With more people staying home due to COVID-19, local lumber companies have seen a dramatic increase in the number of do-it-yourselfers walking through the door.

General manager Rob Fordham of Kilrich Industries told the Star in an interview last Monday they saw the contracting industry take its foot off the gas early in the pandemic to get a lay of the land ahead.

But in late April and early May, they saw a dramatic increase in customers they don’t normally see as a business geared more toward supplying building contractors, Fordham said.

“There was a huge influx of do-it-yourself clientele,” he said.

“Every time I answered the phone, it was somebody else I have never talked to before.”

Fordham said the contracting industry, however, is back into full steam.

“It’s as strong as ever,” said the general manager. “Anybody who can swing a hammer is as busy as they have ever been or want to be.

“There is a lot of work out there.”

The most recent statistics available show that the number of residential building permits issued from January through May has skyrocketed to 145 compared to 100 in the same period last year.

The value of the residential permits issued has gone up from $17.9 million in the first five months of 2019 to $19.1 million this year.

That represents an increase of $1.2 million, or 6.5 per cent, according to the monthly May report by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

The reports shows the value of commercial and government permits has decreased substantially, but projects like the new French-language secondary school or the new administrative building for the Kwanlin Dün First Nation are no longer in the calculation.

Store manager Bryan Curial of Home Hardware said last Tuesday he’s also seeing the residential building industry starting to heat up.

While Home Hardware doesn’t serve as many of the larger contractors as Kilrich, they do have their contracting clients, and they’re getting going.

Just like Kilrich, he said, Home Hardware has seen a noticeable spike in customers buying material to do their own home improvements or repairs.

At the outset of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, what the future would bring was uncertain, and they thought it was going to be quiet, Curial said.

He said it started getting busier in April, and May was extremely busy.

Home Hardware has its regular clientele, but they are seeing a lot of people they don’t see normally, he said.

“There have been a lot of new faces in here.”

Curial said the pressure was elevated a little over the June 6-7 weekend with the opening of government campgrounds on June 4, or perhaps it was the rain.