Is there really a skilled labour shortage or just the employers wanting to pick up skilled workers for $15 bucks an hour ?

“McIver told the Natural Resources Forum that once the dust settles”

Quite the turn of phrase considering the events of the last year in the mills.

It’s refreshing to see industry representatives being up front about further downsizing in the lumber sector after years of denial. When the beetle-killed timber runs out, look for more mill closures or at least reductions in the number of shifts in sawmills in 100 Mile, Williams Lake, Quesnel, PG, Vanderhoof.
CL

LunarcomPG, there really is a shortage of skilled workers. Canfor used to get a massive amount of applications for their student summer positions (mainly forestry students) and now they hardly get any.

“LunarcomPG, there really is a shortage of skilled workers. Canfor used to get a massive amount of applications for their student summer positions (mainly forestry students) and now they hardly get any”

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I’m just guessing here, but I suspect that there is also a big decline in the number of forestry students out there. Governments are downsizing, industry is downsizing and much of the forest in BC is dead.

I sure as heck wouldn’t want to drop 50K on a forestry degree given those realities. After all, by the time a student today is ready to retire, the forests may just be starting to green up again.

Canfor is bringing in foreign workers now to fill their trades shortage along with other jobs too. They’re also bringing in workers from out of province.

Canfor their roots are in the community! Well somewhere in a community!

Like any living plant, they not only grow new branches and new leaves for production, but also new roots to provide access to more nourishment for the leaves as well as branch growth.

No new roots, and the plant will not grow or may even die.

;-)

BTW, it is very old news. But, like global warming, some people simply keep trucking along as if tomorrow’s world will be no different from yesterday’s world.

“On the positive side, the Canadian Wood Council, and Natural Resources Canada will soon be announcing tall building projects across the country that will use wood.

“In an effort to diversify from the single family home construction market, there is a move to multi family dwellings built of wood.”

I do not think that it will make more than a small dent in the lumber market. If BC’s feedstock for lumber will be reduced by some 30% to 40% over the next 40 to 50 years a higher percentage of wood will come from east of the BC/Alberta border. We will not have the room for an increase in the use of dimension lumber to feed an expanded market for laminated timber and cross laminated wall construction.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/expect-more-wood-buildings-like-one-in-kingston-fire-1.2502162

This was a massive fire in Kingston. I wonder if steel or concrete would have burned the same way?

So gus, enlighten us on what effect we could have. Let us say not just BC but Canada as a whole.

If you have a finite amount of timber, and production, it matters little where the lumber goes, or how it is used. Its all based on the selling price.

What’s the difference between building homes in the US or Canada with lumber, or building 6 story buildings with lumber. Lumber is lumber. What’s the difference in price between cross laminated structures, and cement and steel structures. Will the cement and steel industry just stand by and lose this market, or will they reduce their prices to remain competitive.

The cement and steel for the most part comes from China/Japan, the same countries that we ship **junk** lumber to be used for concrete forms for high rise apartment buildings.

At the end of the day, will we sell any more lumber into the open market, for 6 story wood structures, or will we sell the same amount of lumber but have it used a little differently.

Unless there is an increase in the production and sale of lumber, then the mills in the Interior will not change, and in fact some will close down.

There could be additional jobs for producing cross laminated lumber, however some of these plants have already been built and are producing CL lumber in the Okanogan. So as usual we are a day late and a dollar short.

The Wood Innovation Building in Prince George was built by Architects and Engineers from Vancouver, and the Cross Laminated Lumber was produced in OK Falls BC. Once completed they will probably build some in other parts of the Province, however I fail to see how that will help the Northern Interior.

We will end up the proud owners of a six story wood structure, with all the attendant maintenance. So unless they have some sort of plan in place where this building will pay for itself, we are staring another **white elephant** in the face.

Have a nice day.

There ia a large amount of lumber returning from China everyday in the form of crates. Most of it is going to landfills.

“the same countries that we ship **junk** lumber to be used for concrete forms”

Go and see if the Delta hotel construction is using junk lumber for their forms. You should find the same lumber or even better as that use in wood framed platform construction.

In fact, on some jobs they will use steel forms. Sometimes they will even line those forms with plastic with a pattern such as rough sawn lumber on it so that the exposed concrete will look as if it was formed with 1×4 or 1 x 6 lumber.

That wood buildings under construction catch fire and burn to the ground is not unheard of. We have one example in PG.

The “Smirf Village” at the corner Ferry and Ospika was built to 3 storeys high. The building had 3 sections to it which wee separated from each other by concrete block fire walls.

The fire was caused by a blow torch during construction, which is a common cause of such fires. The current building is also framed platform wood construction, as are many other “walk-up” apartment building in this and other communities across Canada.

The reason these buildings go up so fast is because there is no fire protection in place.

For those who have any experience with wood burning fireplaces or camp fires, you know that it is difficult to start a fire with an 8″ unsplit log, yet it is very easy to start one with a bit of paper and some kindling ……

Well, 2×4 construction is kindling while 8″x8″ and larger timber used in timber framed houses and 12″+ logs used in log construction are similar to the logs in a fireplace. Laminated timber and especially large cross laminated panels do not need gypsum board to protect it from fire.

Yes, once a fire starts and builds up to a high heat, they will eventually burn, but 2×4 walls with gypsum as protection will likely burn more easily than a wall panel that is 6 to 8 inches thick.

Steel needs to be protected as well with materials such as gypsum board since it will deform as it heats up and will no longer have the structural capacity to act to its designed capacity.

We also saw the burning of a wood framed building (although they were stacked wood framed boxes) when the Yellowhead went up in flames when fire separations in ceilings were compromised and a fire which should have been containable in a small part of the building spread throughout the building.

If someone used a torch on the WIDC construction site while it was under construction, they would have a hard time to start a fire unless they built a huge bonfire of small cross sectional lumber such as 2×2 or 1×2 and got a really large fire going adjacent to a column and under the slabs above. even then I doubt it would catch fire and instead would be mainly charred. By the time someone noticed the fire there would still be plenty of time to react and put it out.

The firm that has looked into the fire properties of a building like that has physicist with PhDs, probably 60 years of research experience behind them and recognized in the international construction industry as well as code writing authorities.

That is not to say that these building will never burn. All buildings burn. We have seen plenty of evidence of that. Concrete, masonry and steel buildings can be compromised structurally under fire conditions so that they will have to be partially or entirely rebuilt.