PVC shortage

hman

hman

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This isn't directly machining related, but might be of interest to some. I was at Home Depot yesterday, looking for PVC pipe fittings. A distressing number of spaces on the shelf were labeled "Out." The guy out on the floor had no idea why there was a supply chain problem. I was in a Lowes today - same problem with PVC stock. But there I heard what seems a plausible explanation. There was a fire recently in a Louisiana chlorine plant. Chlorine is one of the raw materials needed to manufacture PVC. So stocks are running short.

Bottom line - there will probably be a lengthy shortage of PVC plumbing fittings (and other PVC stuff). I'm sure the Louisiana plant wasn't the only source of chlorine, but was probably a major player. So it'll take a while for production to come back up to speed.
 
Thanks for the info!
Pushing TIG-rod, storage silo project to the back burner....
 
For a plumber this is important news. Not that I buy plumbing materials from home depot. Ill check with my vendors. Thanks
 
The cost of every thing is going crazy. If anyone believes the numbers on inflation I have some swap land to sell you.
 
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hman said:
Bottom line - there will probably be a lengthy shortage of PVC plumbing fittings (and other PVC stuff). I'm sure the Louisiana plant wasn't the only source of chlorine, but was probably a major player. So it'll take a while for production to come back up to speed.
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Interesting.

Just read about a furniture maker having trouble finding colored polyethylene to make Adriondack chairs. Shortage traced to wither storms in Texas which "disrupted production of many such petroleum-derived products".

I wonder how we're going to buy our Adirondack chairs 30 years from now when we're completely weened off oil and natural gas.:love:
 
It's not just PVC that seems to be in short supply. Metals seem to be an issue also. We buy about 5000 lbs of stainless and aluminum per month or at least we were. In the last few months the supply has started drying up, we went from local stock, to west coast stock, to no stock anywhere. We are now being quoted September delivery (maybe) at some indeterminant cost, but at least a 300% price increase. We're working on finding another source(s). A couple of my customers are also small manufactures and they are having the same problems. None of our materials are coming from offshore sources, it is all domestic mills and vendors.

The crazy thing is that our sales are good, as are the sales of the two customers that I mentioned above. But all we can do is fill the backorders right now, we can't guarantee delivery of any current sales.
 
PVC fittings at Lowes and HD have been sparse for well over a year (I have been installing a large aquarium and plumbing it into my household plumbing).

I have been purchasing all of my PVC fittings from: https://www.supplyhouse.com/

The fittings are considerably cheaper but they do charge shipping so you come out far ahead on large orders but on smaller orders... well at least they have had everything in stock and get it to me in well under a week. They also carry much higher quality fittings as well as the cheap junk the big box guys sell... specifically PVC bulkhead fittings are what I am referring to.
 
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bill70j said:
Interesting.

Just read about a furniture maker having trouble finding colored polyethylene to make Adriondack chairs. Shortage traced to wither storms in Texas which "disrupted production of many such petroleum-derived products".

I wonder how we're going to buy our Adirondack chairs 30 years from now when we're completely weened off oil and natural gas.:love:
Click to expand...
Well, if we stop burning the stuff for fuel it will be available as a chemical feedstock for much longer. Nothing wrong with using oil and natural gas to make plastic. Burning it is the problem.
 
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