Engineered Wood Products - The Saga
Engineered wood floor joists are making a run for the Most Difficult Product To Source award in 2022. What we've experienced over the past 18 months was an aggressive run up in price (+50%), extended lead times from the EWP mills, very little inventory at distribution centers and worse, inventory allocation from all suppliers to their dealers.
Why so hard to get floor joists? Mostly has to do with the OSB webbing that sits between the two flanges. Due to demand, OSB mills have favored producing the more profitable 4x8 sheets over the long and narrow OSB webs. 4x8 OSB sheets are like lumber gold - they're easy to bundle up into units, fill out tractor trailers and train cars efficiently and ship all over the country. OSB webs have taken a backseat to sheetgoods.
As a result, it is now more expensive and is taking a lot longer to produce floor joists. EWP distributors have put dealers across the country on allocation to ensure every dealer gets a fair shot at some material. Every dealer (like yours truly) is only allowed to buy so many floor joists each month before we're cut off.
Builder customers have felt the heat and the supply chain difficulty has slowed projects down and forced some builders to use different brands of floor joists on their projects.