A few years back when I was at a trade show, I spent some time talking to a guy from one of the big lumber companies. (Maybe Weyerhauser?)
He said that they were getting close to producing odd length (Like 11′ and 13′) lumber and 2X5 (1.5″ X 4.5″)lumber. At that time, I think both were available in Canada. He thought that 2X5 lumber would eventually replace 2×6 lumber.
I’ve never actually seen either of those in Illinois, nor have I heard about it anywhere else. Was just curious if it’s gained any acceptance elsewhere, or if it just never caught on. Is it still available in Canada?
Truss Designer Extraordinaire
Replies
Boss, probably means 2x6 lumber is gonna slowly shrink just a bit towards 5, so the "new" size won't be so much different? Joe H
LOL..........
So we are to start looking for 2x5x14's? really they will be 1-/2" by 4" by 13'?
Probably gonna be some form of "value added" lumber.
Did ya ask him how close they were to getting back to producing STRAIGHT lumber???
I just checked through the sites of: Canadian Lumber Council, BC Lumber Council, Ontario material standards, and about 1/2 dozen of the bigger mills - couldn't find 5" lumber
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Just great. Another odd sized piece of lumber to fur out to make fit.
Actually, I thought both the 2X5 and odd length lumber were a good idea.
The 2X5 would work well in trusses around 40'. That's where 2X4 starts to become too small, but 2X6 is still a bit too big. Maybe 2X5 walls would be a good compromise for someone who couldn't decide between 2X4 and 2X6.
And the odd length lumber also makes sense for trusses. Like for a 23' truss - you could use a 10' and 13' for the bottom chord, instead of a 12' and 13'. And top chord lengths are all over the place, so odd length lumber would be helpful there also.
But people are slow to accept change, so I don't look for a big switch anytime soon. Just curious if there were areas where it had caught on....
Truss Designer Extraordinaire
Boss
Your company certain must go through more lumber than the typical builder/remodeler that is on these forums.
Have you tried asking your suppliers for some of those sizes.
Certainly, we go through a lot of lumber - about a semi load a day when we're busy. (And that's just at this plant)
I'm kinda in a different situation now, and am out of the loop as far as lumber is concerned. Just happened to think of it, and wondered if anyone else ran into it........
Truss Designer Extraordinaire
I've got a silly notion...come out with lumber that is dimensionally the same numbers that it is called! It gets stupid sometimes trying to find 1/4" or 1/2" material on a jobsite to fill the gaps.
It seems to me that dimensionally even sizes would allow for faster building, as well as a possible elevation of quality, whereas the new 18 yr old aveage moron won't have to strain his soft skull to figure out how to add/subt fractional numbers.
gabe
In Norway, they have something that's about half way between our 2x4 and our 2x6. They also have what they call a 45x95, which is about the same thickness and just a tad wider than our 2x4. Its actual dimensions are something like 41mm x 91mm, so they do it, too.
I've always wondered who it is who decides how big 2x4's should really be. So far I haven't been able to find out, which probably just means that he's smart enough to make sure that a whole bunch of guys with framing hammers don't find out who he is. ;-)
-- J.S.
My understanding of how 2X4s (and other lumber sizes) came to be is like this: (Feel free to jump in if you know better)
It all used to be 2" by 4" (Or whatever) at one point in time. But as lumber got more scarce and more expensive, they started looking at ways to reduce costs. Some mills started out giving you 2" by 4" less the thickness of the saw blade. Since not all saws and mills were the same, lumber wasn't always consistent sizes.
So somewhere back in the 1950s someone came up with the dimensions that are currently used today in order to standardize things. Don't know who it was, or how accurate this all is.
But that's my story and I'm stickin' to it....
Truss Designer Extraordinaire
don't know about you, but I'm building my house outta 2inch by 12 inch boards that are just a smidgen over two inches thick and just a smidgen over over 12 inches wide.
Plus my 18 foot boards all come with a little extra to wack off each end (they're closer to 19 to 20 feet long) The really serious timbers wind up at 12 inches by 12 inches after an afternoon of planing. If you want that get your wood from a sawmill rather than a lumberyard. when they're green a 2x is almost 2 3/8th's thick and drys to a shade over 2 inches. (I'd tell you how much that shade is but it varies from as little as a 64th to as much as 3/16ths)
Oh and price,,,, I spent a little over 18,000 dollars for enough wood to build almosta 5000 sq.ft. house. Not typical western whitewoods or doug/fir. But BLACK WALNUT, WHITE OAK, CHERRY, HARD MAPLE, EASTERN WHITE PINE, TAMARCK and 916 BD.FT. of the prettest BURL OAK you've ever seen. (plus 9 burl oak timbers 6"x6"x10 ft.)
I priced it out and if I bought the wood at the typical big box store it would sell for over a quarter of a million bucks. Which should give you an idea of the mark up from the sawmill to the customer.
That's very interesting. Do most sawmills sell retail? Did you have to buy a "house worth" in order to purchase there?
Jon
He got a pretty good deal. Last time I was dealing direct with a saw mill, I was paying 18-21 cents per board foot for rough cut green sprucce/fir while at the lumber yard it was 24-25/bf for KD delivered to job. Not that much diff considering the value added.
Excellence is its own reward!
piffan,
It really depends on where and when you buy. I'm certain that some mill that cuts tens of millions of bd.ft. you are more of a hassle then gain to them, on the other hand a small mill that only mills a milion or two bd.ft. a year, 36,000 bd.ft. is a good customer and worthy of good deals.
In addition the majority of wood that I bought was in 1999, since then wood prices have tripled or higher. In 1999 custom milled black walnut was going begging at 30 cents a bd.ft. today the same wood is 2.10 a bd.ft.
Sorry I'm so late with this reply,
Been busy buildin' the home.
No you can buy as little as a bunker of lumber, the price breaks start once you hit 5000 bd.ft. and the real deals are the unsold orders. Every mill takes orders for wood and somehow it never gets picked up. It sits around and just before they are ready to run it thru the chipper to become mulch or boiler fuel they might mention that they have Black walnut for 17 cents a bd.ft. or 6/4 black ash for 15 cents a bd.ft. Now some woods will stain if not properly stickered and some will mold, but certain woods don't really care. Oh you may get a little more warpage then you'd like but at 10 cents for 5/4 ash who cares? Boat boards become short boards or fireplace wood. I just went thru a stack of black walnut I bought at 17 cents and after milling I wound up with 865 bd.ft. out of a 1005 bd.ft. bunker. the rest is either fireplace or cute little boxes etc.
It depends too on where the mill is. if it's near a main road or a city, chances are they don't want to talk to you. the more rural the easier they seem to be to have custom orders done. My favorite mill was able to come up with three logs all veneer grade that were able to mill 4"x9"x 21 feet boxed heart, oh, black walnut. It took three days. If I went to the large mills around here I could have never had access to this or if I went too small they couldn't fill my diverse needs.
Intresting!
now go back to work on your home. We need to get it dried in before winteer gets here you know!
LOL
Welcome back.
Excellence is its own reward!
The. thing is it changed so many times, from 2" x 4" to 2" x 3 5/8" to 1 5/8" x 3 5/8" to 1 1/2" x 3 1/2". And I'm not at all sure that I've seen every size that was ever made. Perhaps some of you know of others. Some of the rationale had to do with planing rather than saw kerfs.
-- J.S.
That's part of the truth too. As mills try to economize and increase profits by reducing waste they are pawning off more wane on us. They use thinner kerf sawblades to reduce the amt of sawdust. That's good. I remember reading an article about somebody proposing 1-1/4" stud material. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin:
The Department of Weights and Measures, U.S. Government ,sets all sizes and standards for lumber as they do for every thing sold and purchased in this country.
charlie
Prove it!
Not trying to be cantankerous but if I want to make and market a stud that is 1-1/4" wide, I could call it anything I want, like "new and improved de-'light'-ful spaghetti studs under the motto, "flexable lumber, perfect for politicians homes"
I don't need to call it a 2x4.
The greater hurdle to get over would be the engineering studies to prove that it would bear a load under this and that conditions. I would also need to convince contractors that their subs with barely trained yahoos using pnuematic guns for the first time could actually hit the meat of it when nailing up sheathing or decking a roof and do it without making toothpicks of the ribbon edge when joining two sheets of osc together on the stud.
Weights and measures only defines what an inch is and makes sure that most tape measures come close to it.
Calibrates scales so that when you buy a pound of nails, you get a pound of nails.
Stuff like that.
But if I want to sell a piece of material that is three inches or one inch wide to be used for a stud, they don't care as long as it is what it is.
Is there anything else you trust the govt departments to do for you?
whoa, really?Excellence is its own reward!
You're on the right track on the history of lumber dimensioning. I spent 18 years in Pacific Northwest Old Growth Doug Fir sawmills and my take on it is this:
When lumber was originally sawn green and rough and the saws were large kerf, by the time you sawed it, kiln dried it (they did that a lot way back when) and planed it you had to start with a big chunk of wood to end up with a 2" X 4" board after the shrinking and milling. Some mills rough cut to dimension which was OK for some applications but it's pretty difficult to match the uniformity of a planer even with the best saw technology. Along the line the decision was made to rough saw to dimension and then if planing and drying was involved, that made it acceptable to undersize the original board, and of course, standards were developed for all the obvious reasons.
Today, with the small kerf capability and improved planer performance, rough sawn boards are significantly less than true dimension. As most of us know, a green 2 X is about 1 5/8 but it'll eventually shrink pretty close to 1 1/2 after being in the dry for a while. Kiln drying framing lumber is energy intensive, so it's not done much (at least with doug fir) and the pecker poles they're cutting it out of can make for some pretty squirrely wood, especially if it travels through a kiln.
All this can be a little problematic at times, like when you're stacking top plates or building up posts or something. In those cases, you learn to choose your lumber well. It's really aggravating to find a piece that's undersized (planer skip) in a dimensionally critical area.
In the old growth mills, all the dimensional lumber came from the heartwood. It was less valuable because of knots, pitch seams, wind shake, etc., but it was usually pretty stable and you didn't have any WANE on the edges. (All the clear wood went for moldings, windows, tank stock, wooden gutters {a REAL waste!}, scaffold plank, cross arm stock for power lines, etc.).
I kind of doubt there will be much movement toward a change in dimensional standards. Windows, doors, insulation and other component industries are geared to what we have now. I think we're stuck with working with what we've got and holding the mills and the suppliers to the quality they're supposed to provide.
Measure with a micrometer, Mark with chalk, and cut with an axe.
Edited 4/20/2002 6:12:50 AM ET by Notchman
> I've got a silly notion...come out with lumber that is dimensionally the same numbers that it is called!
Yup, and while we're at it, why not do the same with pipe and ladders?
-- J.S.
I don't know about the ladder silliness, but there is a real reason for the pipe sizes.
When pipes were first being made in commercial production, the steel was pretty poor, and required rather thick walls to resist the operating pressure. So, a schedule 40 pipe, 3/8 size actually had a 3/8 inch bore in it.
As technology improved, steels became stronger, and the wall thickness could be reduced. They could have kept the bore constant, but that meant that the OD would get smaller. THAT would have made replacing pipes "interesting" at the fittings, since they were sized to the OD. So, the decision was made to keep the outside constant, and increase the bore. And that, my friends, is the reason that we have "nominal pipe sizes".
Incidentally, as a side note, pipe sizes are the only tubing that is constant around the world. A 1/2 inch pipe may be specified in millimeters in Russia, but they are the same in OD and ID. BUT, the damn threads are different, often by a mere 1/2 thread/inch. The Brits used one size, and the US another. Since British pipes were used throughout Europe, the British threads became standard.
And that's the rest of the story.What's the difference between stupidity and ambivalence?
I don't know & I don't care