Current Western Red Cedar pricing 

At the time of writing this article cedar Clears PC1 prices are as follows.

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ex 200x25 boards range from $19 - $26 per Lineal metre.   

ex150x25 Boards range from $15 - $19 per lineal metre.

 

You can save upto 40% on your premium cladding cost with Redwood. Why? Because its not imported from across the planet, its locally grown.

 

An excellent quality timber that has the same attributes as Western Red  Cedar is New Zealand Grown Californian Redwood. 

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Cedar (Western Red)

Western Red Cedar (thuja plicata) is a North American forest timber known for stability, durability and relatively light weight.

 

• Western Red Cedar has been used as exterior cladding for 100s of years and is a good cladding timber.

• However due to its popularity and being an imported product customers will pay some of the highest prices for this timber and commonly experience long delays in delivery. 

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Californian Redwood - is a superior weatherboard option.

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• Californain Redwood has also been used as exterior cladding for 100s of years and is a an excellent cladding timber.

• Californian Redwood is locally grown inNew Zealand so you dont pay for poor exchange rates or expensive diesel miles for shipping.

• Californian Redwood is far more stable than any other timber including cedar.

• Californian Redwood grown in New Zealand has been tested by the New Zealand forestry research center SCION and proven to preform as well as Redwood grown in the US. 

Timber Resource 

Much of the Cedar for sale in New Zealand comes from Native forests in British Columbia and surrounding areas in Canada. Some Cedar is FSC or PEFC certified but even the Cedar Forests that are managed, still arrive in New Zealand having run up large environmental costs, with thousands of diesel miles in every log.  Additionally this means that many timber packets include high numbers of short boards to ensure the importer can get tghe most return from the logs.

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Redwood is grown in New Zealand

Durability 

Western Red Cedar is naturally durable, this means cedar requires no chemical treatments. A good quality coating however, will improve cedars lifespan and appearance. 

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Redwood is also naturally durable and meets the New Zealands standards as an untreated cladding.

Coating 

A good quality paint or penetrating stain will vastly improve how Cedar lasts, it will reduce distortion and checking and will help retain cedars colour for longer. When painting it is important to use a water based primer, and then an oil based primer before two top coats. 

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Dark colours will attract more heat which can exacerbate timber movement, for this reason its not recommended to use dark colours on Cedar. 

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Lower cedar supply with record high prices 

From a global perspective we see a few trends emerging. Appearance type timber products such as Western Red Cedar and Radiata Pine clears show strong signs of  strong demand resulting in prices are rising. The state of the markets for cedar products is very high but some signs that supply is unable to continue to support the demand. 

In context of declining tropical hardwood  supplies clear wood from Western Red Cedar supplies are tight with demand exceeding supply and prices moving up every month. The cynics amongst us do wonder about the future and is the upward trend going to fall flat.  Volumes of Western Red Cedar being logged has fallen sharply as supplies are limited. We do know that current demand exceeds supply and the available resource is limited. 

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If you are looking for an Alternative to Cedar we recommend locally grown Californian Redwood.