Does anyone do business in the U.S. along the Canadian border and have you ever imported lumber form Canada?
I talked to a guy who built a home in north Idaho and he said he save a bundle importing lumber and sheet goods for his house and the lumber was better quality. Unfortuantely he has moved away. Anyone ever done this? I have a guess this was possible some years ago and less so today. I just don’t know and don’t know where to start to look into it.
Replies
Well, there's the duty to pay, the shipping and of course, find a supplier there that would do the deal at a wholesale price.
yeah, you could save a bundle.
Duty
There was an import tarrif on Canada's lumber for a number of years. I don't know if the court appeals have ever been settled or not. US lumber mfg were getting whupped by cheap Canadian lumber. Lobbyist got the tarrif slapped on it because they claimed the Canadian government supported the lumber industry enough to support below market value sales that injuried US companies. The whole thing has been in court under the terms of the NAFTA, but I don't know if it has ever been resoved.
One of the reasons was a few years ago the canuck dollar was worth way less than the US buck
today a canadian dollar is worth slightly more than a US buck !
I have bought lumber in Fla in the past & found it hard to cut plus very brittle
In the 90,s in Fla you could get a home built using cdn lumber for $5000 extra & there seemedn to be a lot of takers at the time.
A lot of the biggest mills in canada are US owned !