I dont know why they have to lie about it. At $5/8ft board you’d think I paid for the full 1.5. Edit: I mixed up nominal with actual.
Shouldn’t the normal size be 2? Given, well, the name?
You’d think so, but no.
Short story is the ‘nominal’ size is the size before going into a planer to smooth the faces.
Yes, it makes little sense, like many things related to construction stuff.Yeah sorry. The tree was originally 50ft tall so we call the pieces that. But you only get 3ft
Is like buying 1200lbs steaks because that’s what the cow weighs before it gets parted
Better example would be raw vs cooked weight of a 1/4lb paddy.
That’s a very small area to grow rice in.
Or a very offended Irish person.
The two-by-fours at your local home center are not 2 inches thick or 4 inches wide…not anymore at least. They spent several weeks at that size though. The sawmill cut them to that size to stack and kiln dry, and then when removed from the kiln they are then milled straight and square. Used to be they would sell the rough stock to carpenters who would do the milling themselves, but then they figured out that the railroads were charging them a fortune to ship a lot of wood that was going to be ground to sawdust anyway, so they started milling the boards before shipment. Same amount of construction lumber arrives at the construction site and it took less fuel for the locomotive to deliver it.
Lumber is weird because it has been industry standard to lie about dimensions since before the US existed so it’s just kinda a thing they get to do
No its not Maybe in the US? At least here, it is and has to be, very precise especially when it comes to industry quality. It is precise down to the mm!
Yeah but they measure in feet and cheesburgers.
And lies, don’t forget the lies
Alternative facts, thank you very much
In bullshit, which is itself an imprecise metric.
It’s not exactly a lie, just a standard. Nominal board sizes were based on the unfinished lumber size. Another 1/4 inch is taken off each side to get a smooth surface that makes it easier to work with.
Here’s an old image (reddit warning)
that shows the rough cuts of boards from a log. When they look at a log, they determine how many of each size they can get from it, and at that point, a 2x4 is 2 inches by 4 inches.
Why does the consumer need to know the dimensions at harvest when it’s been processed multiple times?
That’s like calling an 4oz can of evaporated milk a gallon because it came from a gallon of milk before processing (I have no clue on the ratio)
I agree with this. Use whatever system you need or want internally, but there’s no reason to force whatever archaic or industry system onto a consumer. Logcutters also use a 1"=1/4 system and that is how they sell wood. A piece of wood that is 2" thick is sold as 8/4. Not 2". I get that they have their system but it seems dickish to force the consumer to use that system. There could be a good argument for it, but I’ve not heard one beyond “what, can’t you do math?”
It’s like a 1/4lb paddy being a different weight before and after cooking. They can’t tell you the final weight, since it’s always going to be different. Same with wood.
The woods final actual dimensions can vary, so they tell you its original size.
A 2x10 can be anywhere from 9-3/8thick down do 8-3/4 depending on how it dries.
I get that. But this is for kiln dried wood. And this particular issue I’m bitching about isn’t about net loss. It’s selling wood using an internally useful measuring system instead of how the consumer would actually think about it. It’s adding needless complexity, in my mind, when there’s enough factors to consider.
The consumer (people who work with lumber) knows how the system works. You don’t, because you don’t work with lumber.
If the boards were precisely measured in mm and binned accordingly, it would help no one because all construction techniques developed for use with lumber account for dimensional inaccuracy.
Building and working with lumber is different than working with manufactured materials like plywood or whatever.
Um, wait. I would think that violates some sort of law (but I guess maybe we haven’t codified this?). I mean, building plans expect standards in materials, right? So how can a building meet codes if the materials are not within the expected specs?
The 2x4s that have been sized this way do meet structural code. It was found that a full 2x4 is way over spec’d for what they were used for, so why bother wasting extra parts of the tree?
Pretty much everything built with dimensional lumber in the last century has been done with undersized 2x4s, and it’s fine. The name stuck for historical reasons. Companies that build houses and order this stuff by the pallet all know what the real size is, and so do building inspectors.
Pretty much everything built with dimensional lumber in the last century has been done with undersized 2x4s, and it’s fine.
It’s fine, folks. Nothing to see here.
It’s probably 2x2PT or something. There are standards for board widths.
I’m going to guess they can get away with this because 2x2s aren’t intended for structural use. I’ve never built one into a floor, wall or ceiling.
Used for furring strips everywhere. Line a block wall with them and sheet it for example.
Would you call that a “structural use?”
That was one example, you can also strap roofs to install sheet metal cladding. Is that not structural? Strap a ceiling? There’s a ceiling use for you.
I figured if I gave you a real world example you could do a little research of your own. Even googling 2x2 will get you a big box store furring strip page. You should know what furring strips are if you are in the industry.
No, that’s not structural since the furring strips are not integral to load bearing capacity of the structure.
In your sheet metal example, they are only there for visual reasons - to help keep the roof flat. The roof can be put down without the furring strips. It might bend, but it still function as a roof.
The roof can be put down without the furring strips. It might bend, but it still function as a roof.
What…? Roof trusses go parallel with the length of the cladding panel, you require furring strips on the perpendicular to install them. Just like in a wall with the studs vertical, you need horizontal furring to install them.
These required larger furring strips due to truss spacing.
Furring strips are not visual lmfao. They are structural components in a lot of assemblies. Without knowing the assembly you can’t say if they are or aren’t structural, that’s the entire point I’ve been trying to make here. You aren’t the quickest one are you? I’ve pointed this out multiple times. There are thousands of use cases where furring strips are structural. To say they aren’t structural is fucking asinine lmfao.
Those aren’t furring strips in that photo. That’s dimensional lumber. In this case, those spans are large enough that they require the strength of actual lumber.
Structural use means load bearing. So no.
Furring strips are used in plenty of places, I provide one example where it is used in most residential homes to support drywall.
Is it not structural if it’s holding ceiling drywall…? So why are people still bickering that walls aren’t structural when they still hold drywall up…?
If it’s part of a code wall detail, would that not be structural…?
What’s with the pedantism over something like this to try and save face over not knowing what a furring strip is?
No, that’s is not structural.
Structural means it’s intended to support and transfer loads in a way that cannot be safely removed.
Since neither the furring strips or drywall are part of a structural requirement, they are not load bearing.
Drywall is structural, when used on block walls it helps provide lateral support.
This is why being pedantic usually backfires.
Drywall is inherently structural.
Regardless. It’s furring strips, you want to argue furring strips aren’t used in structural applications? They are used in all three applications the person said they haven’t used them in. They also claimed to be a wood wroker elsewhere, so I don’t see how they would use anything structural anyways….
Furring strips and drywall don’t count as load bearing. Structural means that it carries the weight of the overlying structure. Basically if the building falls down if that element is missing, it’s structural. So staircases for instance are almost never structural. Many interior walls are not load bearing so they can get knocked down without consequence. You can also split a room by building a wall that won’t be load bearing.
Furring strips and drywall don’t count as load bearing.
Except for the thousands of use cases where they are used for lateral bracing to support the structure….
Like in shear walls… strapped drywall ceilings… load bearing walls….
Yes they can be used non-structurally, I’ve never claimed otherwise, yet you are ignoring the fact that they can, and are used in load bearing structural applications……
To someone from central europe it’s always weird how houses get build from wood in the US. 😅 I imagine you can hear ~everything happening ~anywhere in the house?
I want to say that stick-built homes are really not so fragile as people seem to think. There’s tradeoffs, of course, and ways to build them that make them uncomfortable at best and blatantly unsafe at worst. That being said, they’re pretty sturdy, fairly easy to repair and modify, and relatively quick and cheap to build.
it’s extremely common for americans to dismiss apartments because they simply cannot fathom the idea of housing that actually blocks noise, it’s one of the primary arguments i see used against denser housing.
It’s a big improvement from making them from straw.
I spent a few nights in a straw bale home, wanting to experience what they were like. They are incredibly quiet. Each bale is 1.5 ft of soundproofing/insulation. The loudest part of the house was the clock ticking. The house was heated by appliances such as the refrigerator and water heater. A local monastery built several to rent out for people wanting a tranquil contemplation.
Is nobody gonna call out OP for wearing socks with sandals? …and, ostensibly, while preparing to do carpentry?!?
That’s like a cardinal sin squared!
don’t forget the unbranded Chinesium calipers.
Mitutoyo or bust.
For a machinist yep. For home gamers, a waste of money. They don’t have the knowledge of where and when to use them nor the skills to get accurate repeatable measurements. So for OP’s use whatever CCC, (Cheap, Cheerful, Chinese), caliper he’s got is good enough.
It’s the definition of “nominal size is what ever we say it is” that pisses me off. Buying wood/lumber is the worst offender of Nominal sizing, but even metals are getting worse. I used to buy a round bar of say, ASA1018 and it would be +0"/-.002". It’s now +0/-.006", (that’s +0/-.05mm and +0/-.15mm for those living in Boca Raton). At the end of my career as a toolmaker I was often forced to purchase oversized stock and waste time turning said stock into the actual sizes required.
Jesus did it
Nah nothing wrong with wearing socks with sandals when you’re home. Do what ever the hell you want.
But I do agree with wearing proper footwear while doing dangerous things.
Oh absolutely. I wear socks with sandals because my soles sweat and make my sandals sticky.
But yeah, wear proper attire for the work you do!
Steel toe capped crocks
Why is 2x2 meant to be 1.5x1.5 and not 2x2?
*Planed/straight wood versus raw lumber. It threw me off when I first started building stuff and summed that a 2x4 was actually 2"x4" in all my measurements/plans
*Or it would be straight if you’re lucky and don’t pick from the top of the bin at Home Depot
