Instead, customers are doubling down, switching to more expensive materials as the cost difference with wood shrinks, adding extra elements to their projects and pre-ordering lumber to lock in price and ensure supply.
"If their plan was to build a pressure-treated deck in their backyard, then a lot of people are now saying, 'You know what? For about the same price, I can get a hardwood deck or a composite deck or a heat-treated lumber deck,'" said Brad Swanson of Swanson's Home Hardware Building Centre in Kitchener, Ont., a family owned operation since 1982.
"They're a little bit more (expensive) but they're within people's budgets. If they're going to spend $5,000 on a pressure-treated deck and a composite deck is only $5,500, or maybe $6,000, they're thinking, 'That's not a bad investment.'"