One of the many big surprises to me when we moved down to Costa Rica was how primitive the wood business was. Here you have a country with hardware stores, tools, etc. but if you want wood, you go to the sawmill and buy green! There are also depositos de madera, or lumberyards, but they usually sell green wood, too.  Of course, you can’t install it green, so you have to dry it yourself.

Many people who are building their own home in Costa Rica are surprised to find that you can’t just go down to something like Home Depot and buy a 2×4; nope, you have to find it. Then, after you find it, make sure to get more than you need, because some of them are going to warp, especially if you don’t know how to dry it properly.

The Ticos are an interesting mix of planning and not planning. If they are building your home, it is hard to find someone who understands buying supplies ahead. I think I have finally figured out why. Most Ticos accumulate material and build in stages. Unlike we do in the USA, they don’t generally get a loan, but they store up money for labor and materials until they have enough to start. This means the wood they need for beams, etc. has probably been in the barn for a few years.

We, on the other hand, land here and want to build our home now, the sooner the better.  Often the wood is not available except in a tree somewhere, which will require permits that take weeks to get.  The wood will be rough cut, often by a chainsaw, then you  will wait perhaps 3 months or more for it to dry (sort of).  Since most construction people have nothing more than a power hand planer, the cost of planing and sanding can cost as much as the wood itself.

We paid our dues on this for sure. The first house we built was from trees to house using chainsaws with guides and a 15″ planer. It felt like the timeline for the construction was stretching out forever (we know those of you who live here can relate).

As we grew, so did our milling operation, and we got faster and faster — and more predictable. Now if we need a beam, it comes out of the factory dry, at the right dimensions, planed and sanded and ready to install. The cost of planing and sanding isn’t much when you have the equipment. It is a lot less than paying a construction person to do it by hand. In fact, the costs saved in having the wood ready almost pays for the wood itself when you deduct the labor cost of working with rough cut wood. And of course, the quality is better. We use specialty equipment that allows us to work with beautifully grained wood that would otherwise have a lot of tearouts. With our equipment, we are able to make gorgeous teak products that cost about the same as cedar.

Now we are in the process of educating the construction bosses from Guanacaste to the central valley that they can buy wood ready to install, which helps keep their clients happy. We not only sell the dimensional lumber, but also the tongue-end-groove wood for ceilings and walls (called tablilla here) and floors. In fact, just about anything that is wood in a house, from furniture to cabinets, to floors and doors, we make and sell. And that uses a lot of wood, which is good for our tree owners.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under business in Costa Rica, cabinets, campo, construction, cultural adaptation, doors, drying wood, forestry, furniture, kiln, tablilla, teak, trees, wood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.