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Comment by mothsonasloth | Hacker News Reader

When can I see a slump in the UK when I go to Jewsons/Travis Perkins/B&Q?

I just checked the price of a sheet of OSB, or a piece of CLS and its still bloody high.

I paid £18 in 2018 for a 1.2 x 2.4 18mm OSB sheet, now its £35...

Not in a while. We don't manufacture sheet goods here, everything is imported. Loads from Europe, loads from China, loads from Russia, so I don't see how the supply can improve in the near future.

British Gypsum (owned by Saint-Gobain, also owner of Jewson) brought some plasterboard manufacturing back onshore, previously they were all imported from Germany, after Brexit. The UK made plasterboards are inferior, very crumbly , don't break cleanly, and they cost more. And that's for something we already have existing manufacturing capacity here. For something 100% imported like sheet goods there's even less chance prices will drop, barring a off-the cliff drop in demand. Importing more from NA won't help much given the weak pound.

Not long back trades ppl had been stockpiling and passed the increased cost onto customer, reaping the profit. When you see plumbers and sparks loading up their vans with plywood you know the market is broken.

I stopped tracking the increases in my plywood costs here in London once they'd breached 250% over a two year or so period, starting somewhere around the beginnings of Covid (so, not entirely wedded to lockdown issues, if memory serves).

I'll welcome price decreases, but it did make me seek out a new, better supplier so hopefully 'worth it' in the end (I pass on all material costs to clients, so as long as I explain the cost increases, it doesn't really affect me.. it is galling though).

My understanding is that it can take on the order of weeks to months for prices at the yard to be reflected at retail.

If nothing else, the time it takes to turn over some fraction of the inventory that was bought when wholesale prices were high.

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