Lumber Prices

Stuart Ablett

Member
Messages
15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
OK, I think I can make most of you feel pretty good about your lumber prices :D

I went to my lumber wholesaler today, I picked up four boards of Canadian Hard Maple, or Sugar Maple as it is sometimes called.

2 @ 5/4 8" wide by 9' long
1 @ 5/4 9" wide by 10' long
1 @ 5/4 10" wide by 10' long

I think that is about 34 1/2 board feet, by my calculations, I paid about 23,000 yen 667 yen a board foot, that is $6.75 US a board foot.

Just trying to make everyone's day a little brighter.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not upset by this price, I think it is a good price for Hard Maple in the rough here in Tokyo, the boards are all nice and straight, I got to pick through the pile, and I had a nice chat with the guy who runs the place and his father, a sit down with a cup of tea and a good chin wag.

Life in the big city :D

Oh, and I found that they they have Southern Yellow Pine, so one day when I make another workbench, I know what I'll be making it out of!

Cheers!
 
hard maple runs around 3.5o us dollars here in NY lumber yards. wide boards, over 6 inches, usually run 10-15% higher
(the walnut near me runs 6.80 a bf for narrow boards)

I would imagine that your prices Allen, are fairly high compared to other places around the country?

Here I don't pay any more for wide boards.

Cheers!
 
Given where you are I would say that's an excellent price. In Stouffville Ontario the price for 5/4" hard maple is $5.50 CDN. But out Eastern Ontario it gets to $3.74 for select under 50bft and thru to $2.53 for 250bft or more with a break in between at 50 or more.

So even in a location where its in abundance its very variable.
 
Not a bad price for your locale I think. Nice to get to know the purveyor and find a SYP source to boot ;-) Last hard maple I picked up for cutting boards was just under $3/bf. The price jump for "wide" at my yard is once you hit 9".
 
I would imagine that your prices Allen, are fairly high compared to other places around the country?

Here I don't pay any more for wide boards.

Cheers!

Ive shopped in 4-5 different states for lumber.

Lumber yards don't vary that much from state to state. Some yards have boatloads of one or two species, so maybe they are 50 cents to 1.25 a bf cheaper on that one species, but most places seem to be within a dollar on all species.
I do better with private (sawyers) or small family run yards that only supply a few different species.
A yard will always do better if I purchase by the 100 bf. better price for 200 bf, and even better for 300 bf, but that's difficult since I cant store that much anymore.
And it makes sense, yards that are in very rural areas, where land is inexpensive, local taxes are low, can charge lower prices as their overhead is just that much less.(I ran a pharmacy in an outer borough of NYC. My good friend had a store in the center of Manhattan.
His rent was 4 times my rent, and his store was half the size. ON some items, he charged almost double what I charged and he got it, always amazed me, but people pay for convenience, as I sometimes do, not willing to travel 4 hours to save 75 dollars on 50 bf of lumber)
Problem is, if one doesn't live in a rural area, theres a lot of travel involved.

There are no more local lumber yards near me(yards that deal with rough lumber and sell by bf) on long island.
they have all shut their doors due to high taxes and ridiculous rents.
 
Last edited:
Top