Lumber and Contractors and Murder Hornets! With special Guest Eric G.

This is episode number 150 of The Homeowner's Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. I'm Greg Williams, and I'm all alone in the studio, so it's gonna be a little chaotic tonight, but so glad that you could join us. If this is your first time listening Or watching even on the Facebooks, smash the like button, hit the share button, do all the things so that you never ever miss another episode of the Homeowner Show. So I'm gonna go ahead and get right into it. Oh, look at that! I even did the bumpity bumps. Turned them off. Look at that multitasking in the studio. Craig's gonna make it happen. All right. So I'm gonna get right into it tonight because we have one

of our favorite guests, our good friend Eric G from around. the house. Let me go ahead and bring this up. There we are. Eric, how you doing, my man?

Good, brother. You're doing it. You're flying the ship by yourself. I love it.

Who needs Kevin? Nobody needs Kevin.

Kevin who?

Kevin who? That's right. So, I'm even gonna try and share some stuff on Facebook while I'm talking to you, bud. What's, what's been going on?

Everything's been going on. We've been having a blast. You know, we added Caroline Blazowski, America's Healthy Home Expert. So we have added that to the show. So now we call it Around the House with Eric G and Caroline B. So we're having a blast over there.

Dude, I've been having such a good time listening to you guys. I mean, like, it's—

Thanks, man.

Yeah, it's been a really great— I mean, like, and we don't want to take credit for it. I mean, because you guys have both been on the show, we don't want to feel like, you know, we caused it to happen, but we want to feel like we played a little bit of a part. We were around for the birth of this partnership. That's been incredible.

Yeah. You know, her and I have been friends for a number of years, and we've actually— she's been on my show before, probably 4 or 5 times. But, yeah, you have watched this kind of come together from the beginning, and when we started talking about it, and all of a sudden, we're doing it, and I'm actually having a blast with it. We have really Got a great partnership with the show, and it's created a lot of good information for people as well.

Yeah, and we don't, we don't want to spoil too much because, I mean, both of you guys are going to be coming back on the show, I think, at the end of August. Caroline and I just got done knocking out the calendar, so we want to, we want to savor some of that, leave some of that for people to come back for because she really adds a whole other element to the program.

She does. She does. I mean, she's a 20-year expert in her field of healthy homes and remodeling and construction. And so, she brings a whole other flavor. That's probably one of my weaker points. If you listen to our last few episodes, I've made a few healthy home mistakes, and it was a good laugh for everyone.

Are these mistakes that you made on your house?

Oh, I mean, it was like the can of brake clean that was in the garage. And that was an error that I made of having all those crazy chemicals. And of course, I didn't have my glasses on like I do right now. Usually I'm running around like this, and I can actually read.

See what's going on.

So I was reading the chemicals wrong off it, and she called me out, and deservedly so. So yeah, I made a couple technical errors there. One of them, I think I was calling this brake clean a— I think it was more like an antibiotic. So I had the chemicals all mixed up on that one.

Ooh. Yeah, you got— I mean, like, I think this is actually a mistake most people make, and we'll probably bring this up when she's on, but I'm like, people store chemicals poorly. Oh, just in general.

Yeah, I, I generally do, and I'm working on it, you know. So it's one of those things that I've got to, uh, do some serious shed cleaning so I can get it out of the garage, which is still technically connected to the house.

Well, I— this— it's actually a pet peeve of mine, you know, because I— as I'm wandering around the, you know, the, the neighborhoods that I'm in, I constantly see my competition, and like the way in which they store chemicals just on their truck is you know, it's not good. Let me just put it that way. I don't want to call anybody out, but it is not good.

Yeah, it's never good when you see that stuff out like that.

Yeah. So, all right, so I, I got a, I got a little story for you, Eric, and this is, this is going to lead into what we're going to— because we're talking lumber today, right? I was, I was listening to your show and, and you had some really good stuff to say about lumber. And so I wanted, I wanted to share with you one of the things that I've always wanted And I think I've talked to you about this before, that we have the really weird deck out here by the pool where it's like an indoor pool, but it's kind of outdoors, but it's covered. And then there's like the stage and the bar. You would dig it, man. You

need to come play bass sometime.

Nice.

And so I've always wanted a really long table for like friends and family to gather around. And so I finally, I finally, you know, being, you know, the smart guy that I am, I decided that when lumber prices are almost at their peak is that that's when I want to do this. And I'm not like a master carpenter or anything, but I know how to use a miter saw. So I decided to build a 10-foot table.

Okay.

And rather than do like a really smooth, finished tabletop, I decided to use dog ear fence panels. A fence. Yeah, fence pieces, cedar fence pieces that I can, you know, I'm gonna sand them down and put a different finish on them. But like, it— for a—

That's a little thin for a tabletop, I'll tell you.

I put a nice frame underneath it. It's all framed up with 2x4s underneath that, and it's braced, you know, every so often like it's supposed to be. But like, I was really surprised at how well it's turning out. I've got a pic I'll send you after the show, but like Honestly, the choice was a price choice. Like, because I was able to build this table for less than $100.

Nice.

And part of that was because I had an older table that I took the legs off of to use. So I didn't have to—

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and the tabletop on that was crap. So I just, you know, I was like, let's repurpose. And so, like, but with all these materials, and honestly, the most expensive part was the 10-foot 2x4s. Like, less than $100 to build this table.

Nice. And I, you know, well, you saw which direction I went on my bar outside. You saw my pictures.

Oh yeah, man. What was, what was the material?

An 8-foot by 8-foot L-shaped bar out there.

Yeah. So, and, and I, I think, I think that's something that we're gonna start seeing more and more of, is, is people getting creative with the ways in which they're going to use lumber You know, I'm, I'm really surprised at this point we haven't seen like a resurgence of the whole pallet crafting.

Uh, uh, I'm seeing some of that. I'm, I'm seeing a lot of that on some of those DIY groups out there. And, uh, you know, there's nothing smarter than taking something that has handled all sorts of hazardous materials, chemicals, has been on every warehouse floor with everything hazardous across the country, and making something you're going to eat out of it. Just saying.

You know, just put some epoxy on it, it'll be fine.

Yeah, we'll put some more chemicals and hold them in there. That's awesome. See, Caroline's brushing off on me now.

That's right, that's right. So is she— I'm interested to bring this up with her now— is she not a fan of the epoxy?

You know, I'm not a fan of the epoxy for 2 reasons actually, and I I haven't specifically asked her about this so much, but the problem with epoxy is it stains really easily. So you might spill some rum or some wine on it, and it can soak into that epoxy. So it's not a non-porous surface from— it'll stain. The other problem is UV tends to tear it up.

Okay, yeah. So if it's an outdoor table, it's probably—

So that's the other problem around it too.

Yeah. So did you— and like, you're not hurting my feelings if the answer is no— did you hear our episode on garage floors?

Uh, I heard some of it. Yeah, it was good. I like garage floor stuff. That's a, that's a good discussion. Yeah, yeah.

And so they, they were talking about how they're not really using epoxy anymore, and I for— I forget the name of the, the, the product that they're using because they said it's harder, it bonds to the concrete better.

I think it's more of a urethane they're using, actually.

It's, it's, it's a, it's a type of urethane, but there's like a particular name for it. I'm, I've actually got their card right here. Let me see if I have it. I don't know if I do. Let's see here. No, no, it's just Garage Kings. And whatever it is that Garage Kings is using apparently is just a, a more durable product. And but anyway, they said basically it had one— it had kryptonite, and its kryptonite is yellow mustard.

What? Yeah, so I can't take my ham sandwich out there? Get out! If I got yellow mustard as a kryptonite, that's not good.

Well, so like, we— I told, I told Kevin, like, if he ever got one, I was just going to like randomly hide like like bottles of mustard in his garage.

I think we throw mustard packets across there.

I don't like the fast food. Yes, just underneath the tires.

Creeper, anything like that, you know, just squeeze some and no!

I like the way we could— we could together, we could be an evil genius, Eric. I'm game. But we also kind of figured like this, this would actually be like a good test because like Let's be honest, like yellow mustard is like at the bottom of the rung of the mustards. I mean, and so you know if you're using yellow mustard, like maybe maybe we shouldn't be friends. I don't I don't know.

I mean, like you know because I'm I like I like good old yellow mustard. I can put that on a hot dog and fries and I'm good.

I mean, I'll eat it. I'm just saying. But like if I had the choice between like stone ground Dijon and yellow mustard, you know.

Ah, you like to grab Poupon. I do.

I like the Poupon.

So, okay, but yeah, I'm a little more old school. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a mustard on my hot dog, and, uh, if you put ketchup on it, I pull your man card.

You would be pulling lots of man cards in Texas. I wouldn't recommend it. It's open carry down there.

I know, but ketchup on a hot dog, seriously, ketchup on a hot dog is something that is meant for someone under the age of 16.

Sorry.

That's fair.

That's fair. So, do you consider chili a kind of ketchup, or is that okay?

That's okay. That's another meat group on it. You can add more meat to anything.

Okay. Yeah, because I mean, like, if you took away my chili and like my raw onions, I'm not gonna be happy.

No, no, no. Raw onions. You know, so I'll give you a story. When my band was playing in Seattle, we'd get out of the club in Pioneer Square down there, and this was in the '90s, and there was always a guy out there with a little hot dog cart, but it wasn't your typical hot dog cart. So he had a little flat-top griddle on it. So he would cut that hot dog and fry it up flat. So he'd cut it down the middle.

Nice.

And then he would grill up onions and he'd put it on a, like, an outdoor, you know, nice bun, hot dog bun. And he'd put it on there and he'd put cream cheese and grilled onions, and it was the best dang thing ever. That's called what they call Seattle dog.

Cream cheese is underrated, man. It really is. Like, you can, you can pretty much take— make anything taste good with cream cheese, I think. Oh yeah, I put that on a dog and, uh, it's killer. Now, I don't like it by itself, like, on anything other than just a bagel. Like, otherwise, I'm, you know, if it's cream cheese, I'm like, I don't, I don't want it. But like, when you mix it in with the stuff and you heat it up a little bit, man, it's, it's so good.

Yeah, and at 2 o'clock in the morning after you get paid from the club you just played, it's even better.

Especially if you got paid.

Everything's good at 2 o'clock.

Well, and let's say this, like, I'm also gonna, you know, put this opinion out there. Like, if you are not toasting the bun, you're missing out on life. Like, yeah, I can't— like, I don't understand people that steam them and then make the bread kind of mushy and soft. And I want some crisp to my bun, you know. I want the outside a little soft, but I want some crisp on the inside.

A little bit of char on that is a good thing.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that. All right, so I'm gonna circle this back around because you were talking about your I was actually thinking about you the other day because I saw an outdoor cooking countertop that I had not seen before, and it was like a 3.5-inch thick concrete bar, and this thing was 20 by 10 outside.

Nice.

And it was, it was so massive. I was like, I mean, I can't imagine what that cost to have that thing poured because he had like a rough edge put on it so it looked like natural rock. Um, but then in the middle of it, he had installed, uh, one of those hibachi flat tops and then a regular grill next to that. So it was all natural gas. And but then you could seat probably like almost 15 people around it. Um, it was just like, again, this is, this is one of those things I think we're going to start seeing more of where like people are like, well, you know, wood's so expensive, I might as well go

with concrete because at least it'll last forever. And I, you know, I'm going to pay the same amount So let's do this thing.

See, I did DuPont Corian Endura, which is a slab porcelain countertop, is what I did. Because I love concrete, I think it's awesome.

Yeah.

Maintenance, and especially in a barbecue area that is like an outdoor kitchen, is tough. Because think about the driveway or your garage floor when you spill some oil on it. And maybe it's oil from a burger or whatever else. that is soaking into that concrete unless you're doing a heck of a job of sealing it. So for me, I wanted to have something that I could just destroy and grab a damp rag and clean it up. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, I, I— well, this— and I had to ask if it was concrete because it had some sort of a finish on it. It was, it was like a stained kind of a concrete. I don't know, I don't know what it was or how easy it was to clean because it definitely wasn't smooth. Um, it kind of— it had some texture to it, so I don't, I don't know Uh, one, I don't know how long it had been there, but I could tell you that that hibachi looked like it had seen better days. So it had to have—

Yeah, they're using it. It's okay.

Yeah, yeah. I just don't want any rust on my, my Japanese food. That's— maybe that's just a personal preference.

Um, yeah, I don't need that extra iron.

Yeah. So, but anyway, let's, let's talk lumber, man, because I mean, this is, this is a hot topic right now, and people are starting to say that the prices are coming down. Um, so are they— are you seeing prices come down where you're at?

So there's 2 different pricing levels. Let's break this down. There's the lumber future prices, which drives what I would call— if I'm going to dumb this down a little bit, because I'm not going to get in the weeds because the weeds is boring.

Sure.

But if you think about lumber future prices, that's kind of your whitewood and your sheet goods that you see at the lumberyard or your home center. We're not talking about your cedars, we're not getting into that, but we're talking your framing materials and maybe your plywood and your OSB. So if you think about lumber future prices like that, that is a good measure of where we're at, but it's futures. So that means you're probably 30 to 45 days out before you start to see that price show up on your shelf of your home center or lumberyard.

Right.

So normally for us across the country, we were in— and they, they measure it by the 1,000 board feet in round numbers. So if you think about 1,000 board feet of lumber, it used to be our normals were in that $225 to $350 range. In January, we're at $1,700. So the price had gone way up, but that's how we got to have $70 a sheet OSB for 7/16, 4x8 OSB is because that stuff had gone up into super ridiculous mode. I could go buy a 3/4-inch sheet of maple plywood that's cabinet grade, that's pre-finished, cheaper than I could go buy a sheet of 7/16 OSB. And that's just dumb.

Yeah, because it's, it's a lesser quality piece of wood.

Yeah, by a long shot. So if you look at where the numbers are today, for instance, It has been tanking over the last couple weeks. Today, we closed at $574.90. So, we've gone from— in 2 months, we've gone from $1,700 down to $574.90, and it lost $37 today. So, it's still continuing to drop.

Down about 3 times where it was at, almost. Correct.

Maybe—

well, actually, a little bit more. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's awesome. But you walk into Home Depot as an example, because they're the largest home center out there, and you're like, but it's still $66 a sheet.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, because they bought that lumber off of 2 months ago's future prices, which was $1,700. So right now, we've got to burn through that inventory that's in every lumberyard. every home center. And as they buy it, it's going to tank. So, I think 45 days or so, we should start to see that $66 a sheet be closer to $20 to $25 a sheet, or maybe $30 depending on where we're at.

Yeah. But if you're Home Depot and you're seeing this happen, I mean, like you said, I mean, they're the biggest commercial— not commercial, but retail lumber provider out there, right? I mean, can't they, can't they look at their suppliers and go like, guys, seriously, like, you want me to sell it at this price when everyone can watch what the price is doing right now? No one's going to buy it.

They don't care because they know they're going to sell that to anybody. So they're going to, you know—

You mean Home Depot doesn't care?

As you know, uh, no, the, the, the lumber, lumber mills don't care.

They've already cashed the check.

They've already cashed the check. Doesn't matter. Hey, that's the lumber price. Take it or leave it. If you're selling it at $66 a sheet and the corner lumberyard selling it for $30, guess where the contractor's gonna go buy it? They're not going to Home Depot.

No, no. So they're just waiting on all those other things.

And they know that. Exactly. Plus, to even incentivize this further, they know, they know that, that these builders are gonna go, oh cool, we can start building houses again. And just down the street goes Wow, you know that deck I was going to build? Let's take on that project. Or the person across the street goes, that 1,000-square-foot addition I was going to do for the house that I pushed off till next year? Wow, we're back in budget. Let's roll. So, they know they're going to sell out of material anyway. They're telling Home Depot to pound sand.

Well, you know, and if they can, good for them. I mean, because— well, and so, do we have a sense as to what was driving any of that? I mean, is it— I mean, because I don't know that we can look at this and go, this is purely COVID, or this is, you know, pandemic panic or whatever. But like, do we have any sense as to like some of the other variables that were causing some of this to happen?

So, we had— it was funny. It started out with people blaming tariffs between Canada and the US. But if I talk to my really good friends, that you see on social media, like my buddy Damon Bennett from Homes on Homes, or my buddy up there goes by the Canadian Carpenter, who's a huge framer up there in Canada. If you talk to those guys, they're like, man, I can't wait for the tariffs to drop so we can bring in lumber from the US to stop our shortage. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, we're hoping to open up the Canadian border to bring your lumber down. They're like, No, we got a shortage. So there wasn't this north-south thing with Canada.

We were both hurting at the same rate. So take that tariff thing off the table. That didn't really matter.

Right.

A lot of the problem we had is we were shipping a lot of logs and lumber over to Southeast Asia for building projects over there. So there was, there was a lot of stuff that was going overseas because I could sit here and watch mile-long chains of lumber going to the port to go on to to ships to go out of here. And it was all going into container ships going out, you know, loading up logs and stuff going overseas. And the other problem was—

So everyone knows, I mean, like, I mean, because you're up there in the Pacific Northwest, and from what I understand, that's like the main hub for lumber coming out of the US, particularly internationally, like what you're talking about, to Southeast Asia, right? Or really anywhere else outside of the US on that, on that side of the world. That, I mean, our, our lumber is good. They want it. It's manufactured well. So that, that's, that's one of the things we actually still manufacture. So like, we're still shipping it out.

So there was a ton of that going overseas. And then on top of that, we had COVID. Now, COVID is not what— that's not just because a bunch of guys in a, in a male and females were sitting there in a, in a, in a sawmill and half the people got sick and they shut it down. We had 2 things happen. We had some COVID going through mills, but the bigger problem was, is we had every single homeowner in the US going, oh man, my Disneyland vacation and my cruise and my trip to Hawaii is canceled. I got $7,000 in my pocket and I'm stuck in this freaking house I hate. I'm going to fix my house.

Yeah.

So everybody spent that money down project. And we didn't have the capacity, and we still don't have the capacity to deal with that. And it's a supply— when you're dealing with, with a commodity, supply and demand, guess what happens? Those numbers go through the roof. And that's exactly what happened.

Yeah. Well, and we, we couldn't expand our output either, could we?

No, because they've shut down. You know, here's the thing, like, in Oregon is a great example. I think it's 55 or 60% of the state of Oregon is federal land. We have no control over it whatsoever. So there's not— that's not logging company land, that's nothing. All that land isn't being generally harvested anymore. Those are just unfairly unmanaged forest grounds.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a lot less trees that can be for it, you know, that can be cut down and used for lumber. And then the sawmills have been— I mean, these sawmill towns now in the Northwest, many of them are ghost towns. I could drive by within 10 miles of my house, a dozen closed huge sawmills that just aren't producing lumber and they're just empty buildings.

Yeah. And there's nobody really willing to invest in those because, I mean, for a number of reasons, I would imagine.

Well, it's tough for a number of reasons. It's like how many, you know, if you wanted to— I compare it to fuel. You know, I think it's been, what, 30 years since we built a gasoline refinery in the US, or 40 years.

Yeah.

It's the same kind of thing. Those things just aren't being built right now. Now, there are new plants that are coming on across the country right now where they've expanded or added shifts and done that stuff. But we're still going to have a capacity problem for a number of years.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and so which, which brings me to something else I wanted to, to, to talk to you about is, and it, it could just be because, you know, like when you, when you really like a car and you're driving around and all you see is that car. I'm, I'm, I'm wondering if I'm having the same symptom right now with, with lumber because it's, it seems to me like I'm seeing a lot of boutique mills open up now. And it could be just that I'm looking for it, but it— I mean, like, it's, it's more than what I've perceived there to be in the past, where these, these guys are opening these boutique mills in order to get special cuts. And, you know,

whether it's rough cut, smooth cut, whatever, all these different kinds of lumber, the different, you know, you know, whether it's oak or pine or walnut or whatever it is, cedar, you know, like these boutique mills that will get you the lumber at the specifications that you want, but you're going to pay through the nose to get it, but that's because it's boutique. Are you seeing some of that pop up where you're at, or is it me just looking? Yeah.

I mean, it's just capitalism. If you think about it, here's the bad part of that. These lumber companies have made billions of dollars on the lumber future prices with the numbers being up there. The guys and the families that are the owners of the land that are being cut down, they're now part of, you know, they're selling the trees. They didn't get a penny more for those trees. So they didn't get to profit off that at all. So your lumber price is based on the log. Of course, that's the raw material. That didn't go up.

Yeah.

So those guys weren't getting much more money for that. That really didn't go up. So it's perfect for a boutique person to come in and go, Hey, I'm going to start my own little sawmill right here because I'm buying it for the same time and I'm going to make more profit than any time in our history based on what the prices are today.

Yeah. Yeah. So, and I'm also seeing, um, I was, I was watching a video earlier today of these, these guys that build, I think it was like wooden BMX ramps for like, they can do like jumps and stuff in the woods. They build like whole obstacle courses for these BMX guys. And they were talking about like, we can't not do this. It's our business. And it's like these guys come here expecting to see different ramps and different jumps. And so we constantly have to change the course. And they said like, but we're not willing to pay the price for this lumber. And so we're just going to start milling it ourselves. And so they—

Sure. Why not?

They just went out and invested in the equipment to cut down their own trees and mill their own timber. And I was like, that's—

Oh yeah.

Like, but like, I, at the— on one hand, I really appreciate that. Like, it's great American ingenuity at its best. Like, you know what, no one's gonna do it for me, I'm just gonna do it myself. The other side of that—

I used to take a product, I used to take a product for those ramps called Skate Lite, and I used to make that into countertops. So it's cool. So it's basically, you know, you see them, it looks like almost like a a particle board that's a fiberboard in there.

Yeah.

So we used to make— I used to take that and make countertop material out of it. Turned out awesome because it's meant to get absolutely abused.

Are you talking about the stuff that they actually make skateboards out of or the stuff that they make the ramps out of?

The ramps. So BMX ramps, skate ramps, all that stuff. It's cool. And there's, of course, different products out there. But, um, Skatelite's awesome. I use that for a ton of stuff. And so it was super cool.

Is it a, is it a wood laminate?

It's not really a laminate. It's almost like a, a heavy— if you think of a particle board, but it's so resin-filled, right?

Okay.

So the company, so the company that makes Skatelite is Richlite. And Richlite is also that composite countertop maker, so it's cool. It's an all-natural product, but it's almost like you have an epoxy and wood together as one piece.

Huh, very cool. So you would do like a full kitchen countertop, or are you doing like certain pieces, or?

Yeah, I do a full kitchen countertop out of that, and it kind of gets its own wood patina. It's pretty cool.

So would you still recommend, like if you had that, not to cut your vegetables directly on the countertop?

That's a wood product, you'd be fine, but you're going to ruin it because your knife is sharper than that. I never tell people to cut on a countertop because you're either going to ruin the countertop or you're going to ruin the knife or both.

Yep, yep. Or you're just going to be sharpening a lot.

Yeah.

Cool, man.

That's a cool little side project on that. Oh yeah.

Is that product still readily available? Yeah, it's distributed across—

Richlite is what the company is called. That's the main company. And they make it either in a, in a countertop or a skateboard park.

Okay. I mean, do you buy it by like the square foot, or how do you, how do you purchase it?

Uh, it's sheets. You cut it like wood. That's the beautiful part. You can actually cut and machine it like you do wood. So it's pretty cool. It's a great countertop material for that, and it holds up to water.

There you go. I like it.

So that's a good product for that.

You have to send me some pictures of some of those.

Circling back to lumber prices though, I think we're going to see a whole different problem coming into fall.

Yeah, what's that?

We're going to see now, and I talked about it in my Pro Insider special that I do, which is for the contractors and stuff out there, this is what's going to happen. We're going to see lumber prices drop down, you know, 2/3, let's say. We're going to see that happen, and then there's going to be this rush of everybody going, whoo, Happy that's over. Let's go buy toilet paper and hoard it.

Seriously.

And you're going to have every person starting— I mean, we've got what, a couple million homes shortages in the US as far as negative inventory that we need to get built up? So, if you look at where we are in homebuilding, we're way behind the game on homebuilding. Builders are going to be going, man, there is such a shortage. We're gonna start cranking homes. So we're gonna see this whole new material shortage, including lumber, going into 2021 and '22. Mark my words.

So when you, when you say that we're gonna see a material shortage, does that mean then that the prices are gonna spike again, or do you think they're gonna continue to go down? We're just gonna have a lack of inventory.

We're gonna have a lack of inventory. I think you're gonna see them stay down. I don't think we're going to get down to that $9 a sheet OSB and the $2 a 2x4 price for any time soon, but I think we're going to see it get down to maybe a third of our high point.

Right.

But I think what we're going to see is we're not going to just see it in lumber. We're going to see the Delta Brizo faucets be limited for the next year. You're going to see insulation shortages. You're going to see You know, if you talk to a heating and cooling contractor right now, they're having a hard time finding flex duct to keep in stock. That's going to continue all the way into 2022 and beyond.

Well, I mean, you know, I, I'm actually okay with there being a lack of flex duct because I'm, I'm singing the praises of mini splits everywhere I go.

Um, yeah, I was, but I just put in— in my house, I just put in— I was gonna go mini split, but I put in this, uh, Carrier Infinity system in my house, and I am so happy I didn't do mini splits in my house because I ended up with a much better product.

You know, and I think over a certain amount of square footage, that makes sense. I think—

I'm only 1,500 square feet.

Yeah, because, well, I mean, here's— I mean, this is just my opinion, but I think if you're under 1,000, I mean, to me, it's like, okay, like under 1,000, like I, and I see houses where they're doing like 3 2s out of 1,000 square feet, which is like, why? Like that, like, yeah, but like, so like if you're doing like a 2/1 and you got 1,000 square feet, I'm like, dude, put a couple of mini splits in there and just call it a day. You're gonna have a lot more room inside, um, that, that way. But I think anytime you creep over that, you know, like when you start creeping over 1,200 square feet, I'm like, yeah, let's, let's start looking at the traditional duct system, especially now that we have—

That's the only problem I have. The only problem I have with mini splits is they don't— they have not figured out how to come up with really good air filtration for them. That's, to me, the weak point.

Yeah, that's fair.

And for instance, I have a whole house system here in my house. I have a— it starts out, the air comes in out of my return, it goes into a UV filter, so it bakes anything out of the UV, and then the filter has a charcoal carbon filter in it, but it's negatively charged. So that now collects any of the stuff that was baked by the UV, and all of those particles are negatively charged and sucked into the filter.

Hmm.

Then it goes through my heating and cooling system, and then on the way out, I have an air scrubber that goes through and kills any other viruses and then actually spreads a, um, a hydrogen peroxide type particle throughout my house that kill any bacteria and, uh, and, uh, anything else, mold spores, you know, any of that stuff. And, uh, you just can't get that with a mini-split system.

No, no, definitely not. I mean, like, it's, it's, it's cold and hot air. That's pretty much what you're getting. So—

Exactly. So that's my take.

Yeah, no, I mean, like, it's, it's definitely not built for, uh, filtration. That's for sure. Um, although I have— I've, I've had mine cleaned a couple of times. I mean, it's like they do have— they do have filters on them.

Um, oh sure, no, they have to, they have to. I get it. But that was where I couldn't find one that had the filter that wanted to do the stuff that I wanted to do to keep the— to keep us have healthier air inside the home, because I have bad allergies. I wanted to make sure I had that right.

Oh yeah, but like, so real, real quick, if— I mean, like, if people buy a home and it has mini splits put on it, you can, you can add-on external filtration devices to, to help with some of that. It's not, it's not going to be as, as good as what you're talking about, that's for sure. But I mean, like, there's like, like what you guys just gave away on your show, right? I mean, like, that's a whole—

Oh yeah, that's a great room-sized, um, air purifier. Absolutely.

Yeah. So I mean, like, you, you could add something like that in conjunction with what's happening to make it a little bit cleaner. But like, no, you're not, you're not going to get an all-in-one system that— at least not yet. I would think, I mean, if anybody's gonna do it, it's probably gonna be Mitsubishi. I mean, they're the ones really innovating.

Yeah.

That stuff right now. So, but anyway, going, going, going back to the— so you're— what we're talking about is that you think the prices are gonna continue to climb, we're gonna see a lack of inventory, and so people are gonna think, you know, prices are down, let's build again. Everyone's gonna get excited, so the inventory is gonna be sparse and people are just gonna be pissed off.

Yeah, we're gonna— we're gonna— I think this fall we're gonna start running out of lumber again. I think that's gonna be an issue, is that, uh, that, uh, I, I— there's plenty of companies that are cranking along with it out there, don't get me wrong, and it might not be as bad. But I think once we get builders going, okay, let's build some houses now, because I know most of the builders that I'm aware of right now are building homes they have to build, not homes they want to build.

Hmm. Yeah, so, like, what could potentially be some of the creative solutions to this? And I mean, you know, in years past, it's been sort of fashionable to pillage a barn, right? And get some old barn wood to— but that's really more for, like, the aesthetic part of the house. It's not the bones, you know? What we're talking about is more the bones. We're not going to have as many bones to build these houses.

I think you're going to see more people in the future building with steel. You're gonna see more steel deck frames. You're gonna see that stuff. I think that's not a bad way to go. I still think you're in the US, you're still gonna see people building outta lumber. I mean, it's gonna be maybe more engineered lumber. You know, a lot of those, you know, high-performance building products where they're a chipboard like OSB, but built into studs.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. They're a full 2x4 and some of that stuff that you see 24 inches on center versus 16. So they can pack more insulation in. You're going to see more of that. But I think right now that if— I think that we have a lot of capacity, more so than we've had in a while. So I think lumber's probably, to be honest, going to be the least of our worries, actually. I think we will have some shortages, but they'll probably be more supply chain shortages. Like the lumber is sitting there at the distributor, but there's not a truck to get it to the yard. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And we're going to see more of that right now. I think that's— trucking's one of our other kind of Achilles heel with all that that we've got to find. But I think you're going to see the interior pieces, the drywall. I think you're going to start seeing the, you know, all those finished pieces on the inside. I think that's where we're going to start seeing some material shortages, which again are going to slow down. I mean, cabinetry right now, if you're going to try to order cabinets from like Kraftmade or some of those major brands out there, you're 12 to 18 weeks. I don't see that changing.

Oh yeah, yeah. So, which my wife's not done building. Yeah, no, I mean, we're actually, we're actually fixing to try and get some, some custom cabinets done in our kitchen. So that's, that's going to be an interesting endeavor for sure. I'm, I'm glad that you mentioned the, the, the supply chain part of it because I was, I was talking to a buddy of mine who's in the, uh, the commercial concrete game. And so he, you know, he's, he's one of these sales guys that runs the, uh, you know, he's, he's selling the big projects. He's selling, you know, the— all the foundations or, you know, all the parking lots, big massive orders of concrete. And he was telling me, he's like, look,

like, we have more than enough business. We— I mean, like, he goes, I can't even take all the business that I have right now. And part of the reason is, is because I cannot get any drivers for my trucks. And I was like, why not? And he's like, we can't compete. And I was like, well, who's your competition? He goes, dude, it's Amazon. And I was like, what's going on with Amazon? He goes, they pay the same price, yet they get to drive around in these Mercedes and Ford, you know, cargo vans in air conditioning, listen to whatever they want to listen to, and they never have to touch messy concrete. And they're paying them more than what we can afford to pay them.

So, they're, they're leaving us in droves, and we can't even pay them bonuses high enough to stay around just because the lifestyle is better.

Yeah. Well, one of the problems you're seeing too that's going to affect anybody anywhere near California, and this was, you know, the government unintended consequences that happen. So what this is, is this is the state of California decided they wanted to deal with Uber and Lyft, and they went, we're going to make sure that these guys have to be employees and they can't be contract drivers. Because guess what? The state of California wanted to collect—

Taxes.

All of the unemployment, all those benefits out of these guys, right? Yeah, that's just how they roll. Problem is, is when they did it, they didn't define the driver thing, so they got all the semi-truck drivers too. All those semi-truck drivers out there that own their own truck, that were contract drivers, are now having to be employees of a company in the state of California. They can't be an independent contract driver.

Even for themselves? Yeah.

Nope, they can't. And how many employees are they gonna let you— oh, you own a $275,000 semi-truck and you're an employee and you're gonna use your own vehicle? How's that work?

Yeah.

Well, so that's the problem. They're all just, they're all just leaving those supply chains.

So yeah, part of the exodus anyway. Oh, you know, so many Texans are making such a fuss about this. It's, it's Well, and to be fair, I don't live in Austin, and that's where most everybody's going. Most everybody's going to Austin. And, and so, like, and I'm in Houston. And so, like, but, like, we're still seeing a massive influx. Um, and, like, I'm sorry, they all seem to be great people. I don't, I don't see the—

Hey, they're not coming up here as much. I'm happy they're going there because we've had Californians up here coming up here into Oregon for 25 years. And so I'm like, woohoo!

Oh, what— and, and so any of this, any of this lumber stuff, Eric, are— do you think it's going to be regionally bad in other areas, you know, more bad in other areas than it is in others? Like, I mean, because I know you and I have talked about how, I mean, like, where you're at, it's, you know, it's a big, it's a big space for the production of lumber. Um, so I mean, like, are you guys going to get first pick, or is, is it going to affect you guys worse than everywhere else?

No, I mean, here's the thing. There are some ex— some exceptions. Like, my favorite lumberyard I go to here, they're owned by a sawmill, so those guys probably aren't going to be, aren't going to be losing out on lumber, you know what I mean? I can— that's where I go. But it doesn't matter if you're into one of the big chains or everything else, they're all buying it by the railcar load. They're buying it from the same people. And my, you know, I can look in Florida at OSB prices at Home Depot and then pull up here or North Carolina or anywhere else versus Portland, Oregon, and they're all within a buck of each other. So, there's really no

regional difference on that. I think what's gonna happen though is you will see more shortages in areas where you can build faster.

Okay.

For instance, you can build faster in Texas than you can in Southern California.

Yeah.

I've got David Applebaum on the show this weekend where we sat down for about— on the podcast, we sat down for probably an hour and 20 minutes. And we all ordered pizza in and sat down and had pizza and talked. And David's like, yeah, it takes me 12 to 16 months to get a building permit in California. That's just what it is. I'm sure for you guys, it's a 60-day program. So you're going to build homes a lot faster, which means you're going to burn through materials faster, which means it's going to affect you guys first before it does California.

Yeah. Well, I'm curious if you guys have this in Oregon, because one of the things that really changes how you can build here is unincorporated areas. And we tend to have quite a bit. So if you're in city proper, say, say like where I live, which is Conroe, um, if you're in city proper Conroe, you got to start pulling permits. But I can technically live in Conroe, not be in city proper, and I don't have to go pull a permit for certain— for a lot of things. You know, it's, it's really up to—

Uh, for us, it's statewide. So there's no— in Oregon and Washington, uh, it is a state building law.

Mhm.

And so everything is run so Like the company that— not a company, but the division that manages contractors in Oregon, which is the Construction Contractor Board. They're the ones that— they enforce the entire state of Oregon for that. So when you get a contractor's license, you have your CCB. And the same building permit, generally speaking, the construction laws, doesn't matter if you're county, city, unincorporated, incorporated, doesn't matter. You have the same rules, and a permit is a permit is a permit here in the state.

Yeah, so I'm going like, just go ahead and pull this Band-Aid off because I know we've talked about it before. Like, you don't have to have a license to be a contractor here, for one. Um, that's horrible. Oh, there, you know, like everything else, it has its pluses and minuses. Um, where, where we where we kind of— it's— I don't want to misspeak and mislead people about the way things operate in Texas because there are codes that you have to adhere to. Where I think our state has leaned into is we want to make sure that the people working on your house have the proper licenses to work on those things. So, and so they, they lean

into, okay, so like an electrician has to have a— you have to have a master electrician in order to be able to work on any of your electrical systems in your home. So that way—

Cool.

That they have that license in place so that they don't have to go pull the permit in order to do, you know, change a breaker out or whatever it is they need to do. Um, so, and I think that's why it works a little bit differently because they, they really want to lean into the state's departments that give those licenses out. Um, I'm not saying it's great. I'm not saying it's perfect because I can even speak for my industry where it is Horribly managed. Um, we just don't have enough oversight.

Um, see, in Oregon, you still have to have that electrician do that project, that master electrician do the project, and you've got to pay the permit. Like when I did my heating and cooling system we were just talking about, I had— we— I had to pull 3 different permits. I had to pull a permit to hook up the outdoor unit. I had to hook up— pull a permit to hook up power to the indoor unit. and had to get a general mechanical permit to do the heating and cooling. And even though I had an electrician and a heating and cooling licensed company that's coming in that was fully licensed, bonded, insured, I still had to pull those permits.

Yeah.

Now, the problem that I see down in Texas is that this is where, as a homeowner, homeowner, I'd be concerned, is that if you hire somebody to come over and work on your house, And they're not licensed, bonded, and insured. And the bonded and insured is the important part there.

Yes.

If they're up doing that quick roof patch and they fall off and they're a paraplegic, you're paying for the medical bills of a homeowner and their disability because you are now their employer.

Yeah.

Yep.

It, it does, it does work that way. So, and, you know, thank— thankfully most roofing stuff down here happens via insurance, so they're, You know, it's, it's the insurance company to make sure that those guys have the, have those things in place. But ultimately, it's, it is the homeowner's responsibility. And, you know, that all my, all my friends who work in the different service industries, I mean, like, they constantly rail on Chuck in the truck, you know? And I'm like, like, look, if you're hiring—

Sure.

You're gonna get what you pay for. And I, for exactly the reason that you're talking about, like, when things go south, it's all on you. And, you know, cuz he can, he can pick up and run to Louisiana and we'll never see him again. Um, and it happens.

Chucking the truck, if the state catches it, it's a $5,000 fine for your first offense.

Well, like, here's my issue with that, man, because this is the stuff they preach in our industry all the time. It's like, if you do this, it's a $5,000 fine. If OSHA catches you doing this, it's a $10,000 fine. And it's like, okay, great. Like, who's out there looking? Like, there's nobody watching. Like, and even if I see it—

Oh, it's different here.

If I see it and I report it, like, they're gonna be like, Even if you take a picture, that doesn't count. Like, they have to physically witness it in order for anything to happen. And they're never out. They're always in the office. So they're, you know, coming into my office and checking over my paperwork to make sure that I'm filling it out right, which is fine. Like, I need to be filling my paperwork out right. But, you know, there's nobody out there actually, you know, policing and watching and seeing what guys are doing because I can guarantee you half these guys would get fined Every day.

And, you know, yeah, that's a state issue because in Oregon it's crazy. We have people, they have their own— the Construction Contractors Board has their own internet division where they're on Craigslist, they're on Facebook Marketplace, and all they're doing is finding people and getting them to show up, uh, and call them because they could jump on there and go, hey, can I get a quote for, uh, the deck?

Yeah.

And then they call them up and, hey, yeah, this is Jim. And they bust them and it's a $5,000 fine. And literally, I get an email every month with the last month's, because I signed up for it because I'm always curious.

Yeah.

Last month's, it's a 6-page email that is like Excel spreadsheet, every contractor, every truck in the truck that they find, and they hit them for $5,000.

So, what happens if they don't pay it?

Ah, that's a, that's a state thing. So since there's an income tax here, they will lien, they will go after them, they'll sue them. You know, being that there's that income tax that, that, uh, uh, with the state, they've got way too many ways to look into your income.

Yeah. Hmm. Well, I mean, you know, it, it, I, I see the benefit of it. I, I also see the downside of it too. I mean, like, it, you know, it definitely hinders people from being able to work on their own homes. Or, you know, here it doesn't.

It doesn't. You can work on your own home all you want. I can go pull my own electrical permit. I can actually do my own electrical box. Yeah, so I can do that. There's nothing other than even asbestos. I could technically follow the rules and dispose of it myself. So really, there's nothing in the house that I couldn't do on my own house as a homeowner.

Uh-huh.

But even a handyman here, if you're a handyman, and you've charged somebody over $500 for a job, you have to be, uh, have a contractor's license.

Hmm. I need to look and see what that process is like. Like, because again, like, it's just not something that exists here. I mean, anybody can be a contractor, anybody can be a roofer.

Wow.

Um, and, you know, we even have continuing education that you have to do.

You have to take these online classes to renew your license. And so usually in a 2-year cycle, I think it's 8 or 10 hours of classes that you have to take in your subject online to be able to Keep your contractor's license here.

Well, and that, that is something that I have to do to keep, but that's because I have a supervising license in, in my industry, like, because I oversee other people's, um, what do they call it? Uh, dadgummit, words always fail me, Eric.

A little more of a general contractor type thing where you're overseeing that?

No, I have apprentices is what I have. That's what it is. Oh, it's an apprenticeship. Uh, and so like there's, uh, apprentice There's— you can have apprentices and technicians that serve underneath my license. So I'm basically supervising their licenses to do the work that I need them to do. And so I have to have a lot more continuing education than even they do. And I think they, as technicians, have— well, no, everybody has to have at least 8 hours annually in classroom. So— and so it's weird. They kind of pick and choose the industries that I think are a little bit more volatile. that require licenses and continuing education and oversight. But again, like, we don't really have— I mean, I don't

want to say that we don't have oversight, we do. It's just, you know, there's like 2 guys that cover all of Southeast Texas.

It's like, oh man, I think here they've got 12 guys that just cover internet. I mean, it's a whole different— it's a whole different world how they do it here. And it's, uh, yeah, it works pretty good. And that's the state of Oregon and Mesa. Mess anything up. But the one only thing that they actually do good in this state as far as not running into the ground is actually their construction contractors board.

Yeah. And I can, I can, again, like, I can see why that's a good thing because, you know, everyone, everyone that lives in a neighborhood always complains about the HOA until they move to a place where there's not an HOA and then the crack house opens down the street, you know, which—

yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, and that's the thing here is that When it comes to that, I mean, I, as a homeowner and I wanna hire a contractor, I can literally call up the Construction Contractors Board and say, hey, I'm thinking about hiring, I'm gonna make up a name, ABC Construction. What do you guys think of 'em? And they'll go, well, you know, they've got a pretty clean history and they've only been fined in their last 25 years twice. So, you know, they've done really well.

Yeah.

And they'll actually give you their take on it. Because I've called up and said, hey, what do you think about these guys? Because they wanted to sponsor my show. And they're like, you've got to be kidding me. Run to the hills. Get away from them.

Yeah.

So, they do a good job of protecting homeowners here. And it's really what their job is, is to make sure that homeowners are protected and you don't have people out there getting hurt as well.

Well, Eric, we're bumping up on the hour. Is there anything else we need to cover for the show?

No, I think that's it. You know, I think, I think we're gonna see some rough times ahead. I think lumber prices are gonna be, uh, down, but I think we're gonna have, uh, like toilet paper, we're gonna have a rush on building materials again here this, this fall. So, uh, my big take is to make sure that you start, you, you, you start that project when you get materials in your hand. Don't think it's coming next week because it might not be.

Yeah, put your patience hats on. I mean, like, you know, which I think everybody's had to experience a little bit of that when we had the TP scare. What was it? What was it? Clorox, N95s, gloves. I mean, like, we've been through it.

Yeah, we had that. I think we ran out of chlorine for a little bit there. You know, it's—

Chlorine's still tough to get. Still tough to get right now. So, yeah, well, and I'll tell you, like, just your everyday chemicals, and because this is something I'm experiencing in my business, A lot— most of our chemicals are not manufactured here in the US. Exactly. And so as, you know, we continue to have tensions with other countries, particularly over like, you know, I don't know where the virus started and all these different kinds of things.

Little Wuhan.

Yeah. So like, as you know, those arrows get chucked at one another, it really affects the market and the supply chain on lots of different things. So like, you know, we're starting to see a scarcity in pesticides, man, which, you know, some people could be really excited about. And, you know, until we start, you know, seeing diseases, you know, exotic diseases spread through our insects that are invading our homes. And then, you know, like, like we saw Zika a few years ago. So, you know.

Oh, we got the murder hornets up here though.

That one.

Well, they've found more of them. So they went through and they killed the one nest and they got that. But now about 70 miles south of that, they found a whole other section of them. So they're spreading across Washington right now and they're probably heading my way actually.

I need the link to this story because I read the initial report and it was that guy found a dead one in like a box or something. That was the initial report that everybody freaked out about, but there was no report of any nest or any live murder hornets.

Oh yeah. So they went out and figured out kind of the area that it was in, and they put out like 10,000 murder hornet traps and kept tracking them, and then they found them in a partially dead tree in a park.

Okay.

So they went in and froze that tree, wrapped it up so they could take them out and study them and make sure they got all of them out of there so they didn't chase any away. And so they got all those. So they got all the ones out of that area right there. And then they started putting more traps around that area and they found a whole other colony way farther south in a different county. And that's what they're trying to track down now. So they're definitely spreading and there was not just one.

So, uh, well, that's exciting.

It's, it's, it's, it's a bigger deal.

Well, tell them to call me.

There you go. I'd be happy to call you the Murder Hornet. Instead of the Tiger King, you're going to be the Murder Hornet King.

I'm, I'm fine with it. Like, as long as, as long as there's a paycheck with it, I can write that invoice. Yeah.

So instead of having like the tiger jacket, we'll get you on the, like, the bee suit, you know what I mean?

Yeah. No, I'm game.

Like the bee jacket.

Yeah. Dude, did you see the swarm that I— I think it was like 2 days ago that I got?

Dude, no thank you. I saw that.

You saw that? So they're— I haven't put the video out yet, but they're alive. They're doing great. They're setting up shop. I've still got to search. I've got to go through it and find the queen. make sure that she's in there. If not, I'm gonna requeen it. Um, but that was a free beehive, man. That's like—

like, dude, that's awesome. Yeah, I have no problem with bees. I just don't like the murder hornets, the wasps, and the— oh, for sure, yellow jackets and stuff.

But like hornet— hornets and stuff, I mean, like, yeah, they're scary. We have ground hornets here that can really mess you up because, you know, they don't— people, people think like, oh, they sting me once and then they, you know, they'll die. Well, hornets aren't like that. They can keep stinging you over and over and over again. That's kind of the problem. But there are actually really effective products that you can put on them that don't chase them. Most people spray them with a repellent, and then, you know, it burns them, and so it chases the other ones away. But there's actually some non-repellents you can put on them that'll wipe out the colony, and they don't even

know what's going on.

So, um, I use those, uh, Y-traps that they're the wasp, hornet, yellow jacket traps that I hang up, and that tends to take them out pretty good.

Well, there's a, uh, well, I can't actually talk about that. We'll have to talk about that off air because I can't, I can't explain it. I can't explain it to the public because it's— I can't because it goes against the label.

Yeah, it's— yeah, that's, that's secret. If you told them, you'd have to kill them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, man. Well, dude, thank you so much for coming on and, uh, and sharing your, your, dude, your constant wisdom with us. You are a vast source of knowledge when it comes to all this kind of stuff, and I appreciate you coming on.

Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Yep. Let me, let me take a look at the people here. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us on the show this week. We really appreciate it. Again, if you have not hit the subscribe, hit the notification bell, hit the share, hit the thumbs up, all the things, man. We really appreciate you guys joining us for this episode, especially those of you joining us live on Facebook. But any listen is a good listen. So glad you could join us and Until next week, we'll see you then. Bye!