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Posted by David Sherman [24.32.202.83] on Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 23:50:58 :
In Reply to: Re: O.T. One good thing about the recession posted by rick [71.225.149.131] on Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 21:26:33 :
A few years ago Mopar Norm said that in his area (California), Home Depot sold "Const" grade lumber, which is not generally accepted by building inspectors. I remember seeing "Const" grade sometimes at the cheap lumber yards (long before Home Depot) when I lived on the coast, but around here everything's properly graded. The Home Depot lumber guy says that they actually have additional specs of their own for wane (#2 common allows a fair amount of wane) and maybe some other things that are tighter than industry standards. Regardless of that, everybody around here sells properly-graded lumber.
When you think about it, no serious lumber yard (and I think Home Depot qualifies) is going to try to peddle lumber that the building inspector won't accept. Most building inspectors are stickers for seeing that grading stamp, especially in houses. It doesn't matter if it's the most beautiful lumber in the world, that you milled yourself from old-growth logs, if it doesn't have that stamp on it, they won't accept it. But if it's got the stamp, they don't care if it's green, knotty, pithy wood of the sort that'll just about tie itself in a knot if you don't nail it down in a hurry. The mills typically sell in mixed units that contain some combination of #1, #2, and "Sel Str" (select structural). Now that Atlas is gone, Stimson and IFP (Idaho Forest Products) seem to be the only ones left around here. It doesn't pay to ship lumber very far, so everything we get is locally grown. Having spent most of my life on the coast where you have to pay a high premium for doug fir, it's sure nice to have that be the standard cheap lumber here. On the coast they usually use "hem fir", which is really always western hemlock, but could theoretically include true (not douglas) firs like grand fir, or spf ("spruce, pine or fir) which is no better. The trouble with hemlock is it rots very fast, which is especially bad on the wet side of the mountains. The barge rafter on my house was a doug fir 2x12 put up in 1915 and it was still sound when I sold the house 90 years later, but I used "hem-fir" when I built my garage, and within 10 years the barge rafters were growing mushrooms and turning to compost. I had to replace them (with doug fir from Idaho) before I sold the house.
Anyway, it's just nice to see the quality of lumber going up instead of down for a change.
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