Vinyl products are about to get REAL expensive

[jmowreader]

I buy a lot of vinyl products for resale. Today one of my vendors was in and he told me this:

There are four major producers of PVC resin in the United States. Three of them have declared "force majeure" (which is French for "the greater force" and translates into "the disaster has forced us to suspend our fixed-price contracts." This is totally legal and written into every fixed-price contract I've ever heard of. Apparently, these three producers all have major operations on the Gulf Coast--and we all know what happened there.

Also, natural gas for commercial use has doubled in price over the last year.

If you're planning on a major vinyl buy in the near future, you probably want to do it within the next week.

[SmokingJacket]

1. Maybe this will convince people to get wood siding instead.

And wood fences too. Imagining all that vinyl fencing and siding in landfills gives me chills.

[jmowreader]

3. I really hope not

Call me a heretic, but I cannot STAND wood siding. It rots, termites eat it, it doesn't hold paint for shit, and it's combustible. The California wildfires alone should have been enough to put you off wood siding for life. And if you want something that doesn't rot, you're looking at ACQ pressure-treated stock, which you should NEVER, EVER use as siding--when ACQ lumber, which contains quite a bit of copper, burns, the smoke from the fire is exquisitely lethal. (Pretty much all exterior-rated pressure-treated lumber is the same way, since all of it has a lot of copper in it. The only PT you can buy that's not this way is SillBor, which is pressure-treated framing lumber. It contains borate, which kills bugs. You won't use it outside because water leaches the borate out of the wood. Wood windows are also treated with borates--Andersen's windows have been borate treated for a while, and Jeld-Wen's new Auralast windows are also treated. I'm pretty sure MW windows are not treated, since their stuff has a one-year warranty on the wood components.)

I've been working very diligently to get people into buying fiber cement siding--and, for the most part, succeeding. I think fiber cement is the nicest siding currently on the market. It is completely fireproof. It is completely incapable of rotting. It's waterproof--somewhere in the store we have a little display James Hardie put together. It's an acrylic box containing a piece of hardipanel siding soaking in water. It's been in there since 2002 and it's still as hard as it was the day they put it in there. It holds paint exceptionally well--you're looking at 15 years minimum. You can get this siding prepainted so you don't even have to do that if you don't want to. (You probably will once you find out what it costs, though; prepainted hardiplank ain't cheap.) It comes in a variety of surface textures, including a very believable stucco. It looks a LOT better than vinyl. And the price is not out of line.

Not a big fan of wood fencing either, although if you get something in cedar you should be okay.

[babylonsister]

7. Hardi-plank all the way! That's what we put up two years ago;

it has like a 50 year warantee and termites can't eat it. Works for us!

[DancingBear]

8. That's cause you should never paint it - you should stain it

Here in VA, cyprus is very rot/insect resistant, and stain holds (without chalking) for at least 5 years.

In New England (where I hope to be soon) cedar has the same properties, but you have to stain it every 3 years or so (I used to do the old "one side of the house per year" thing).

Fiber cement is catching on in a big way in New England, but on a large house it tends to look "wrong." Don't know why that is, but on smaller homes and cape style buildings it looks OK. Also, it needs to be painted about every 8-10 years - but still a long stretch better than anything else.

Probably just my bias on the "look" thing, however.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. I use a lot of PVC, too.

PVC pipe prices have more than doubled for me. They were real nice and told me about it a week in advance, then when I tried to order ahead they told me they were out of everything and I'd have to wait until prices went up.

[melissinha]

5. what are alternatives to PVC in pipes

I mean I got all up in arms with the stories about the toxicity of PVC to its factory workers (most in Lousisiana).... vinyl siding can be replaced with other sorts of siding like wood and metal.... but do you have an alternative for PVC pipes????/ I know when I worked for a development company, thats was the main things we used for Water and Wastewater pipes!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

6. There's u-PVC

I have a hard time getting it in any quantity in my area. If prices of PVC keep raising it will, however, become more cost effective and I think more places will begin to stock it.

Other than that I could use copper for certain applications. Copper mining is not very eco-friendly, though, so I try and avoid it.

[jmowreader]

10. There's PEX

PEX is crosslinked polyethylene. You can use that for potable water supply.

PEX is mostly for plumbers to use--you join it by crimping metal rings around it, and the crimpers are expensive. They can be rented, which cuts down on your expenses. (Before we had a tool rental center, we claimed that we offered free rentals--buy the crimpers, put your job in and return them.)

For sewage, there's always concrete pipe. I know there's a plastic pipe that's not PVC, but I don't know what it's made from.

For stormwater drainage, there's fiber cement pipe.

[INdemo]

4. I was about ready to buy vinyl siding

I was about ready to buy about 20 squares of vinyl siding..I was told the same thing about two weeks ago..They tried to convince me to order that day.........I might wait till spring and hope the price goes down..

[damntexdem]

9. I knew it! The wild vinyl is an endangered species.

And vinyl ranching just hasn't worked out. ;-)