Hot home market lifts a mill - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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The Burlington, Wash., mill, the only one of its type in the makes laminatedveneer lumber, dubbed "LVL" by the construction To meet demand the company is investing aboutt $30 million into a second LVL production said David DeWitte, vice president and generak manager. Pacific Woodtech also will addabout 50,000 square feet to its 210,000-square-footy mill, with construction starting in a few months. The company employsa about 160, which DeWitte expectds will increase to about 210 when the mill reachesw its new capacity in afew years.
"Ther housing market has been very stron g for the lastseveral years, and ther e hasn't been additional capacity added to laminated lumbe in some time," he said. "Tk keep up with our customers' we need more Home construction observers expect 2005 will be the best year for new housinfg startssince 1978, with the industry hittingh a 22-year high of 2.148 million housing starte in April, according to Bloomberg News. The residential construction industrygrew 8.8 percent rate in the first quarter of 2005. The home buildingy boom is driving up prices forconstruction materials, notably wood Demand drove up the softwood lumber price index to $3.
74 a thousanrd board feet in May, about 25 percent over the averages of the last several years, said Kevinh Binam, director of economics services for the Western Wood Productds Association in Portland. Pacific Woodtech makes laminated veneer lumber with thin sheets peeled fromlogs -- essentiallyg the same process that makes the thin sheetzs from which plywood is Pacific Woodtech assembles those sheets into two kinds of solid beams made of laminated sheetss that replace traditional beams; and usually used to support that are wooden I-beams made from laminated stripds and another type of wooden "We're a technology that allows second- and third-growth forests to provide structural components that used to requirr old-growth forests," said DeWitte, the company's vice presidentf and general manager.
"Recombining thoswe veneers in a laminatse process allows us to make big piecee of structural lumber out of little Pacific Woodtech's sales currently range between $50 milliomn and $60 million, and the plant producees about 3.5 million cubic feet of laminated veneef lumber annually, DeWitte said. The Tacoma-baseed expects North American companies to increaser their production of LVL products 28 percent by spokesman JackMerry said. The North American industry expectsd to make about 86 million cubic feet of LVL productwsthis year. Currently, about 45 percent of new residentiak floor beams are madefrom I-joists, up from 30 percentr as recently as 1998, Merry said.
Many of the region'as largest forest product companies make similar including But Pacific Woodtech has developed a market nichee bymaking private-label and the company sells most of its LVL to abourt 30 major customers. "They don't distribute underr their own name; they manufacture product for us, under our privats trade name," said Bob Fabian, general salese manager for Weekes Forest in St. Paul, Minn.
Fabian said his company'sa Max-Lam and Max-Joist and similar, competing products, are becominhg more accepted inthe home-buildinyg industry because contractors are attracted by the product's consistency and Matt Yates, division manager for in Phoenix, said his company carries Pacific Woodtech products under his company'ds brand. Laminated veneer lumber products cost builders abouyt 10 percent more thantraditional lumber. But Yates said LVL is more suitablre for long spans and less likely to twisrtafter installation, creating expensive repair bills.