BUILDING TIMBER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4509, 29 December 1922, Page 2

BUILDING TIMBER

REVISION OF PRICES. ENCOURAGING USE OF LOWER GRADES. Recent readjustments of prices for sawn timber will affect all. district-? between 'Wellington and Auckland. They were made at, a general meeting at Taihape of the Main Trunk Timber Trade Protection Guild. “The trend of the trade for some considerable time past,” said Mr A. Seed, secretary of the guild,, to a Dominion" reporter on Tuesday last, has been in tiro direction of a good demand for heart and better-class timbers, while there has been ,a poor demand for ordinary building and, sec-ond-class timbers. An effort. was made in August by readjustment of prices to divert the consumption of timber ! nto lower grades, but it. was found that the same disparity in demand continued. Hence, it became necessary <to increase, the price of the heart and better quality lines, and again lower the prices off those qualities which account for a large proportion of the cut of the log. Another reason for the cut was - to try a;nd encourage the use Qf narrow flooring in preference to the almost uniform 6in x lin flooring. It was decided to make a substantial reduction in the price of 3in x lin p-b. and heart matai for flooring. In connection with this, Dr Tiemann, pf the American Sta:e Forest Service, when recently in Nev Zealand asked why New Zealanders used 6in x lin flooring, and in doing so showed unsightly nail holes. He mentioned that in American houses the floors were generally the pride of the house, and the narrpw flooring was always used because it showed less shrinkage and did not curl at the edges. Moreover, .the nailing was done in such a manner that the holes did not show. If the use of this narrow -flooring can be encouraged, in New Zealand it will tend materially to bring about that higher utilisation which it is the effort of the State Forest .and Sawmillers’ Federation to accomplish,, for it is a great deal easier to get the quantity of narrow widths in any particular quality than it is to get the wider boards.” Speaking of the reductions, Mr Seed said in ordinary building matai they were from 5s 6d per hundred superficial feet in Sin x lin flooring to Is 6d in scantling sizes. In heart of matai there had been a reduction of 4s 6d per 100 ft in 3in x lin flooring, and 3s in rough heart flooring and weather boards - . Second-class scantling in rimu had been reduced 6s per 100 ft, and rough heart boards by Is per hundred. Increases ,in both ripiu and matai were Is per 100 ft on wide boards in ordinary building timber, to 3s in clean quality. In the heart lines the increase had been from Is per 100 ft on wide framing quality boards to 3s 6d in wide sizes - in clean heart ’•The whole readjustment has been made with a due consideration pf the proportion or percentage of each quality produced from the log,” Mr Seed explained. “Though, the increases in some lines appe.ar to be rather much, the quantity of these qualities produced from the log is so small, that the ultimate effect, pf (he readjustment to building will practically leave the timber costs as they were before.”