Price of OSB

JDgreen227 · May 14, 2013

Just skipped through the latest Home Depot sale insert, and the price they are selling a 7/16" 4'X8' sheet of OSB for is $14.55....Has been a long time since I have purchased any, and I dug out my 2002 material sheets that were a quote for building my addition. My price was $6.19 a sheet DELIVERED. More than double what it cost me 11 years ago, and as far as I know there have been no recent hurricanes to jack the price up...:laughing:

Back in about 1993, my brother anbd I were talking about buying a thousand sheets of it at $4 each and storing it until there was a big storm coming down south, then renting a U-Haul and driving down to make a killing selling it for $12 a sheet....needless to say our big plan never happened.

powerpace · May 14, 2013

JDgreen227 said:
Just skipped through the latest Home Depot sale insert, and the price they are selling a 7/16" 4'X8' sheet of OSB for is $14.55....Has been a long time since I have purchased any, and I dug out my 2002 material sheets that were a quote for building my addition. My price was $6.19 a sheet DELIVERED. More than double what it cost me 11 years ago, and as far as I know there have been no recent hurricanes to jack the price up...:laughing:

Back in about 1993, my brother anbd I were talking about buying a thousand sheets of it at $4 each and storing it until there was a big storm coming down south, then renting a U-Haul and driving down to make a killing selling it for $12 a sheet....needless to say our big plan never happened.

The producers of building materials also anticipate the need for immediate need circumstances. Roseburg Forest Products has in the past loaded railcars with plywood, lumber and other building needs in anticipation of disasters.

A big part of the problem with prices (at least in the Northwest) is hardly any public forest timber sales since the mid 90's. Roseburg, Oregon was once called the "Timber Capitol" of the United States. Now often as not they are shipping logs in from outside Oregon.

charlz · May 14, 2013

OSB prices seem to vary quite a bit depending on what the building market is doing. At that price the market must be doing pretty good.

powerpace · May 14, 2013

Housing starts are up and so are the house prices.

belliott · May 14, 2013

The OSB market seems more volatile than the oil market. The next time I catch it around 5-7 bucks a sheet I'm going to buy a 50 sheet stack and stick it in the shop.

rtimgray · May 15, 2013

I heard that the Department of Homeland Security was buying it all up to build boxes to store all of its ammunition in.

Why do I keep seeing these dang black helicopters flying around my house....?

Ken45101 · May 15, 2013

rtimgray said:
I heard that the Department of Homeland Security was buying it all up to build boxes to store all of its ammunition in.

Seems like a reasonable explanation but Homeland would be buying 3/4" grade A marine plywood (e.g. "gold plated") instead of OSB :laughing: Well maybe with "sequestering" they are down to buying OSB ;-)

LD1 · May 15, 2013

I bought probably 150 sheets when doing my pole barn 2-3 years ago. $4.76/sheet. But I too have notices quite a fluctuation of OSB prices

cletus99 · May 15, 2013

rtimgray said:
I heard that the Department of Homeland Security was buying it all up to build boxes to store all of its ammunition in.

Why do I keep seeing these dang black helicopters flying around my house....?

I work for a Defense storage depot and we have a box shop that builds boxes for the storage of equipment, including weapons. OSB is never used. There are packaging and storage regulations that require certain materials to be used in storage and it’s always some type of plywood, 2x4’s, 1x6’s, or something like that.