Gary Farrar
Contributing Editor
The accompanying table shows changes in the Nelson-Farrar indexes over the 2012-14 period for selected, basically nonmetallic building materials.
Data are included for the overall nonmetallic group, five nonmetallic materials, and iron castings.
Concrete ingredients and concrete products indexes showed the greatest changes during the period.
Concrete ingredients, showing the greatest gains of the two, changed to 1,369.1 in fourth-quarter 2014 from 1,265.7 in first-quarter 2012. Concrete products changed to 1,100.5 in the last quarter of 2014 from 1,015.2 in first-quarter 2012.
Building brick and fireclay brick showed more moderate changes, though none of the index changes were drastic. The building brick index rose to 1,377.6 from 1,330.8 over the 3-year period. During the same period, fireclay brick changed to 2,084.9 from 2,019.1.
Two small index changes occurred in the categories of clay products and iron castings. Clay products increased to 971.7 by fourth-quarter 2014 from 932.3 in the first quarter of 2012. Iron castings rose to 1,742.7 for the last quarter of 2014 from 1,712.0 in first-quarter 2012. The final category, the overall nonmetallic index, rose to a high of 1,215.7 during fourth-quarter 2014 from 1,128.8 in first-quarter 2012.
