Building materials’ prices rise again: polystyrene foam up by 120%
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The price of foamed polystyrene used in construction has grown by 120% this year, while the cost of facade wool has increased by 90% – according to research conducted by the Association of Facade Contractors (SWE). This tendency is expected to continue since polystyrene, which is used to make polystyrene foam, is still scarce on the market. In general, the price of EPS is and will be determined by typical variables such as local demand, raw material availability, euro and dollar exchange rates, and fuel prices, particularly oil prices, as well as inflation.
According to the research, the price of a cubic meter of polystyrene foam was PLN 100 in November 2020. Now it is PLN 220, representing a 120% increase. Facade wool, which has climbed by 90% in price over the year and currently costs PLN 58.5/m2 (15 cm thick), has reached similarly high prices. Furthermore, the delivery of wool may take up to two months. According to the SWE study, this would result in delays in implementation and greater expenses for contractors, which may eventually be passed on to the investor.
According to Grzegorz Tomaszewski, chairman of the Association of Facade Contractors, price jumps are so enormous that businesses start stockpiling since no one knows how much the identical product will cost in a month, according to the chairman of the Association of Facade Contractors Grzegorz Tomaszewski, cited by local media. A year ago prices of construction materials were also rising, but at a rate twice lower than the inflation rate.
Prices of polystyrene foam will go up in December ?
Even wholesalers and distributors of thermal insulation products began to see a minor decrease in foamed polystyrene pricing in October of this year. This offered reason to believe that the price of building insulation materials was on the decline. As a result, many investors may have missed a minor downward trend in polystyrene foam pricing since few companies opted to lower prices. According to Hurtownia Styropianu, prices varied in November and continue to vary, and producers are still unsure about supply continuity. Furthermore, some companies have already raised the price of foamed polystyrene by about 10% over the previous month.
Inflation is growing, the Polish zloty is weakening, which is reflected in currency exchange rates, and gasoline and crude oil prices are rising, all of which support the Styrofoam price hikes. Hurtownia Styropianu has already indicated that mineral wool costs would climb by 10% in December this year, and has observed that increases in construction chemicals (mesh, glue, plaster) used in insulation are also not baseless. Construction chemical prices are expected to rise by 5% on 1 December, according to experts. In turn, they expect another 5% increase in building chemical prices in January 2022.
During last year’s, 5th edition of the PMR industry Forum: CONSTRUCTION IN POLAND 2021, according to a poll conducted among the guests of the event, the biggest challenge the industry had to face in the last year was filling the order books and the observed weakening of demand for construction services. Interestingly, only 1% of the poll participants indicated at that time that it was the rising costs of construction materials that would pose the biggest challenge for the construction industry, which is now becoming the industry’s biggest problem. This is confirmed by the results of this year’s survey, PMR data and opinions of Forum participants. Problems with rising prices of construction materials and their availability are currently the biggest barriers to construction companies’ current operations. Only slightly less severe, in the opinion of construction companies, are problems with the availability of workers, both skilled specialists and basic labor force.
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