|
|
building costs
Do you think Bush will rethink his first present to the American Business Interests. The large tarriff he placed on the Canadian lumber entering the country? I guess it would be logical and?!!!!
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
I can not speak to the metal shortage, but I know there area a lot of saw mills in Canada idled by the Republican policies. A simple stroke of the pen could provide much more supply. What is the current surcharge (Tariff)? 40%?
To me that is the same logic as placing a tariff on Saudi oil because it costs less to pump. We must import more than 1/2 the oil and we must import 1/3 our soft wood lumber.
Good grief we only get the lesser grades out of Canada anyway, the prime lumber goes to Japan or Europe that pays premium prices.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
Grinder Murf covered some of this. I can only address issues pertaining to B.C. It is only 60% of the exports to the US, but I only worked in forestry and ministry of forest in this province, not Ontario or other provinces.
In the 60 and 70's a company called Columbia Cellulose a US company owned the major timber rights in the northern 1/2 of the province. In the area I lived they owned the Kitsam-Kalem-Nass area. The total area is approximately 200 miles long and 100 miles wide roughly 1/4 the size of Alabama. They also own other large tracts in other areas near by. Most of the area was prime 1st growth timber growing in relatively flat valleys. Prime in this area means 300+ foot trees.
They clear cut all the valleys selling much of the timber over seas or to the US mills. They ran the pulp mill and logging operation into the ground, blew up the boiler and killed people. They never replanted a thing. After some 30 years of raping the prime timber, they claimed they were not making any money and in about 74 they walked out of the province and gave all the responsibility to the province for 1 dollar. (I know at the time I lived in Terrace B.C.)
For example a single tree in the area typically would be worth $20,000 dollars or more in raw logs at the railroad tracks at the time. Remember a new car was 3-7 thousand at this time.
After this the laws in the province required that resource companies have a provincial entity so the government could control them better and post bonds for the replanting costs.
Timber rights on public lands in B.C. are auctioned off to the highest bidder. Sealed bids are submitted to the province after plots are advertised in the news papers. Any company with a national identity can bid. For example some of the larger operations in the Sunshine Coast were Weldwood and Rainier, american base companies.
Part of the problem in B.C. is the fact that the rights were sold a number of years ago. For example the northern Peace River plateau area was sold when you could only log in the winter as there is a lot of muskeg. A faller wandered around in 30-40 below weather in waist deep snow. Back in the 60's and 70's the poor Canadian companies could only afford this area and CanFor and others bought here not the rich expensive coastal forests. Suddenly in the 80’s mechanized logging arrived making logging more profitable and the stumpage fees look ridiculous. Canfor and other built new computerized saw mills intergrated with new pulp operations. The new saw heads made more efficient use of a raw log and reduce the labor significantly. Even the coastal operations in B.C. with older mills and water transport could not compete and were idled.
Likewise the water rights and electricity from power generation contracts made in the 50’s between US governments and B.C., fractions of cents per kilowatt look ridiculous. Naturally as Murf stated there are no complaints on the US side about dumping energy.
I now live in Alabama. I pay about 50 dollars an acre for land tax. No stumpage is paid when you log. The large timber company next door pays about 50 cents and acre for their land and no stumpage. Which area do I think is subsidizing? We just have big business on one side and no one lobbying for the small consumer.
Link:  
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
Well I did not get to the top of the Dodge's tank with $105 dollars the other day. Diesel is near $3.20 around here.
Well on the back pages of the local MS rag I found the news that the USDA estimates that we lost or damaged 19 billion board feet of timber with the two hurricanes. Most of it is yellow and white pine that will go moldy in a few months. They say they need to get it out or it will all be waste. Well it has been a month and a half and this is the first I have heard about it so?
To put in prospective it is about 1/2 a years production of US lumber or 1 years worth of Canadian imports. You could say we lost 2 percent of the softwood lumber available in the next 30 years.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
Murf from the report I read, the 800,000 homes and 25 million tons is what they believe they can save. The other figure, the amount lost is near twice that. As you stated you need more capacity in a relatively small area to process all this timber.
Kyvette, I am finally getting people in the area interested in ICF houses. We need to rebuild but as the price of timber goes out of site, maybe people will start looking for better safer methods of construction.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
I don't think the people I have been using have considered the logistics of shipping. They tend to use a normal rig and you get stuck with a large bill for shipping air. I talked with a distributor today and he does not keep any blocks on hand, do to the damage of the blocks which can occur.
I have a few ideas to remove the problems, both in construction and transport, but the people in Cobourge Ont are not into radical innovation. They are military by the numbers types.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
The blocks Murf and I are alluding to nest fairly tight. I believe I used 6 stacks (pallets) for the 42 x 60 foot barn with 12 ft walls. The six stacks take up some 16 ft on an 8 ft wide trailer. The trouble is the stack weighs less than 200 lbs. You don't need a regular truck to ship them.
The other problems is that althought the expanding bead process is relatively simple, the steam expanding equipment and cooling equipment takes up considerable space. I was thinking of an alternate method of block production that you could back in a couple of containers and move to any location. Why move a mountain of foam to the customers?
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
The materials for self expanding systems are expensive so there goes you cost advantage. The molds for blocks are larger than a suit case.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|
building costs
Murf;
That's what the Dow system is, to a greater or lesser extend. It has not sold well. And like the boys in Cobourg will not readily jump to a new idea.
The ARXX system provides more than just a block. The locking of the blocks together is an assist in construction. To have the earth quake rating they have developed the X in the blocks. I would not build without the fir strips in the blocks for anchoring. This requires the foam to be molded around them or multi piece braces.
I had also worked with new material so I could precoat the blocks with bonding material.
I tried to get Nova chem. excited about the project but you know how large companies are. Unfortunately I was not born with a silver spoon and have had some large financial set backs (two house fires) so.
|
|
Add Photo
Bookmarks: |
|
|
|