With the price of gas continuing to rise, many people are using their cars less and spending more time at home.

Once there, they start renovation projects, especially during the warmer months of spring and summer when they can best improve the outside of their homes.

Curtis Lumber has been working with people and their homes for many years. With 22 locations that stretch as far north as Plattsburgh and the Canadian border and the entire eastern side of the state into bordering Vermont, Curtis Lumber is a growing company that has always taken customer service very seriously. Both professionals and the weekend warriors find their way to New York’s premiere independent building supply and home improvement marketplace.

“If you own a home, you have the things that you have to do maintenance wise eventually, so you can keep your house nice,” Dave Bielawski, Curtis Lumber advertising manager, said earlier this week. “Then there’s things that you want to do.”

Bielawski has been with the company for 34 years and has seen his fair share of customers with their multitude of projects.

Among the jobs homeowners need to have done routinely are roofs and siding, while the optional projects include decks, fencing and landscaping.

“Landscaping has become very popular and we have all the ground coverings to do that stuff,” Bielawski said.

Timbers, bricks, blocks, patio blocks, pavers and stone are all used for landscaping jobs and all are available at Curtis Lumber. Within the more than 64,000-square feet of real estate space at the Ballston Spa location, which serves as the nucleus of the entire operation, is a room Bielawski calls the “Projects Room.” It’s filled with completed projects so customers can see first-hand what things might look like at their own homes.

“We like to show people all the ways they can do things,” Bielawski said.

People working on decks tend to use pressure treated wood, mahogany and upgrade to composite and vinyl decks that require little or no maintenance.

“You can put it down and you’re good to go,” Bielawski said. “You can pressure wash it once in-a-while, but basically it’s a no maintenance product.”

Bielawski also sees a lot of requests for deck lights. Pool decks are also very popular for above ground pools as people can get in the water right from the house deck that is level with the pool.

The two most common deck builders that come in are those building a deck for the first time and those that are resurfacing an older deck. Older decks don’t usually rot, they just weather.

“It’s like putting a new floor down in your house,” Bielawski said. 

With sheds, Curtis Lumber can either come right to your house and install it or you can buy the components yourself and build it.

Curtis Lumber has been in business for more than a century and considers itself a locally-owned independent retailer. Robert Curtis' son, Jay S. Curtis, purchased the business from his father in 1992.

Curtis Lumber has materials for contractors and homeowners. Bielawski estimates that contractors make up 55 percent of the customer base and homeowners are at 45, but he added that it fluctuates.

He said that when the business got going, it was definitely more contractor-based and then shifted to retail and homeowners in the 1980s during the fix-it-yourself boom. He said that the trend is reversing again.

“We do both well. We want both. We feel our people are professional enough to deal with pros, but also knowledgable enough to deal with do-it-yourselfers,” Bielawski said.

Customer service has always been an important part of the business and with a workforce that now numbers more than 700, Curtis Lumber prides itself on having a knowledgeable staff that won’t just hand the customer a brochure when they stop in the stores with questions, but will walk them through the project.

“We do get people (employees) that have been in the business for a long time and come from another company. It’s not necessarily required that they have experience, but it helps,” Bielawski said. “Having a friendly and knowledgable staff is crucial.”

Curtis Lumbers offers a very extensive training program for their employees and there’s also a mentor program for younger employees to learn from the veterans.

Bielawski estimated that the entire workforce has over 4,000 years of experience in the business which averages out to about 6-7 years per person, a rather impressive number for a staff of their size.

Curtis Lumber has a large number of “lifers” who have made working there a career.

“We also have a lot of loyal customers that I see in here every day and people that are in here all the time,” Bielawski said.

The modern customer is also much more knowledgeable as they do a lot of research on the Internet before they walk in the door.

“They already know what they want. They come in with a material list and a plan,” Bielawski said. They just rattle off what they need. There’s so much information on there that’s so readily available, it makes their life so much easier.”

More and  more females are also coming through the door.

Among the challenges Curtis Lumber encounters is the emergence of box stores, which were not around in the early years.

“They’re kind of like glorified big hardware stores. They have a lot more houseware items, but they’re not involved in building materials and the delivery type of things. They’re not really into contractor business. We’re more into the lumber part of it and they’re more into the hardware side of it,” Bielawski said. “They don’t really have the depth of knowledge that our people have. They get a lot of kids and part-timers.”

Most of the employees at Curtis Lumber are full-time.

Like many businesses, Curtis Lumber is finding more and more customers that are interested in making their homes more energy efficient and are green-conscious.

The biggest heat losses in your home come from windows and doors. Bielawski said Curtis Lumber does a tremendous amount of business in the two categories.

“Green is something that is not completely understood by people. Green is not so much the products, but how they’re used and why they’re used that way,” Bielawski said. “It’s a real buzz word, but there’s a lot more to it than just saying something’s green.”

He added that green is a whole building system with specialists and green-certified builders.

“It’s more of a method of construction that qualifies things to be green products,” Bielawski said.

Bielawski predicts that a lot of  people will be using their government surplus checks for home renovations. He also sees more and more people not selling their homes, but fixing the ones they live in.

Curtis Lumber will soon be launching a new informational Web site that will give customers a lot of information before they head to the store.

To learn more about Curtis Lumber, visit www.curtislumber.com.