Red Hot Redwood

"The redwood business has picked up a lot. lt picked up on uppers about six months ago, Recently some ol the lower grades have slarted to move. lt's lhe old supply and demand thing; production is down, many mills are low or out of logs, so they switched over to Doug fir. With all that good weather, we had a big, big month in December, and normally business is tailing ofl by the middle of November, lt should go pretty strong for the next few m0nths."

wood deck contest, co-sponsored by Today's Homeowner magazine (one million circulation). Dealers can cash in on the deck building excitement this will create by displaying free entry blanks and banners.

CRA's web site at www.calredwood.org is also a great sales aid. The site contains sections for consumers, specifiers, dealers and resource information. It has been

Redwood is the

nation's fastest growing commercial softwood.

drawing substantial traffic, approximately 300 visitors per day who look at an average of five pages per visit.

CRA is also continuously creating, updating and refining its library of almost 50 booklets, videos and other sales support materials. In progress is a series of six new construction tip sheets showing simple plans for projects such as decks, trellises, gazebos, benches and planters. These inexpensive pieces make great point-of-purchase giveaways. Also in the works for 1999 are a series of new ad slicks-simple drawings and headlines that are useful for dealer ads and brochures.

'The redwood market is very good. I think the reason is because of Eel River and G-P being off redwood until after the first ol the year. It's also a better redwood market because of better than expected weather, so people are using more product than in the past. Prices are very high. I think it will last through March, probably through April."

"The supply of upper iiems, old growth, is very limited. Second growth, sidings, rustic grades are available and demand has increased slightly, but pretty well along same proportion as everything else.'

-Decking items are still very strong, as a result of the strong local market. People down here (Southern California) having been using redwood for a long time and it's difficult to get them lo switch. We tried stocking composites, treated 2x6, even even a beautiful cedar decking product, bui they didn't move, They want redrrrlood because of their familiarity with it, especially upper grades, the B gradeg, which are getting difficult to find. So the price keeps edging up, but customers are willing to pay it. They srant it and they want it now.o