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Decked Out
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building products ranging from pressure-treated lumber to cedar, exotic woods or composite materials. The platforms themselves can be enhanced with railings, pergolas and accent lights. Even traditional deck screws face competition from hidden fastening systems like those offered by TigerClaw or Trex. Interest in one product or the next can be fed by surprising sources. Pergolas are now “hotter than pistols,” notes Dan Griffiths,
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director of North American sales for Fraserview Cedar Products in Surrey, BC. He credits media reports about the dangers of skin cancer, which are driving customers to look for sources of shade. “Second-growth and third-growth trees are not conducive to pergolas,” he adds. “Large logs with slow-growth characteristics, specifically tight grains, are the desired products.” Even as new building materials emerge, he suggests that most
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are looking to imitate the look of cedar, whether it is through a stain or a man-made texture. “But they can never exude the warmth and beauty.” The related prices may be a challenge for some buyers. Cedar supplies on the west coast were restricted in late 2012, and he expects that to continue during the first half of 2013. “Buying is feverish and prices have gone up 15 to 20 percent,” he said during an interview in early January. “The
U.S. economy is getting dramatically better by the day, so there is increasing demand. [But] there has also been less-appropriate, or fewer appropriate trees, coming out of the mountains.” A dramatic increase in the demand for coastal western hemlock is partly to blame, as export markets look for alternatives to beetle-infected spruce supplies. Hemlock’s price per board foot has more than doubled in recent years, and that is attracting a
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13-02-13 2:54 PM