Instead of being driven by the need to board up windows and doors to protect against hurricane-force winds, the demand for lumber in Utah is the result of a housing construction boom raging throughout the state.

The lumber market is like the stock market. There is a lot of emotion involved and in some areas of the country, just talk of a hurricane can send lumber prices soaring, said Tom Stringham of Stringham Lumber in South Salt Lake.

"While you would think we would be seeing higher prices here because they're using so much plywood back East, that isn't the case," Stringham said. "Prices here were high long before those hurricanes hit and they haven't changed much since."

All-Woods Building Products, a Murray-based lumber wholesaler, noted an 8-foot-long two-by-four that cost approximately $2.50 three months ago now costs $3.20. And a 4-by-8-foot sheet of 7/16-inch OSB plywood that cost $9 to 0 last year now goes for 5 or more.

"All your dimensional lumber is up in price," All-Woods' Gordon Wallace said.

Rising lumber prices create a headache for Utah home builders.

Often, custom home builders get squeezed because there is a time delay between when they contract to build a home for a customer and the date construction is completed, said Gordon Blackham, operations manager for Hamlet Homes.

"If we already have contracted with a customer to build a home for a certain price and the cost of lumber goes up in the meantime, we just have to eat that expense ourselves," Blackham said, indicating such outlays can be considerable with lumber representing 10 percent to 15 percent of the cost of building a new home.

Builders who complete homes hoping to sell them in the future attempt to price them appropriately so their costs are covered. "You just have to guesstimate what your prices are going to be over the course of the year and price your homes accordingly," said Ron McArthur of McArthur Homes.

While plywood and other selected wood products are traded on commodity futures markets, a vibrant cash market for lumber also exists throughout the country. In that cash market, production and delivery mostly occurs on a regional basis.

The Idaho-based Boise Cascade Corp., one of the nation's largest makers of plywood, primarily supplies its distributor and retailer customers in the hurricane-susceptible Southeast from its two mills in Oakdale and Florein, La.

To date, Boise Cascade has satisfied the demand of its customers in the Southeast without looking outside that region for additional supplies. "Of course you never know what might happen or when things might change," Boise Cascade spokesman Mike Moser said.

Many home and small- business owners who in recent weeks rushed out to buy plywood to board up their dwellings and shops as hurricanes barreled toward land found something Utahns would find unusual - stable plywood prices in some retail establishments.

Home Depot and Lowe's, the nation's two leading home improvement chains, said they typically freeze plywood prices in their stores that serve communities threatened by hurricanes. "We simply don't want to take advantage of anyone threatened by a natural disaster," Lowe's spokeswoman Chris Ahearn said.

Both chains indicated they have been able to meet demand by relying on their suppliers.

Although hurricanes boost sales of plywood and other wood panels before the storms strike, demand for other cuts of lumber only increase after the storms have passed and homeowners are faced with repairing or rebuilding damaged structures.

Some experts, however, contend the demand for lumber in hurricane-ravaged areas is often not enough to impact prices nationwide. The reason: Demand for lumber even in communities where damage was intense is typically limited by the number of contractors working in an area. It takes time for contractors to do their jobs so lumber demand is spread out over months.

Also, it can take additional months for homeowners to get settlements from their insurance companies that allow them to rebuild or repair their properties.