Posted on 05/07/2015 10:13:29 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Edited on 05/07/2015 6:31:45 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Lumber Liquidators is stopping the sale of all its Chinese laminate flooring, a week after disclosing that the Justice Department is seeking criminal charges against the specialty retailer in an investigation over imported products.
The company has been under fire since early March over safety concerns. A
(Excerpt) Read more at miami.cbslocal.com ...
Prove it. Show me just ONE case where someone died or even got sick as a direct result of having this product.
You may say that I ain't free, but it don't worry me.....
Correct. Mold takes more time to kill you than an electrical problem resulting in a fire. OTOH, a house fire can be an easier escape than prolonged black mold.
Dude. Think about it. In one hundred years, I can pretty much guarantee you that EVERYONE who has this product in their home or office WILL be DEAD.
We still have an American lumber industry. Almost ALL framing lumber, plywood or OSB used in the US is manufactured either in the US or Canada. Only about 5% of the lumber used in the US comes from places other than North America. That is primarily from Europe.
This flooring that Lumber Liquidators was selling is the cheap bamboo laminate crap they sell for $1.49/square foot. This was not 3/4” solid Oak, Cherry, or better quality flooring. It was the stuff you put in a property you are going to flip. They sold it to dumb people that bought it because they were buying a “green” renewable product.
Some of the best flooring comes from South America. This is because species like Jatoba also know as Brazilian Cherry only grow in the Amazon. This specie is 3X the density of red oak. It makes much better flooring than anything grown in North America.
Another specie that only grows in SA is IPE. It is also known as Iron Wood. This is the densest specie of tree grown on the planet. It is also rot resistant. Therefore, it is typically made into exterior decking. It is 4X as dense as Red Oak. It is harder than Ebony. Cumaru is another example of a specie grown in SA that is close to IPE in both density and rot resistance.
Thirty years ago there was no infrastructure in South America to get these trees out of the jungle. Now they are being sold worldwide because they offer qualities that are superior to the species found here.
However, the four Southern Yellow Pine species will continue to gain market share over the next 30 years when it comes to framing lumber over species like Spruce, Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Lodgepole Pine and Ponderosa Pine. This is because SYP grows faster to harvestable size that any other tree in North America. This is why Canadian companies are buying sawmills in the southern US. Also, Klausner(from Germany & Austria) is building two new sawmills in NC and FL.
The Lumber Broker
Touche'
You’re a good sport! :-)
Being from an Adirondack family that were lumberjacks going back 100 years, I can tell you that the industry all but vanished there due to environmentalism and state/federal overreach. Do we even need to get into what the Spotted Owl and various four legged excuses did to the PNW.
I just had a shelf built for a keyboard that cost 60 bucks for 2 pieces of wood in raw material. The shelf is 4 ft by 10 in.
Can you buy a piece of wood wider than 10 inches without it being laminated or a special order?
What are the numbers of people employed in the industry compared to 30 years ago?
How many sawmils and pulp mills are now shuttered?
How many truckers and heavy equipment operators hit the unemployment line?
Sure an industry exists. But it is a shell of it’s former self.
Lumber Liquidators may be Liquidated.
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