A friend who works as an advisor to the the wood products industryasked me last week if I had heard much about Chinese flooring yet…..some of the flooring people have been looking at it, but what they are seeing is pretty wet…..11-13% m.c or higher. That’s high even for the Maritimes, and if people aren’t careful, they are going to have problems.
Then today in an industry bulletin, I saw this:
• China has tripled its shipments of solid hardwood
flooring to the US in each of the past two years and is
on target to do so again in 2005. Solid wood strip
floor shipments (not including engineered and
parquet floor) from China to the US are forecast to
exceed 258 million square feet by year-end.
• In 2002, Canadian flooring accounted for 53.5%
of imported hardwood flooring in the US. In Q1
2005, that Canadian market share has fallen to under
19%, surpassed by China (41.2%) and Brazil
(27.6%).
Somebody’s using that material. Any of you guys? I know another friend with a flooring mill told me the last run of walnut he did, the walnut came from Pennsylvania (logs) by way of China (lumber). Cheaper than anything he could find in N.A.
cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
Replies
Sounds like what will go through Lumber Liquidators for Smokkin' Sam, the weekend wunder
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Tripling their exports every year? Over 41% of the import market share? And Canada sells a LOT of flooring into the U.S.....the Chinese are selling twice as much? That's a hell of a lot of flooring....it must be all over the place, not just the discounters.cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
I would have thought that the Chinese would need all of their own wood with all of the development going on there.
I'm sure they will manage their forests well....
hardy har
carpenter in transition
I don't think it is their wood, for the most part.....it's our logs they're buying, and they're milling it into lumber and flooring, and selling it back to us, cheap. Nothing new there as we've seen with furniture, and the quality of the furniture that's coming in now is much, much better than I was seeing even a couple of years ago....it's the flooring end I'm interested in now, as the quality sounds like it is very poor (quality as in, will it perform as expected).
I haven't seen a floor laid with Chinese flooring, but there have to be thousands going down......is anyone seeing performance problems from new brands selling for suspiciously low prices, anything like that?cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
MOST OF WHAT i USE IS MILLED LOCALLY, BUT i HAVE A LOAD OF "RUSSIAN PINE" COMING IN THAT i WILL STUDY FOR STAMPS AND MOISTURE. OF COURSE, IN THIS WEATHER, i EXPECT THE mc TO BE HIGH NOW. i HAVE A HEAT AND FAN ROOM ALL READY FOR IT.
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dON'T YA JUST HATE IT WHEN THE CAPS LOCK IS ON AND YOU DON'T NOTICE? bUMMER.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
oH sHOOT!
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I can recommend an EXCELLENT hardwood flooring manufacturer / distributor right here in the states - Pennington Hardwoods. "United we Stand!"
Talked to a flooring supplier about a month ago and he brought up the subject. He supplies Canadian hardwood products exclusively.
Besides the MC issue, he said the wood the the Chinese manufacturers are getting is mostly from Russia. Maple is not maple but it's a kind of birch. Walnut is another species that resembles. A lot of contractors he knows would refuse to install them because they cause all kinds of problems.