OCEAN CITY - When Ocean City’s Boardwalk gets its fresh new boards this fall, it will be for a new low price.
The Ocean City Council on Monday voted to grant Baltimore-based Grasmick Lumber the contract to supply more than 56,000 planks of wood for the reconstruction of the Boardwalk, which will begin in October. Grasmick has supplied wood for the Boardwalk in the past, but City Engineer Terry McGean said the deal before the council was “a historically low” bid, which came in at $602,650.
“In 1990, we paid 54 cents a foot for deck lumber. In 2008, we paid 84 cents per foot. The bid price today is 52 cents per foot,” McGean said.
The glasswood company TimberSIL was also granted a contract to supply approximately $40,000 of wood treated with new technology that would be used on one block of the Boardwalk to test its claims of durability and longevity.
Berlin Planning Commissioner Ron Cascio, who is also a builder, spoke to the council about the potential benefits of using the new product.
“If we got half of the wood lifespan that TimberSIL claims, which would be [20-40 years] instead of eight to 10 that is standard in our experience, that would save costs on longevity,” Cascio said. “It’s a new product, but in their North Carolina yard it has been under severe stress testing.”
3 comments:
It was a wise decision to test this product on only a small area. I would be very leery of any product endorsed by Mr. Cascio.
These are hard times, and lumber prices are extremely low. It's a great time to build, if you're not in fear of losing your job! Oh, that leaves everybody out except the gubmint...
Timbersil is a great product. I was really very happy with a small dock I built with it.
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