Interesting discussion on who has the best lumber. What I always wondered was what happens to all the junk lumber that no one buys or gets returned. Anyone?
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
The FHB Podcast crew takes a closer look at an interesting roof.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
They just keep sending it out til it doesn't come back........
Or wears out maybe?
Joe H
Or it ends up at a truss plant.
Guys buy it a discount to build sheds.
be fulla shed
sheds or trusses.
"sheds or trusses."
You were laughing the whole time you posted that, weren't you ???
I think different yards handle things in different ways. Some collect bad lumber, then sell it one a year at auctions. Others throw it back in the pile. Some give credit for a few pieces, and just leave it at the jobsite to be cut up for blocking and bracing.
Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. [James L. Allen]
no,, seen it happen more than once...
home depot.
hey ... someone had to say it!
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Around here they attempt to "recycle" it by putting it on top of a newly opened unit. If the hand-pickers who are in a hurry don't toss it on their truck, the guys at the lumberyard load 'em for called-in orders...and hope it doesn't get tossed back at 'em.
Or.....the guys at the yard build picnic tables in their "spare time" at work.........and then the yard sells them to the park district. Those tables usually get stolen about once a year anyway or get washed away downstream in the spring floods. Poetic justice.
Also......Menard's has a "discounted lumber" section. Garbage for sale. Might be okay for a campfire. That's a big...... maybe.
When the yard sends it back to the distributor it often gets sold to the pallet manufacturers.
Discounted lumber is a good buy if you have alot of backing, blocking, crush blocks.
No sense cutting good wood into 8 to 14 inch pieces. Short Interior headers. Landfills are full enough,
Well, I sometimes think it's all delivered to my jobs...my area must be at the end of the lumber drain.
10man
it stays in Canada! Our big rant is that the U.S. gets all the good stuff. Are you putting that urban legend to rest?
cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
Actually, it gets ground up to make beaver-barf OSB filler when the supplies of Aspen and birch get low.
Edited 6/19/2005 1:00 am ET by Wormdrive
Yes, of course the lumber industry goes to a lot of effort to make 'value-added' material from waste. All power to them, for although we love to hate OSB and MDF etc there's no doubt that w/out them there'd be a lot more wastage showing up in the lumber suppliers'. Does the wastage from lumber yards get plowed back to the mills? I doubt it. I'll pick up a particularly bent piece and yell "I'm building a house, not a boat". Once in a while my local will have a sale of pallets-full of rejected stuff - and it doesn't take long to go, bent warped, twisted, you name it. Good shorts for headers, blocking etc, as has been posted elsewhere.cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
We complain that all the good wood goes to Japan...;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Everyone has their bogeyman.cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
It is more than just imaginary though. I once asked a lumber broker at a trade show why they had samples of beautiful Port Orford Cedar decking, all nice clear lumber, when I could not get the same shipped to me, but only got #2.
The answer was that cedar is regarded as a holy revered wood in Japan so they are more than willing to pay top dollar for The Clear so the culls get sent to US docks. same applies to CVG doug fir
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I've taken out 'utility grade' cedar studs that were better quality than the stuff we use around here for decking. They were put in in the days when cedar was waste wood. Makes you weep, eh.cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
Our big rant is that the U.S. gets all the good stuff.
Just got a truckload of cedar delivered from a small mill in Ontario. I was happy until the realization set in that I had to run it past a sawblade. I stopped today after running about 4700 linear feet of it.
I was pretty darn please with that figure until I realized I still have another 18000' or so to go. Insane.
Want it back?<g>
U can't be from Canada!
I like yer sense of humor too much ...
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Thanks , Jeff - not everyone here understands me 'umour too well. (good fortune to be born a Brit, but the good sense to move to Canada. Some 30 yrs ago I think...oh my, that makes me...I daren't think!)
peter
cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
Edited 6/23/2005 2:00 am ET by piko
my kid was named after a canuk buddy ...
no one understands us either.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
When I'm picking lumber, if I know I'll have a use for blocking or some such I'll usually take one or two of the uglier pieces for that. Then I don't feel so bad if the next time, needing a really nice piece for some reason, I pick through half the pile.
What I always wondered was what happens to all the junk lumber that no one buys or gets returned. ..
They sell it at the Big Boxes...
I work in middle mgmt. at a large contractor lumber yard. We pick up extra lumber at jobsites, and the guys go through and put the better stuff back on the piles. Some stuff goes on a cull pile and is sold (all or none) to a customer for next to nothing just to take it. (this keeps us from paying for new dumpsters every day, but takes up space) Often, we still have to spend time to bundle it up for them, so it's not really worth the time.
A lot of the crap goes into the 30 yard. Filled up two the beginning of this week with returns from a track-home builder. Then the old fellows in the beat up trucks will pull up and go dumpster diving. Credit is given for only a percentage of the returns, which contributes to positive shrink for our store, and pays for the pick-up (or at least we break even, hopefully).
Bottom line for us is it's not worth the time to ship junk lumber back to the mill, or anywhere else.
John
John, yall do it about the same as we do. cept that occasoinally we sell a ton to the local cheapos, or to someone who makes takes or pallets. it beats the heck out of the dumpster even if it fills the yard some months. last fall we had a garage sale to get rid of special order items that never got picked up, or got damaged culls were our best item. John email me @ [email protected] ive got a couple questions for you. Thanks
A few times I've returned a load of crap lumber to the yard and had the same wood sent back to me.
I've even been sent loads that were OBVIOUSLY just returned because it sucks.
Made sure that wont happen again!
Carpenter / Builder, Rhode Island
been there
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Hi, and welcome - got a couple of questions for youWhat is your percentage of shinkege from lousy lumber loss?What does middle management at a yard do? Yards here seem to have the grunts and the squeelers, without much of bacon in between.;)but I gottcha on the labor re-coup loss, I had a bunch of bad - really bad- prepainted siding. When I cazlled about returning it for credit, he said, "Don't bother sending it back, just burn it over there and tell me how much to credit you for"
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
We send very close to 100% of lumber out to job sites, even if it's not perfect. Some extremely warped or bowed boards (1 out of every thousand or two, maybe) go into the cull pile without ever leaving the yard). Our position is most boards can be used for something (ex: a somewhat bowed 2x4 stud can be used for purlins, blocking, braceing, or something. Sometimes the boards are returned, but usually they are not. The shrink comes from customers returning lumber for credit that can't be resold. I've been called for pickups (we pay for the cost of the pick-up) at jobsites where many of the boards were used for truss braceing, walkboards, scaffolding, etc. Other boards have nails in them, and have been cut and run over by trucks, etc. I think we are a trash service for some customers who can't order a dumpster to throw their trash in. Obviously this can't be resold, but goes straight into the cull pile, usually without credit being given. Sometimes credit is given for trash lumber just to maintain a good relationship with a large customer. One spec home builder bought deckboards, laid them on the ground in the sun/rain at the jobsite for 3 weeks, and brought the ruined remains of the boards back 3 weeks later for a refund because 'they were warped.' Credit given. Hmm....
Thanks. I usually expect around 15% cull stock and over-order accordingly. I use most of it for cripples, deadwood, blocking, etc and burn some.But I send some back too. If I order a bunch of expensive 2x10 x 22 and the delivery contains two that had bites taken out of them with a fork lift and a few more with checks running the length of the board, and another one with a knot the size of my head right in the middle so that the first time you pick it up, it becomes two pieces, it is not usable for the intended purpose so it goes back.I remember a load of 2x6 that had about a third of it with pencil marks, nail holes, etc, but amazingly, it was sound straight good lumber, so I used it.last summer, I got a delivery of baseboard that looked like several bundles of shingles were dragged across it before a truck drove over it - tire marks clearly visible. The driver who brought it usually stops to visit for aminute but this load got dropped inthe driveway and he was hightailing it out be=fore I knew he was there. He knew i would not accept it, but must have figured he could get away with something.
I had the yard manager on the phone within a minute or two, so he could call the driver on the radio to come pick it up again. The the real comedy started. The next driver bringing the replacement order brought half the same crap back again, and dropped it into wwet grass before running away. By now I'm behind scedule and hopping mad. Called the owner to tell him these guys were doing all they could to convince me not to buy from them anymore. Why do some yards keep sending it out when all it does is piss off customers that do ten grand a month or more? The owner heard me and had a bundle of brand new base stock in my hands the next morning and said to keep the other and do what I wanted with it. It turned out that they had just hired new summer help to load the trucks out in the mornings and hadn't got their brains turned on yet.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
"I've been called for pickups at jobsites where many of the boards were used for truss braceing, walkboards, scaffolding, etc."
We were once asked to pick up some extra I-joists at a jobsite. When the driver got there, the I-joists had been laid in the mud to provide a walking path from the street to the house.
The driver didn't take them and the builder was furious. He said that if we'd gotten there quicker, his guys wouldn't have had time to lay them in the mud, so it was our fault.
Q: What's the greatest thing about having a woman for President?
A: We wouldn't have to pay her as much.
Help the yards out a little, use some of the junk, I have seen guys cut 12" off a sixteen footer standing on a three foot piece. When they are all gone and you have to go to Lowes then what?
>>>>>What does middle management at a yard do? Yards here seem to have the grunts and the squeelers, without much of bacon in between.I call it middle mgmt (I do the work, but my manager gets the big check). I open the gate in morning, close it at night, I pacify the o.s. salesmen who always have a fire to put out; I collect and apply payment for accounts, order inventory and buy commodities, manage (sometimes babysit) the workers, etc, deal with complaints, and (Especially!) send out new lumber because we sent out crap. John
Slabs can be recycled for pallets, sheds, and agricultural fencing.