Trying to repair your deck? Good luck finding lumber during the pandemic

In his 18 years of demolishing old decks and building new ones, contractor Jonathan Farrell said the shortage of pressure-treated lumber has never happened. Farrell said shelves in all the big home improvement stores are bare when it comes to the treated wood that won't rot.

"Nothing," Farrell said. "There's nothing! They said four weeks, four weeks ago."

Homeowner Danette Depina has been trying to get a new deck built since April. She was told she could blame the shortage on COVID-19.

"Who would have thought?" Depina said. " But with this virus that's been going on, some of the wood mills have been shut down. It's a problem. Nobody would have thought."

The other side of the coin is that when the states shut down, residents stuck at home got their stimulus checks and got busy with projects like repairing and building decks. Before long, all the wood had been bought up with no more on the way.

Farrell said that when a customer asks,' When will you finish my deck?' he's honest with them.

"I just tell them straight up, there's no lumber," Farrell said.

The owner of a local lumber yard said there are only about a dozen mills in the Eastern U.S. that pressure-treat lumber, and all of them cut production because of COVID-19.

Cofer said the phone at his DeKalb County lumber yard is ringing off the hook with people looking for pressure-treated wood.

"We get calls constantly," Cofer said. "All day long. 'Do we have it? Do we have it?'"

A lot of times, Cofer said his answer is no. He said the minute he gets a delivery, usually it's gone within a matter of minutes.

"Nobody knew what to expect," Cofer said. "Nobody had any idea what this was going to lead to. Nobody knew how bad it was going to get."

Chip Cofer said it may be another month or two before the supply of treated lumber could be back where it belongs.