Forget timber and labour, there is another shortage of a critical construction infrastructure supply — portaloos.
Key points:
- Builders are facing a shortage of portaloos for worksites
- Merlin Portable Toilets’ Peter Effeney says he has 4,000 on back order
- Shipping delays and a boom in construction projects have led to the shortage
It’s not just causing a backup in Brisbane or the rest of the country, but possibly even building sites across the world.
This month, flood-damaged Bardon Bowls Club reopened its doors, after a delay.
The community organisation was hoping to return to business earlier if not for the dearth of portaloos available to install on its worksite.
Peter Effeney is a director at Acacia Ridge’s Merlin Portable Toilets, which manufactures the siloed outhouses — each selling for about $2,000 per unit.
Mr Effeney said there was a waiting list of at least two months on the product in Australia.
However, he said, in the US, customers were forced to wait up to four months, meaning the issue was “pretty much” global.
He said in Australia the federal government’s HomeBuilder scheme boosted demand for construction services so much there were just not enough toilets to go around.
“When the government released all this stimulus … the rules were the job had to be done by a certain date, so there was a massive push by builders to start work,” Mr Effeney said.
“A building job might be 16 to 20 weeks, and a portaloo will service two or three jobs a year.
“Now with all the delays, job sites are established for one year, even longer, so there is a huge shortage of toilets and not as many toilets rolling back into hires and us as manufacturers, have a huge amount of orders pouring in.”
Mr Effeney said they just could not work fast enough to meet the needs.
“Even when we start running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we just can’t keep up with demand,” he said.
“Even importers are struggling to bring stuff in with shipping.”
Merlin Portable Toilets turns out 200 portaloos a week and has 4,000 on back order right now.
But close contact and COVID shutdowns, as well as shipping delays have been slowing down production, Mr Effeney said.
“As an example, a shipment which was supposed to land in February, we literally only got last week,” he said.
“[So that’s] the shipping of three per cent of items to finish off a unit … there is a prolonged delay in a number of areas.”
With more than 100,000 portable toilets in use in Australia, some businesses turned to buying cheaper and inferior overseas stock to fill the shortfall.
Despite the constraints, Mr Effeney said the supply would return to normal over the next 12 to 18 months.
“We’ve got through high peak demands before, and time is what serves the industry,” he said.
“The HomeBuilder grant was a peak period, and most of those builders have to start the jobs by the middle of next year.
“The builders will start working through their outstanding jobs and all of a sudden demand will drop. They will return toilets back to hire companies, and by that time we will have pumped out a few thousand toilets.”
He said the stock was bound to build up again.
And for those enjoying the return of music festivals and other large events, don’t fear.
Companies who specialise in staging such events have their own “fleet” of portaloos to ensure they can fulfill contracts at short notice.
