Yes, this could get way out of hand. How many products can you think of that are sold on nominal dimensions? Pipe is one, lumber, hardscape products, mulch and gravel, the list goes on.

Had a kid in one of my Econ classes in 1976 or so run up to the professor right after class and ask him what he thought about buying Subway franchises.

Prof says, 'Hey kid, If I could tell the future do you think I'd be standing up here answering stupid questions?'

The whole sentence is green, not just the I. Actually, all of the I's are green. Of course, if you are paying attention, none of them are capitalized.

(If this was a serious question, send me a dollar and I will supply you with an answer.)

JR

Because those are the dimensions that are specified in the standards. If you read the standards, there are different widths accepted for green lumber and dried lumber. If you know anything about wood, it will shrink as the moisture content decreases. If you think about it for a minute, the wider the board, the greater the shrinkage that may occur.

There's a whole host of information about wood that's relevant when a knowledgeable person buys it. Apart from the sizes, there are differences in how it is sawn from a log, how is graded, how many sides are surfaced, etc. Although I am a commercial contractor and I don't have to screw with it in my day job, I also build houses for family members, have extensively remodeled my own house, made furniture from time to time etc. and I can tell you that every piece of wood I've ever bought has been hand picked by me or one of my carpenters and it all comes from lumber yards.

Lowe's and Home Depot don't have good wood, they don't have good prices, most people shopping there have no idea what they're looking at, in spite of the fact that the 10 minutes spent on the Internet would be free and benefit them greatly, so I guess they shouldn't get too picky.

I would still like to know what the alleged injury was in this lawsuit.

I'll add one more thing about shrinkage, which will help your understanding of wood. Shrinkage mainly occurs in the radial and tangential directions in a piece of wood. The amount of shrinkage can be as much as double that in one direction than the other and differs with species, along with the moisture content before machining and how it's cut from a log (quarter sawn, rift sawn, etc.) and how many sides are resurfaced, yada, yada, yada... As the finished actual dimensions are fixed, without regard to any of the above things, a greater tolerance is given to wider pieces.

The more you learn about wood, the less likely you are to want to build anything from it, ever.

JR

Once upon a time, dimensional lumber was probably just sawn. Not surfaced, not kiln dried, just cut up. Over time, it shrank. One day, a minor government bureaucrat decided to standardize lumber dimensions. Perhaps these odd sizes were chosen to correspond with the as-installed, as-seasoned dimensions of what came to pass previously. I have no idea, since I've never researched the actual story, but it's possible. Wider lumber would have shrunk more, so maybe that's the difference. I do know that the allowance between green and dried lumber is 1/16 of an inch for the smaller sizes, then it graduates to an 1/8th, then it graduates to a 1/4, etc.

In the end, it doesn't matter. It is what it is.

Read this and get back to us if you ever get your question answered:

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/miscpub_6409.pdf

A barrel of oil is 42 gallons because when transported in wagons the oil would spill out of the (assuming 55 gallon) topless barrels leaving an average of 42.

The lumber industry does have standard dimensions, and is part of a larger system of unified building codes, engineering and design, and trade capabilities. What happens is a building is designed with known material properties (such as materials efficient design, low emitting plywood, "green" energy efficient use and insulation), to a required specification set by building codes. These include regional wind load, sheer, seismic stress, soil deflection, etc etc. as well as the aesthetic and operational type of structure. These plans are permitted and checked, and THEN it goes into the hands of the building trades. The tradesman will order the materials. Someone has to be able to understand the plans given the known materials. Someone has to build the thing within known and expected techniques and use of labor and time. When the lumber, in a wooden building project, arrives, it must be of a known unit dimension and quantity.

If some idiot lawyer decides that these crucial dimensions are to become subject to whim, to "interpretation" and individual opinion, then what happens is buildings everywhere become harder and slower, and much more expensive to build.

So to take a retailer, and blame it for the size of a stick on the shelf is not only myopic, but naive and dangerous and self-serving to the idiot doing the finger pointing at said stick and store display.

You do know that steel will shrink and expand probably a factor of 20 times, maybe more, every day?

That's not my point though. Steel has to be aligned given a certain temperature range, or the building will not even be plumb or square, and to be honest is far from air tight. The point is that someone has got to go build the thing. And wood may be in practice a lot more economical. Right now, it's a toss-up. Steel may become cheaper and better as engineering advances to make the materials and techniques better. Plumbing for example, has come a long long long way in the past 20 years.

A very simple court order for this nonsense would have a line of carpenters ram 2 by's up the asses of those lawyers, call it a go / no-go gauge.

My first house was made of 2x3 cedar studs on 24 inch centers with 1/4 inch drywall... rumor was the owner builder built sheds for the railroad.

I think it was something like that Johnny cash song where the guy in a auto plant built himself a car by bringing parts home from work.

I was in the business over 20 years ago and it was common knowledge a 2x4 was really a 1.5x3.5.

I'm waiting for the Jerry Seinfeld reference!

Next you are going to tell me light beer isn't really light?

I'm out...

Rusnak,

I certainly hope you have nothing to do with designing or building structures.

JR

It's obvious to me that you don't, other than reading about them in books with pictures.

I have 45 years of experience in the construction business, I've completed in excess of $100 million worth of high end projects for some of the largest corporations in the world, and I still remember some of those nifty engineering classes I took in school.

You?

JR

I am building for my own portfolio as I type this, $8M in construction, both wood and steel. I have a $120M project on the books in two years, and a $5M single buildig next year. If you have spent any time in the field, then you would appreciate the wild and wooly difference in the field to the academic theory on the plans. Furthermore, you'd know about something as elementary as steel expansion, which is remarkable compared to wood.

To me you sound more like a small time GC who does retail TIs.