”

Haines Home Building Supply owner Glenda Gilbert said in her 30 years of owning a hardware store, she’s never seen shortages and price increases at this scale.

“As an average consumer, you don’t know we watch the prices every week but now it’s very apparent. It’s anywhere from one to four price increases a week,” Gilbert said. “Nothing that we sell today is going to be the same price tomorrow, basically. This is off the charts.”

Both Gilbert and Lende said many customers are putting off projects and others are eating the cost.

Henry Pollan started building a shop in October. He said he took on a third job to help pay for the supplies. He’s purchased wood from Mud Bay Lumber Company and the hardware stores.

“I’m broke. Both the hardware stores in town have worked really hard with me to keep their prices at what I can afford,” Pollan said. “I’m salvaging as much material as I can from anywhere I can salvage it, everything from fixtures to plywood to two by fours or anything that’s not full of ants or half rotten.”

Contractors who aren’t working on homes requiring kiln-dried lumber are also calling on local mill operators to source materials.

“I’m already putting all of my future projects through Chad (Bieberich) right now,” said Jaybird Construction owner Josh Benassi.

Darkhorse Construction owner and mill operator Tony Malone said he expects to see an upturn in demand as people begin to build. He said he has no plans to take advantage of the market by increasing prices because his cost to produce and transport the lumber hasn’t changed.

“I’m getting phone calls and interest about doing some cutting,” Malone said. “I’m going to end up using a larger part of my stock for projects in order to save my clients money. I won’t use any plywood at all.”

Small-mill owner Chad Bieberich said he just re-started running his small mill and, so far, he’s seen a normal amount of demand, but expects it to increase and is wrestling with how to set prices. He said he hopes the current economic situation will show people the value of locally sourced timber.

‘It’s becoming this commodity that’s almost a luxury, imported wood,” Bieberich said. “It used to be just what made sense but it’s starting to not make sense,” he said. “Whatever allows us to live in a world to bring trees from 3,000 or 4,000 miles away, it’s an odd way to live when we have trees in our backyard.”

Timber cutter Scott Rossman agrees.

“It’s about time the guy at the bottom got paid what he’s worth,” Rossman said.

Both Lende and Gilbert said they don’t expect the supply shortage or high prices to end soon.

“This is not a short-term thing,” Lende said. “This is not a hurricane where people bought up a lot of plywood and then in two weeks it’s all going to be replenished and prices will go back down. I don’t think it’s forever, but it’s a long-term price change for a while, six months to eighteen months, I think.”

*This story has been corrected. Chad Bieberich no longer owns Mud Bay Lumber Company.