International Lumber Prices

sk8park

Hi I am wondering if anyone may know of a resource or web site where you can find retail lumber prices in foreign countries? I am specifically looking for prices in Romania at the moment. We are a skatepark construction company and are looking to branch out internationally. Finding prices/suppliers in other countries has been a bit of a stumbling block in our bidding process. I know it's a pretty random question but any help would be hugely appreciated.

concretemasonry

Good luck on finding reasonably accurate prices. They are all over the map becuase of local laws and demands.

Because lumber is not as commonly used in the rest of the developed world compared to the U.S., there are difference because of the volumes used. Also, because cutting lumber is frowned on in many countries, there are taxes (cutting, use, import) that can apply to all lumber.

Romania, for example uses lumber for residential construction only in rural, relatively undeveloped areas. You can go 60 to 90 km out of a city and still find only masonry or gas concrete used in single family homes. In any reasonably sized city it is nor used in housing because of tradition, security, thermal properties and durability.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

sk8park

Thanks, that is why it important for use to be able to get accurate quotes. We did one where the lumber ended up twice what we quoted, it doesn't really matter how expensive it is, as that is relative to the country and is passed on to the customer, it is getting the accurate price that is a pain.

I may even start pricing parks in foreign countries to include shipping and just use lumber from here. It is also hard to know what each country uses in place of the lumber we do. For instance grades of plywood and what would be comparable to kd or pt.

Oh and don't even get me started on the metric system.

It's profitable though, and fun to travel and get paid for it.

cleveman

I found years ago that Romania had, surprisingly enough, a very well organized system of chambers of commerce. These were throughout the country, organized by district (many districts). They would place advertisements for trade partners, etc. in their newsletters. These are probably all on line now. Try googling romanian chambers of commerce and if you can't get anywhere, try the US foreign commercial service in Bucharest, to give you some contacts.

I saw some OSB at a Baumarkt in Istanbul which was produced in Bulgaria.

That's another idea, does Baumarkt have stores in Romania yet? I think they have 2 in Istanbul and OBI is active there as well. I visited one OBI in Ankara.

There is also some wood trade show called Ligna or LIGNUM or something like that. You could get a list of exhibitors from the last show and probably one of them would be a plywood supplier from somewhere close to Romania. If not, find a plywood manufacturing equipment maker, and ask him what plants exist in Romania.

By hook or by crook.

sk8park

cleveman, that was a very helpful post. Thanks a ton.

Bone Saw

sk8park, cool trade, got a website or pix, welcome, looking forward to your insight

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Geez and I was starting to think that decks were a luxury in this new economy.

Ironically, I was contacted to build a 16x30 halfpipe a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, someone built it for less than $12,000 or halfpipes really are luxuries. I never heard back from them.

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