Source
r/PrepperIntel•
SpacemanLost

Fiberglass shortage - RV Industry having to modify new RV builds to do without

USA Midwest

Saw this update vido from Haylett RV - aka "Josh the RV Nerd" earlier today:

INDUSTRY UPDATE: Running Out of WHAT NOW?!

First a shout out to u/chunkymonkeychow for his post here 3 days ago in the thread: What is striking you as odd or concerning you right now? calling out the major raw material shortages of vinyl, ethylene, etc impacting plastics, resins, glues etc. This post is basically a follow on to that.

tl;dr - RV manufacturers (mostly located Indiana/Ohio) can't get the raw materials needed to make the fiberglass end caps on RVs and 5th wheels... so they are substituting alternate construction instead, likely to the surprise of the buyers who ordered the RVs months ago.

In the video, he speculates that the problem is due to wind turbines using it all up, etc, but I think he doesn't know and his suppliers are just guessing or making stuff up.

I felt this warranted posting as these types of raw material shortages impact all sort of unexpected and unrelated items.

Posted Mar 12, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

6910
LowBarometer•

I drive by two RV dealers every morning. Neither have any new Class A or Class C. Both have old, maybe ancient, class C's out front. They both have new trailers though.

I bought a new truck camper from a dealer that had already ordered it from the factory. Supposedly it will be coming in next week. I am crossing my fingers and toes that it will show up. Shortages are real, and they're really screwing things up.

There's also a big shortage of 2500/250 and 3500/350 pickup trucks. Good luck finding one of those.

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i_got_skrimps•

Might be adjusting inventory to market demand as well though.

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dementeddigital2•

This will impact boat builders too.

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jimmyz561•

Chemical shortages are real. Plants in the Louisiana area got jacked by storms. Then Texas happened. May wanna stock up on some weird shit as it’s gonna skyrocket in usable value. Usable value vs money value. I don’t give a shit about money value.

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PrairieFire_withwind•

This.

Almost all of your plastic reated feedstock comes out of texas and louisiana area.

If oil wells get shut down or slowed we will see shortages. If refineries get shut or slowed we will see shortages.

These plants got hit in the cold weather and also by hurricanes last fall. They have been running short production since the hurricanes came through last year.

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jimmyz561•

Yeah we felt it after the hurricanes and it’s inky getting worse. We have to help Texans and Louisianians however we can.

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crowman006•

They could start by pressuring their lawmakers into regulating the utilities. If they don’t care , they deserve what they get.

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AntiSonOfBitchamajig📡•

Airstream is still 110% busy driving by them.

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toottle•

The glue shortage is also affecting companies that make toilet paper and paper towels. The lack of glue will shut down some of our production lines soon

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chunkymonkeychow•

Hey oh. I can comment on why fiberglass is in short supply as well. It all goes back to methanol. Methanol gets made into several different raw materials. In order to make fiber glass you need polyester resins. Polyesters are made from alcohols(methanol) and organic acids.

Methanol production is back online but we are still at 35% capacity. In two weeks we'll be somewhere between 25% and 50% capacity based on when raw materials show up. Were probably 5-6 weeks out from being up to 100% but then we are planning to keep the plant open on weekends which could boost capacity to 130% to catch up on orders. Nothing is going to be cheap or at a discount.

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