Belletetes in Jaffrey is among the region’s lumber retailers dealing with skyrocketing materials prices.

Ken Hamshaw, president of Keene-based Hamshaw Lumber, will have more outlets under his management.

Belletetes in Jaffrey is among the region’s lumber retailers dealing with skyrocketing materials prices.

Ken Hamshaw, president of Keene-based Hamshaw Lumber, will have more outlets under his management.

Brad Davis, owner of Davis Construction in Peterborough, said his company is the busiest it’s ever been.

With 15 to 20 jobs either already in the works or lined up for later this year, Davis said he is already scheduling projects into 2022. While many business sectors have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, one that has not slowed down at all is the construction industry. In fact it’s gotten even busier with more people at home and looking for upgrades.

“We didn’t skip a beat,” Davis said. “We haven’t missed a day, never shut down.”

Despite soaring costs for materials and shortages in the supply chain, construction jobs are forging ahead. But it’s a different world in terms of operation for both the builders and companies that supply the materials locally.

Doug Hamshaw, owner of Hamshaw Lumber in Keene, said his business is seeing unprecedented demand for building supplies.

“This is the highest demand that we’ve ever seen in the industry, and I’ve been at it for 42 years,” he said. “What that means is during the beginning of COVID, the mills all pulled back on production. And then within a few weeks, they realized that wasn’t the thing to do, but they’d already lost quite a bit of production. ... They have been trying to catch up ever since.”

As a result, Hamshaw said, lumber mills are charging more for their products to businesses like his.

“So that’s where the price problem is, at the mills,” he said. “And they have operated on the formula that when demand goes up, they raise the price, and when demand goes down, they lower the price.”

Mike Shea, president and CEO of Belletetes, the building supply company with nine locations including in Jaffrey and Peterborough, said the rising costs for materials has been a concern for some time.

“As a matter of fact, it’s gotten worse,” Shea said.

He said because of the constant changes in the market, they can very rarely hold prices for more than a week.

Shea said there are so many products that are seeing shortages. Anything with resin — vinyl windows, PVC boards, plumbing pipes and electrical conduits — are tough to get, let alone keep in stock.

“It’s still very challenging to make sure everybody has the materials they want when they need them,” Shea said, adding that demand is high across the board.

Other materials affected are things like siding, foam insulation, exterior doors, as well as lumber and composite materials like decking.

“(Contractors) definitely need to plan in advance for specialty order items,” Shea said.

From a lumber perspective, Hamshaw said it makes sense for mills to stop making specialty products such as stockade fencing panels, which require more work than standard 2x4s that are selling just as quickly.

“So why stop the presses to make a specialty product?” Hamshaw said, noting that his lumber shop had never been out of stockade fencing for 40 years before the current surge in demand.

Davis equates the shortages in certain materials to the empty toilet paper shelves in stores across the country in March of 2020.

“There’s a scramble to get stuff,” he said. “And it has been extremely stressful. You’re juggling many more balls in addition to being busier than we’ve ever been.”

He said previously he could order windows and have them in two weeks. Now it’s more like five or six. Siding is now a month and a half wait.

“It’s because the inventory has been depleted at the corporate level,” he said.

Antrim Lumber owner David Boule said his company has been crazy busy since last March and even more so now with the spring project season unfolding. And it has been difficult trying to serve customers on many fronts.

“Everybody’s pretty understanding,” Boule said.

He said sometimes he has to call two or three places just to see if he can find certain materials.

“Last year pressure treated was impossible to get; this year it’s not as bad,” Boule said. But it comes at a premium cost that is constantly changing.

“You definitely don’t extend quotes out more than a couple days,” he said. Some products have more than doubled in cost and certain suppliers say they can’t hold a price more than two days.

One thing Boule runs into is having the amount of storage to build up his inventory.

“I tell them if they want to buy it, they’ve got to take it,” he said.

Dan Fougere, owner of Fougere Homes in Rindge, said it all comes down to planning when thinking about jobs coming up.

“It’s knowing what you can get and can’t get,” Fougere said.

Fougere said he tries to stay at least 30 days ahead in the planning process.

Due to the lack of inventory, prices have steadily increased over the past year and so far there is no indication that will change in the foreseeable future.

Fougere said in March of 2020 he could get one flooring product for $32 a sheet — currently it’s $67. He is constantly looking at prices and stocking up when he can.

“I have not seen anything go down in the last year and a half to two years,” Fougere said.

Some plans have been altered and redesigned due to certain products being unavailable, most notably windows. “You make due with what you get,” he said.

Fougere said he has four new homes already in the works for 2021, including two in Jaffrey.

Not only does Fougere have to worry about rising costs, but there’s the whole aspect of permitting and road weight limit restrictions to consider this time of year.

“You’ve got to time all of it,” he said.

From what Shea has seen, contractors are still getting the go ahead from customers.

“I think people are just anxious to move forward,” Shea said. “In spite of rising lumber and building material prices, people are electing to go ahead.”

In the past, Hamshaw said, construction projects typically would pause when material prices skyrocketed. But now, many people have saved up over the past year, and don’t mind paying more to complete construction projects quickly, he added.

“[Typically] they wait it out until things come back to earth on pricing,” Hamshaw said. “This time around, that’s not happening. Every project we know of is going ahead with much higher building material costs.”

And the shortages and rising prices are coming at an inopportune time.

“Coming out of winter, especially when road bans are lifted, we see a seasonal uptick in business,” Shea said. “So it’s been very difficult.”

Despite the rising costs of projects and shifted time lines due to product availability, Davis said all of his customers are still moving ahead. Some projects have been scaled back or adjusted to what materials are available, but “nobody’s canceled on us,” he said.

Davis said he has a couple new constructions in Francestown that are nearing completion and three other foundations already poured. There are also additions on the schedule, as well as kitchen renovations in partnership with his wife Renee’s Union Street Kitchens side of the company.

Boule said he talks to contractors and builders all the time in order to get a picture of what to expect.

“They’re telling me their phones are ringing more than ever,” Boule said.

For the first time ever, Davis has been putting escalator clauses in his contracts. It’s a necessary part of the process now, considering over the last year it has been hard to predict what materials will cost when a job comes up that was planned months prior.

“It’s not uncommon to see a 5 to 10 percent increase in costs,” Davis said. He will cover up to 5 percent of the increase, but when materials for jobs are doubled in cost, that is not an expense he can cover.

“That can put companies like me out of business,” Davis said.

Fougere said when he signs a contract, he’s locked into that price. So he carefully looks at his proposals and anticipates what the materials and labor will be.

“Because if you get an increase, it’s coming out of your pocket,” he said. “You can get caught very easily if you’re not planning.”

Boule said all of the changes added up has altered what was usually the typical way of doing business.

“You could give someone a price in the spring for a summer project and they’d come in and it would be the same,” he said. “That’s no longer the case.”

Shea said that the pandemic caused a host of issues for manufacturers, and the increased demand only exacerbated the shortages.

He said because of the need to make more materials, facilities have been working essentially nonstop and it has led to some issues when it comes to maintenance and breakdowns.

Davis said inevitably there has to be a change.

“Something has to happen with building costs as far as materials go,” he said. “It’s not sustainable.”

Right now, he said forget about finding lots because land is being scooped up, likely due to the fact that so many houses have been sold in the last year, causing a shortage of available purchases in the area.

“It’s like a boom at the worst possible time,” Davis said.

Fougere said in his opinion for pricing on materials to come down, interest rates have to go back up.

“Everybody’s talking about when it’s going to pop,” he said. And really, it’s his customers that bear the brunt of it all.

“The consumer at the end of the day is getting the increase,” Fougere said.

Shea called it all a perfect storm. Increased demand, rising prices, lack of availability have all led to what is being experienced currently. He also added that a huge trucking shortage is also a piece of the puzzle.

“For every four trucks that need shipping, there’s one truck available,” he said. “Very rarely does something show up when it’s supposed to.”

Boule said it’s all about weathering the storm at this point when it comes to cost and availability.

“I don’t see it going down anytime soon,” he said. “It all depends on the housing market, but I don’t see it changing — at least not this year.”

(Sentinel staff writer Jack Rooney contributed to this report.)

This article is being shared by a partner in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

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