Tag: Construction material

February 7, 2023

Dozens of countries around the world have already banned the use of asbestos in the civil construction sector. Cheap to extract and abundant in nature, it is a natural fiber used to manufacture water tanks, insulation, partitions, tiles and decorative […]

January 18, 2023

Inflation appears to be impacting construction materials prices more than other sectors of the economy even as it eases. Construction input prices fell in December at a greater rate than the Producer Price Index, but still outpaced the wholesale level […]

July 12, 2022

While not universally positive, Pendergrass’s outlook for 2H 2022 pointed to key areas displaying better conditions for contractors. “As we move into the back half of 2022, tighter financial markets, slower growth and a continued improvement of supply bottlenecks could […]

May 3, 2022

The breakouts in U.S. construction material input costs showed few signs of abating in March. Table 1 presents year-over-year, and latest-three-month percentage-change results for 15 Producer Price Index series that bear on the materials cost side of construction projects. March […]

April 19, 2022

Imports of iron and steel to the U.S. reached about $38.9 billion last year, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database, its highest level since tracking began in the early 1990s. About 21% of the structural steel used in the […]

December 3, 2021

Due to its complexity, much of the subject matter concerning the economy requires detailed editorial commentary, often supported by relevant tables and graphs. At the same time, though, there are many topics (e.g., relating to demographics, housing starts, etc.) that […]

November 29, 2021

Buildings are a big contributor to global warming, not just in their ongoing operations but in the materials used in their construction. Truss structures — those crisscross arrays of diagonal struts used throughout modern construction, in everything from antenna towers […]

June 17, 2021

The most accessible single-source resource on construction material price movements is the Producer Price Index data set from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The PPI series monitors prices charged by producers as they exit through factory gates. One drawback of […]

June 17, 2021

Contractors continue to face a shortage of building materials like lumber and steel, while cost fluctuations for the building products are having increasing impact on business, according to second quarter data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction (Index). […]

June 3, 2021

Conventional wisdom says that construction material prices increase slightly year-over-year. The thinking goes that, as long as supply chains aren’t interrupted, material prices will roughly match the rise of cost-of-living and inflation rates. This mindset is appealing, because it creates […]

December 23, 2020

The three big drivers — backlog, revenue expectations and contractor confidence — in the business group’s report “nudged up” slightly from the third quarter, but failed to reach pre-pandemic numbers. All three CCI scores were 70 or above in Q1, […]

October 11, 2019

Construction material prices are sometimes an unknown when planning a project. Whether related to tariffs, supply chain concerns or a volatile raw materials market, there could be fluctuations that can impact the bottom line for both owners and contractors. For […]