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Construction timber: increasing demand at home and abroad
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
Builders feel the sharp rise in prices for important materials more and more.
The Federal Statistical Office announced that building materials such as wood, steel or insulation materials had rapidly increased in price during the pandemic.
Accordingly, the prices for solid structural timber rose in May alone compared to the same month last year by a good 83 percent, for roof battens by 45.7 percent and construction timber by 38.4 percent.
Steel prices also drove construction costs up: In May, reinforcing steel in bars was 44.3 percent more expensive and welded wire mesh cost 30.4 percent more than a year ago, according to statisticians.
Reinforcing steel is used, among other things, to reinforce floor slabs, ceilings or walls.
The main reasons for the rising wood and steel prices are probably the increasing demand at home and abroad in the corona pandemic - as well as problems in the supply of raw materials, the authority wrote.
Building materials drive up producer prices
The recent rise in oil prices also drove up prices on construction sites: bitumen based on crude oil, which is used to seal roofs, buildings and foundations, cost almost 64 percent more in May than in the same month last year, and insulation panels made of plastic such as polystyrene cost almost 20 percent .
However, the prices did not go through the roof everywhere in the construction sector: there were gravel and sand (plus 4.8 percent), brick (plus 2.2), roof tiles (plus 2.2 percent) and fresh concrete (plus 1.7 percent) there was only relatively slight growth in May.
"The main reasons for the rising wood and steel prices are likely to be the increasing demand at home and abroad during the corona pandemic, as well as problems in the supply of raw materials," said the Federal Office.
The producer price index for industrial products rose overall - driven by the development in wood and metal prices - by 7.2 percent in the same period.
This was the highest year-on-year increase since October 2008, when prices rose sharply before the financial and economic crisis.
beb / dpa