On the back of the Saturday October 31 launch of its new Smyth Street Showroom, Bulkan Timber Works, one of the leading names in the country’s forest products industry, is challenging government to allocate the company material supply responsibility for one per cent (fifty houses) out of its recently announced commitment to erect 5,000 turn-key homes during its current five-year term in office.
On Monday, during an interview with the Stabroek Business, Howard Bulkan, who boasts more than four decades in the local timber industry repeated his assurance that contributing to enhancing the landscape of the local housing sector is a challenge which the company is ready to meet.
At sixty-six, Bulkan enjoys what he says is an undiminished passion for extolling the virtues of Guyana’s timber species and on Monday he repeated to this newspaper his conviction that setting aside its substantive importance to the local construction industry, the country’s timber inventory can, as well, significantly upgrade the overall aesthetic value of the local construction sector.
Two weekends ago the launch of the Smyth Street Showroom may have been constrained by the protocols associated with fending off the COVID-19 pandemic, but Bulkan says that he is looking beyond that consideration, focusing instead on what he sees as a possible significant breakthrough for the enhanced local use of Guyana’s hardwoods in the construction sector.
The Showroom itself is designed to draw attention to the aesthetic value of local hardwoods. Truth be told, the permanent home which the Smyth Street facility occupies brings a pleasing taste of the forests to the coast, leaving behind the vastness from which it comes and re-presenting it in a sort of refined splendour.
Bulkan’s view that Guyana and Guyanese should reap the full benefit of what is one of the country’s finest natural resources is reflected in his preoccupation with a ‘battle’ he has fought for many years to restrict the export of raw lumber. He wants, he says, to see the industry, ‘go the extra mile’ by accelerating the transformation of the various species into products that would not simply provide a more pleasing construction profile but also maximize the country’s earnings from its forests. This, Bulkan says, is a key mission of the twenty-three-year-old Bulkan Timber Works, which has been exporting more than 98% of its processed, kiln-dried, value-added lumber at its Yarrowkabra, Soesdyke/Linden Factory to overseas markets that include the United States, Japan, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
The October 31 opening of the Showroom appears to be a calculated investment in a likely emerging niche in the wider local construction market. The Showroom, Bulkan believes, can bring a positive transformation to the local construction sector, causing home-owners, particularly, to rethink what he describes as “one of the single largest investments that a person will make at some stage in his/her life.”
The Showroom itself is a modest though tasteful initiative to parade the country’s hardwoods both in timber form and in the selected pieces of furnishings that are to be found inside. The company works with a variety of local hardwoods, including Greenheart, Purpleheart, Darina, Locust and Wallaba, transforming these into floorings, outdoor decking, moldings, doors, roofing and shingles. Inside the showrooms, there are items of furniture too, cupboards, chairs and tables, among others.
The new Showroom, Bulkan says, seeks, among other things, to unravel some of the complications associated with local house construction. He challenges prudent home builders to first prepare an Architect’s Plan from which to extract a detailed list of the required material then knock on the doors of the Smyth Street Showroom. There, he says, the company will commit “to supply directly to your site, pre-packed bundles of lumber already pre-cut to specific lengths” so that wastage is kept to the barest minimum and for easier assembly on site.
All of this, according to Bulkan, goes beyond simply marketing the new Showroom. Having regard to frequent expressions of dissatisfaction by homeowners about the finished product, he believes that engaging the Showroom helps to position the homeowner to monitor how his money is being spent while ensuring an ongoing qualitative monitoring of the construction process.
The emergence of the Showroom is a manifestation of what Bulkan says is a decision made by the company earlier this year to place greater emphasis on providing an enhanced suite of services to the local market. There followed a significant investment in the upgrading of the company’s plant and equipment as well as the facility’s physical infrastructure. In effect, what it has done is to enhance the suite of its services beyond the home-building market, focusing as well on the creation of selected furnishings, including kitchen cupboards, windows, outdoor play sets, clothes horses, pantries, bars and bar stools, coffee tables and customized carvings.
The recent disclosure that government is targeting the construction of 5,000 turn-key homes during its five-year term in office has caught the attention of Bulkan Timber Works. Accordingly, at the opening of the Smyth Street facility, Bulkan made a public ‘pitch’ to government to “try us with 1% or 50 houses…….We want to change people’s minds about our country’s timber resource. After all seventy-five per cent of our land mass is forested. We want to encourage people to build more homes using lumber………Guyana’s housing industry has literally exploded and we have been exploring options for offering some of our products to meet these domestic demands.”
