The construction industry is booming, the order books are full, but the material is missing.
The prices for building materials are also skyrocketing in the district, and deliveries are often not made at all.
The woodworking industry is currently feeling the most severe bottleneck.
Carpenters in Pfaffenwinkel are considering short-time work.
District
- "The prices have doubled since December", complains Anni Schmölz from the carpentry of the same name in Bernbeuren. According to her, the industry is facing a major dilemma: the carpenters cannot simply pass the higher purchase prices on to their customers. Submitted offers ultimately remain valid. According to Schmölz, a wood price clause can only be written into the offer for orders that are added now.
According to information from the district craftsman's association and its managing director Roland Streim, many craft businesses shy away from this. They fear “a loss of trust on the part of their customers,” says Streim. The managing director is very concerned about the operations in the district: "The prices are completely out of control, that comes at an inopportune time," he says, looking at the full order books.
The price turbulence on the wood and building materials market is one thing. What is worse is the fact that many craftsmen are running out of material and are no longer able to get supplies. The shortage of supply is also causing problems for the Bernbeurer carpentry. Even now, deliveries have to be waited for weeks, reports boss Schmölz. It may take longer in summer. The wife of operations manager Josef Schmölz cannot rule out that the company with its 20 employees will then have to go into short-time work. The only hope for the couple is that “thank God we have clients who have enough wood themselves”.
The Bernbeurer carpentry would by no means be the only one that would have to shut down due to the lack of materials. In the past one and a half weeks alone, he had five inquiries about short-time work from the districts of Weilheim-Schongau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, reports district handicraft manager Streim.
At Weilheim-based Rieperdinger Holzbau GmbH, they are still successfully fighting the crisis. “Everything is OK,” says master carpenter Thomas Bartl. The Weilheim company has been sourcing its timber from a sawmill in Osterzell for years. And master carpenter Bartl is very happy about it: “If you are not a regular customer at a sawmill today, you don't even need to start”, he knows. When it comes to industrial goods, which in addition to glued laminated timber, also includes insulating materials, Styrodur or coarse chipboard (OSB), regular customers are of no use. “The delivery time is twelve to 20 weeks, so you can often only order blindly in advance,” moans the Weilheim master carpenter. At Rieperdinger in Weilheim and the associated Vogt roofing company in Wielenbach, they are lucky enough to be way ahead with their orders, reports the master carpenter.
The colleagues in Bernbeuren have meanwhile signed a petition to Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier, which wants to tackle the problem at the root. The petition calls for a German "export ban on wood as a raw material". Most of the undersigned criticize the fact that the large companies prefer to ship their material to China and the USA instead of handing it over to local craftsmen. According to the Central Association of the German Construction Industry, wood exports to the USA had already increased by a whopping 40 percent in 2020. In the country, "two or three times the price is paid for German wood," they say. Homeowners in the USA are buying it to use their Corona aid to refurbish their homes. The wood from Canada is not in great demand because it requires high tariffs.In any case, the German craftsmen look at the mountains with the stove pipe.
In the opinion of the Steingaden sawmill owner Robert Wiedemann, the buying behavior from earlier years is now taking revenge. According to him, many companies preferred to use industrial goods at the time, and the prices for industrial and construction timber were still in balance at the time. Because of the buying frenzy of the Americans and Chinese, industrial wood is now scarce and significantly more expensive than that of the smaller sawmills. He has only increased his prices by 15 percent this year, explains Wiedemann, who processes around 5,000 cubic meters of round wood in Steingaden every year. His sawmill survived the year-long price war. The boss and his team are now reaping the benefits. The wood is only sold to regular customers who have “relied on us” even in difficult years. According to Wiedemann, that is ten to twelve companies within a 15 to 20 kilometer radius of Steingaden.You can also rely on your sawmill in the future: “I don't export,” emphasizes the boss. And “brutal price increases” are out of the question for him.
District trade union manager Streim also appreciates this: “We are very fortunate that we are structured in a rural way,” he says. "In future we will have to think more regionally again and learn from the crisis."