How's business?

[PAmizerman]

How's business? I just finished up a big job but aside from that it's been really quiet. I have not been this slow ever. 

[Percy]

Up here in the great 
white north it has slowed up big time. Using the slowness to build an automatic slab processor for firewood. Hope it pays off😁

[caveman]

We are part time, but the past three or four weeks have been slow.  Until then, we were selling pretty decent orders of 100-200 16' 1x's and some siding.  I attributed the slowdown to the brutally hot weather we've had lately.  

[John S]

I have a few jobs coming up but otherwise pretty slow.

[Magicman]

I still have about the normal amount of calls coming in, but I am also passing the large and distant jobs off to another sawyer. 

I got a ~100 mile call yesterday, but simply declined.  A couple of years ago I would have been all over it because at that time, I turned nothing down.

[teakwood]

After the best year ever 2023 in lumber sales, this year has really been quite, very slow. i sold only 15% of last year and already 6 month gone of this year. My lumber storage is full full and we stopped sawing because of this. have several quotes on jobs but they are not confirmed yet. Had a 53k $ panel order which would have taken me 3-4 month to produce, fell thru, "i'm too expensive" . was my number one client, since 2.5 years i never raised the prices on him although Costa Rica increased prices on almost everything by a 50-100% since covid. I will not lower my pants, sometimes you have to stand your ground.

[newoodguy78]

Not lumber or sawmill related but greenhouse plant and flower sales are definitely down over last year. Won't be long and we'll be dumping a whole bunch of beautiful flowers that took ridiculously high input costs to produce.
It's a fickle market to begin with and just a few rainy weekends make a huge impact on revenue. Fortunately this year weekends have been good.
I attribute it to people simply not having the disposable income right now. The increase in credit card sales to me goes along with that.
One thing I have noticed is an increase in lower dollar value item sales. For instance people buy a couple six packs vs the big hanging basket that's right beside it.
Been wracking my brain big time trying to figure out more efficient ways to do things in an attempt to keep production costs down. Not an easy thing to accomplish.

[moosehunter]

I am 95% portable. No lumber sales. I have a list of jobs that will last into August at least. I'm as busy as the last two years.
mh

[blackhawk]

I sawmill and sell lumber as a side hustle.  Sawmilling jobs are few and far between right now.  Dimensional lumber is selling barely OK.  Slab sales are non-existent, haven't sold one in months and my slabs are kiln dried.

My best business right now is flattening slabs and epoxy tables on my CNC.  Evidently people are buying slabs but just not from me.  I have to say that at least half of the slabs and even tables that people bring to me to flatten are not dried properly.  I've seen them come to me at 30% EMC.  

[longtime lurker]

It started to rain in January and it rained, and then it rained, and then it rained some more. Concreters didn't get any pours done, builders ran out of inside work, things got really grim in May.
Sun came out last week and now the phone is ringing constantly and everyone wants everything NOW. The production side of it isn't as much a problem as the cashflow part... log and transport bills appear a whole lot faster than payments come in and when she's rolling we do chew through some wood. I find this part of the cycle to be incredibly stressful, it's one of the things that I've become rather good at that I wish I didn't have to endure but them's the joys of management.

[Southside]

I have had three people come to me looking for work this week, two have shown up in person, all seem to be hard working, driven folks.  I didn't have three people call me looking for work all of last year.  Last time this happened was spring of 2020....

[KWood255]

As said above, the residential related sales are definitely down quite a bit from the last few years. I tend to think 2020-2023 were abnormally busy for those of us in this business. We are still busy, but not like it was. I ordered a lot of cedar logs while we had some available, which is not often the case here. In years past I had to turn cedar orders away. Unfortunately, not one inquiry for sauna projects that has resulted in an order so far in 2024. This tells me the play money is not in the bulk of societies pockets. I am in this same club. 

Costs of living in NW Ontario are the highest I've experienced to date. This pendulum has to swing closer to centre eventually, and I hope it's soon. 

A few weeks ago we travelled through Minnesota and into North Dakota. While fuel prices were significantly lower than ours, the groceries and hotel costs were much higher, not to mention the exchange rate against our favour. I was shocked at the price of basic groceries. 

[Bruno of NH]

Things were going good for me till 3 weeks ago. Had 2 big orders sawed them both for new customers. Called them both and have not received a call back. I don't think I will. The market place retail units I sell have slowed down bad. 3 week a go , I was selling 3 or more a day.

[maple flats]

I need to get moving. I haven't even gotten any of my own sawing done and I no longer do any sawing for others except a small order for a good friend.
I have some really grand plans that won't happen if I don't get moving soon.
My issue is that I've lost all of my help, first a grandson who used to help Grandpa often joined the Navy, then just as I was getting ready to hire my 15 yr old grandson for the summer, he went and got a 30+ hr job at his favorite pizza joint. Now grandpa has to fell, buck and haul all of the logs alone, then load the logs onto the mill, make the lumber, off bear it, and sticker it solo. I guess instead of getting a fully manual mill I should have gotten a hydraulic mill and a fork truck. My 36HP tractor with forks isn't as handy as a fork lift would be and my drive is far less than it was just 3-5 yrs ago.
I'll need to force myself to get going like I used to just a few years ago. I also need to tear into my excavator. It won't start, I suspect the starter but it's so crowded in under the engine covers I can't see or reach it. I need to start pulling hood pieces off until I can get to it. Looking at it, I think I might be able to reach the started with just 2 major pieces removed. Then maybe I can see and reach the starter. Right now, the only access is a 10x10 access door on the top of the whole engine cover (I hesitate to call it a hood. My BIL with longer arms than I tried working thru that access panel but still could only touch the starter, could not see what he was doing and after about 8-10 hrs trying last fall he said he was done working on it.
I think my next step is to try removing those 2 panels and see if it helps enough. If not, I might also need to pull the radiator in order to really get a close look at it.
When it was running I used it to load the logs, far easier than using forks on my tractor.

[terrifictimbersllc]

Slowest start this year compared to the last 12 years for the same period. A little more than half the revenue compared to same period the last 5-6 years. 

Keep wondering what could I do better. Trying to make it easier for callers to decide to saw, like reducing minimum charge if it makes sense, but not going to lower my rates. 

[Bruno of NH]

2 mills closing 
Colby in NH at the end of the month 
Mill River in Southern Vermont 

[teakwood]

Things were going good for me till 3 weeks ago. Had 2 big orders sawed them both for new customers. Called them both and have not received a call back. I don't think I will. The market place retail units I sell have slowed down bad. 3 week a go , I was selling 3 or more a day.

That's why in Costa Rica you will not get anything on just your word. i charge 50% in advance and 50% against delivery, and i make NO exceptions! it has bitten me in the bottoms too many times already. 
If i order a part from anywhere it's always 100% payment upfront, why should i give credit then??  

[Gere Flewelling]

Well I haven't run my mill for a long time, but my bandsaw sharpening business has taken off quite well. I am in an area that has very few people sharpening band saw blades. And a special thank you out to WoodMizer for discontinuing there Re-Sharp business. I have 4 professional mills providing me with roughly 20 bands every other week and quite a few hobby mills bringing bands on an as needed basis. Purchased a used CatClaw sharpener recently and rebuilt all normal wear components just to have a spare machine for when the inevitable inconvenient breakdown occurs. I offer pickup and delivery to some of the steady guys and others just bring them to me. I certainly have gained a lot of experience, some of it through trial and error. Most everyone seems happy with my service and must say I appreciate most the customers who will tell me I didn't get there band sharpened just right and are willing to work with me to make the necessary changes to get it right. Overall I most enjoy meeting all the sawyer's in my area and visiting with them. Many have told me it is fun just to have someone knowledgeable to talk "sawmills" with. Some day I hope to get to do some sawing but kind of enjoying the challenge of sharpening right now.

[Peter Drouin]

2 mills closing
Colby in NH at the end of the month
Mill River in Southern Vermont

I lost work to them before. Had a timber framer come and buy some beams from me, and all was good. Then one day he came and wanted more. Told him in 2 days I could have them. I was busy with an order of other beams. He left and went to Colby with some off-culler remarks.
When he comes back He WILL get the special price.  

[Sixacresand]

Now that it is time to quit because of the Summer heat, folks keep request stuff to be milled.  As always, my concerns are the help, shady work area and FEL equipment.  Got an away task beginning this afternoon.

The requested micro switch is on back order, so having to improvise the hydraulics.  

[Magicman]

That micro switch is not proprietary so any electrical supply house should have something similar that will work.  The "flapper" can be bent to meet your need.  They are also cheap @ about $4.


Google that part# and you will find many sources.  Mine is nowhere close to the original.

[Bruno of NH]

I added a switch so when the micro goes I can still keep sawing
Just flip it on run the hydraulics the shut off.

[Magicman]

You should not have a failure.  The store bought micro switch in mine has been there 20 years.

[Sixacresand]

WM cost is about $35.  This is the second one in ten years.  In the past I have improvised with a flip switch and with a door bell button.  I have not looked for them locally.  If I find them for $4, I'll get a few spares. 

[Stephen1]

I was real slow in March and April. I had a carpenter looking for shop space and was going to sell my kiln and lumber to him and he was going to take over the shop and kiln. That fell through and now I am up 20% year to date over last year. my kiln is now full until August with this 6,000 bf barnboard flooring job . I will Sterilze and kiln dry it down to 8%. It's mostly sitting at 12% so it will be a blast of heat to sterilize and then a few days on vacuum to suck out the rest of the moisture. I have sawmill jobs line up till August with deposits. I also have been selling pine slabs for counter tops. In fact I have a call to the my arborists for a few more large pine . 8-12' 24"+ so I can slab them and get them air drying ready for the kiln come September. . I sold almost 10K worth last fall for to people that could not afford hardwood or granite. EWP is the perfect DIY wood they  can sand it flat, no planar needed, very stabile, does not move very much if at all.