Lumber Pricing - what gives?

I assume you are looking at Finsihed 4 Sides lumber? The big box stores will almost always be cheaper. If you’re looking for rough cut lumber it is usually sold by the bd. ft. instead of the linear foot, and you will save $$ there if you can joint and plane your own lumber.

In my experience, lumber yards are rarely cheaper than big box stores for typical woods (pine, oak, maple, poplar). In that market they are more of a boutique business. What you do generally get there however is a broader selection and a wider variety. For me, I’ve started looking for small mills and buying in slightly larger quantities (50 bft at a time). I found I get more wood for my money and the effort it takes to mill it is well worth the savings.

-- When you give someone a chance it may well be their last.

I am hearing that the bottom of the market is falling out for species like Oak for instance and the trend now is to darker wood. The Chinese bought ship loads since the early 90’s but now they are looking for walnut and cherry. They roll most of it into veneers for plywood.
Lumber is a real commodity and it often depends on the supplier and how good his stock is . (knots, sapwood, grain, biorad widths, drying etc)
Like Russel says, try to line up a mill you can deal with and if possible buy a decent load at a time.
My personal expereince with Borgs is that they don’t have much in the way of matched lumber and the prices are not normally competitive.
Flooring is another matter.

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Are you sure that the lumber yard was not giving you $3.40 a board foot ? If your not familiar with a board foot that is basically a piece of wood 1” thick by 12”x12” you have to know your board footage you need .There is a formula -Thickness x width x lenght then the total of that divided by 144 (or look up board ft calculator on lumber sites) Rarely have I found that the “box” stores are cheaper in solid wood.The maple you stated from there would be $6.60 a board foot which is high.My last maple I paid like 3.50 bdft .there is some decent web sites that have good prices even with shipping try a web search.

-- Scott NM,http://www.shangrilawoodworks.com

Scott - Yes I know what board foot is, and what Length Foot is, and they were charging by the Length-Foot just like the big-box-stores do.

I do not have a bandsaw/jointer/planer to mill my own lumber, so I have to rely on the S4S lumber for the time being, and I guess like you all mentioned – in that type of lumber the big box have the upper hand (it is sold at $2.20 where I live) so I guess I’ll have to bitch and buy the S4S from them for now until I can mill my own lumber. I just don’t have the space for a jointer and bandsaw right now… but hopefully in the future I will.

Thank you all for your responses, it just concurred what I was thinking already. the local lumber yard does have a wider selection of sizes and species, but at those prices for S4S I’d rather wait till I can mill it myself, and get the lumber from the big-box.

Thank you all for the info.

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...

Didn’t mean to offend PurpLev. I guess the stores do things diffently out here in the WEST!!!Too much heat and not enough rain I guess!!

-- Scott NM,http://www.shangrilawoodworks.com

Scott- none taken, just wanted to clarify the matter. I actually used to live on the west coast, and when I moved to the east coast I noticed that plywood here is significantly more expansive (as in almost double priced), I wonder how that works… and if it’s the same or reversed when it comes to hardwoods.

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...

That lumber yard price is about what our local yard charges. I think 2×2 squares were $3/lf, about the same amount of lumber and surface prep.

The biggest thing I noticed at the hardwood dealer vs. HD/Lowe’s is that the majority of the wood is flat so I don’t have to dig through a pile for straightness. Also mentioned was board matching. It was much easier to find close to matching boards at the HW dealer.

I think the HW dealer is more expensive, but justifiably so. They have better wood and more selection in terms of furniture quality hardwoods.

-- Doug, woodworking in Alabama

Independent dealers and small sawmills may have the capacity to prepare lumber for you and should be cheaper than the box stores or big lumber yards. Here I pay 2.50 a bf for rough FAS maple and I believe that I can get it dressed for 0.50 a foot. But, being cheap, I would rather do it myself.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

I can’t speak for hardwoods, the big box stores don’t carry the stuff I’m interested in, but in utility woods, like fir and pine, I’ve found that the stuff at the lumber yards tends to be a lot dryer, and, as Doug observed, it tends to be straighter.

$3.40 a linear foot for 1×4 works out to, what, $10.20 a board foot? that seems excessive for maple, something’s still wrong here.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

The problem with big box stores such as home depot and lowes is that they buy in such a volume, from only a few mills, the mills will stick in some stock that is not to speck, my mill used to make S4S Aspen hobby boards for H.D., we were allowed 1 in 10 to be subject not to grade, We would buy Select and Better Aspen by the semi load for approx. 850 a thousand, rip, chop to lenght, mould it 4 sides, sand one face, package and ship, these are a lot of steps, thus resulting in the final product being over $2 a bd ft, thus translated into lineal ft at the store with the brokers percentage added on and not to mention the stores. The general rule in the lumber business for S4S board is 2-3 times the cost of the lumber to pay for machining, and waste thus resulting in these high prices. These stores can take advantage of there size and notariaty to charge these high prices and still have people come in and buy there stock because they dont know where else to go, or the certain species in certain areas are hard to come by, require extensive trucking. Bob #2 is correct the the market bottom has fell out on oak, but currently the bottom on every specie is falling out, including maple. I have usually 5,000 ft of h.m in stock and i have S4S capabilities, if interested let me know what sizes you are looking for and i can give you a quote with shipping included per bd. ft. and see if im cheaper with it delivered to your door.

-- barlow

I’ve never had luck finding cheaper hardwood at the big boxes compared to my local yards. And as the others said, generally the lumber yards have better stock and my time in having to go through a lot of lumber to find some good stuff is worth something to me. I just recently bought cherry at $5/bf S2S and was able to get all the cherry I needed off the top of the pile. What I generally have a hard time finding at the different yards is good pine. As a result, I find myself digging through bunks of lumber at the box stores to find enough good pine to build anything at all.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

even though lumber yard may be more expensive for common woods they are much better. you get a better selection, better service, and better wood. i like them much better and you can get some good deals. i have found that at specialty lumber dealers you can get really good prices. hope this helps.

I would rather pay your prices than what we pay for maple & walnut around here. $7.31bf for Maple and $7.42bf for Walnut. That is why I order mine from the internet.

My lumber suppliers are always cheaper than the big box stores. I usually buy in large enough quantities to get a good price break.
My suppliers also let me select out the lumber. Color and grain matching is quite important in order to get a good result.

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

Living in Brandon Manitoba where there are no sizeable trees to be milled for 100s of km around I rely on Windsor Plywood and Wooden Edge, a local lumber yard and a local woodworking machinery retail outlet respectively, to supply wood. Sure the big box stores have some ‘common’ woods on hand but anything nicer has to come from my two favourite suppliers. I just purchased 100 bf of cherry ‘shorts’ at four dollars a bf no selecting from the pile just the boards as they appear… and they were much nicer than anything I’ve seen at the bigbox stores (or Windsor for that matter). All pieces were about 5 ft long 3 to 10 inches wide and 1 to 1 1/8 inches thick. It is my first purchase of a ‘large’ quantity of wood.

-- ....next big purchase is wood for the next project, Mark

Lumberjack – $3.40 LF for 1×4 is equivalent to $10.20 BF, so if you pay $7.31 BF for maple – its much cheaper then what I saw at the local lumber dealer I was talking about ;)

that being said – I agree with everyone about the fact that selection and species are more available at the local lumber dealer then the big box store, and the service is much more friendlier and helpful, but if I’m not getting unusual species and getting something as common as hard maple, then it looks like I’m going to have to stick with HD/Lowes for S4S lumber will I can mill my own. I just got my jointer today, so I’m one step closer to being able to buy rough lumber for a (from what I can tell from all the responses) a much much more affordable price.

Thank you all for your responses, I feel like this has been something that I just didnt have much experience with to be able to tell If I’m paying right, or over the top, but with all your responses it made things much clearer and more rational – so thank you all! :)

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...