I just left Home Depot at 9pm a bit frustrated that they were out of stock on 5ply 1/2″ cdx. I only needed 5 sheets to finish off my roof so I took 3ply.
The absurd thing is that 5 ply costs 11.77 and 3 ply costs 13.44. They place the 3 ply right in front of the lumber entrance on an end cap with a huge price tag as if 13.44 is a great deal.
Just around the corner is the 5 ply in lesser quantities sitting on the second sheet goods rack off the floor.
Why would anyone buy 3ply if it costs more?
Home Depot doesn’t always act logically so I suppose I shouldn’t question why they stock 3 ply if it costs more.
I have always opted for 5 ply so if some nails get set too deep there are still four plies holding it. With 3 ply I end up with only two plies holding if I blow through the first layer.
Karl
Replies
more margin???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
I bet they don't sell a lot of 5 ply, and the price hasn't been changed for the new.
Hate 3 ply!!!
Perhaps, but it has been this way for at least six monthskarl
Karl-
Around here (NJ) I only have four-ply fir or three-ply southern pine at the big boxes. They're typically around the same price. Sometimes the pine is a little cheaper. I mostly use the four ply for the reasons you mentioned. Additionally, if the pine has defects or bad joints in the laminations, it's going to have a greater affect on the strength of the panel. Regardless of what I choose, I typically pick plywood myself. Even then, sometimes its hard to get nice pieces. Today's plywood is nothing like what it used to be. The fir plywood used to sheath my folks' house #built in the early to mid 60s# is so nice it would be used for cabinets today. Overall though, it really doesn't matter much - you could sheathe a house with the worst plywood out there and it would still be incredibly strong.
-BK
did you ever notice 1/4" or 3/8" sheetrock can be twice the price of 1/2"
they make many tons more of the 1/2"5 ply is probably least ply for 1/2 plywood to meet code for spanning rafters on roofs
3 ply very limited use /very limited production
In northern California, three ply is really common and home depot seems to stock it in 5 times the quantity of five ply at my local store. This would tend to refute your analysis.It doesn't make any sense to me.Thanks for your input.Karl
In that particular case, it was supply and demand. The store was running out of plywood, so the store manager raised the price on the product.
3 ply is garbage and no one should every buy it for anything. I wouldn't even burn it if I was suffering frostbite.
Thanks for that opinion.
I don't have the experience to criticize 3 ply but I have always felt that the couple of dollars extra I might pay for 5 ply was well worth it.The fact that home depot is choosing to sell five ply cheaper is baffling but ultimately a stroke of good fortune.If 3 ply is garbage and unworthy of the burn pile where does osb fit into the line up?Karl
i too in Jersey and see a lot of three ply. I am seeing a lot on roofs and if the house has any type of venting problems the three ply delaminates very quickly. Around here its complete garbage even compared to the four ply.
We get it on machinery shipping crates, and it usually is done for. On the plus side, it's easy to break open the container, since you can easily destroy it.
If 3 ply is garbage and unworthy of the burn pile where does osb fit into the line up?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A lot better product than 3 ply. Having worked with both, I will agree completely with Jim on that one!
Osb is fine and probably better than the 5 ply that is shipped out today.
Blue,
I have used 3 ply many times when we want to skin over existing roof deck and have a clean dry smooth surface. now adays-if 7/16 osb is $5-$6 a sheet we use that to skin over a deck-but there HAVE been times in recent history that 7/16 osb was more than 3 ply.
we aren't terribly concerned about strength since we are skinning over an existing deck also- some roofing materials glue down better to plywood than to OSB so-all in all- 3 ply does have it's uses.
stephen
I built some chicken nest boxes out of 3 ply. Chickens didn't care.
So yer sayin' you still get yer 3 eggs over easy every mornin' without any chickenshït or henpecking?
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
No
Hmmmm. Sounds like it's time for some chicken and dumplings....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Actually, city bylaws prohibit "farm animals" so I was forced into disposing of them a few years back. I found them enjoyable time wasters myself.
Shoulda had a cute 6-y-o girl standing by to start crying when the inspector started to make off with her 'pets'. And a video camera....
We raised a couple of 'free-range' ducks out on the lake a number of years back. Named one 'Thanksgiving' and the other 'Christmas'. Went pretty well although catching them in the fall using a pedal boat did kinda resemble a Three Stooges or Keystone Kops routine.
Following spring I got a couple of more ducklings from the coop in town and as soon as they were big enough to turn loose on the lake, I did.
Four days later, the hot-shot city lawyer whose father owned the place next door came over squalling about how 'my' ducks were defecating in 'his' lake.
Told him 1: they were not my ducks; they were my 2-y-o son's; and 2: it was not his lake but a federally regulated waterway.
Didn't do any good; this was before cheap video cameras and U-tube. My ex went ballistic on him and to avoid bloodshed I promised to take the ducks to a local zoo where Ryan could visit 'em.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I think some of mine got et, but 2 black australorp hens and a rooster went to the fair, they were sharp lookers. And my little white leghorn hen became a little girls pet. That hen was always very friendly to people.
I really didn't make my comment because of strength issues. I made my comments based on the overall product. 3 ply is like building with spaghetti and it delaminates if it rains in the sahara. There is nothing good about the stuff that I ever saw. The species is usually the worst. It's just a horrible product. Of course, I'm pining for the good old days when all the plywoods were good. Nowadays OSB is normally far superior to any of the plywoods I see. There might be some good mills left...I just don't know about them.
Luckily- I generally work on 1920's vintage houses- so I rarely encounter plywood or OSB. I am having some luck cracking a neighborhood a couple decades older than that- making my encounters with plywood even more rare. mondays project was on house that the homeowner tells me is 104 years old- which is pretty old here.
stephen
hey- I almost forgot. Ecatly WHEN was plywood ever great? my experiences with 1960's era plywood- horrible stuff ! 3/8" thick, glue totally gone, plies entirely delaminated-all the rigidity of a old magazine. stephen
Try some 1944 vintage 3/8 plywood sheathing on wartime ex military houses, like mine. If it got damp it fall completely apart. Luckily the house was so drafty it didn't get a chance to rot.I stripped it completely down and found a number of signatures written on the front of the house and their military rankings. Navy, army, marines all built it. Kind of gives me a good feeling having seen that. It's all covered in hardiplanks now.
Steven, the ply I get here and now is not bad stuff. Sure, there's an occasional cruddy sheet, but almost all of what I see is decent product.
Plywood I find on older houses is fine, too. Any problems with it are related to lack of maintenance or poor workmanship, not poor material quality.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
In my experience 3, 4,or 5 ply can be garbage but it is more likely with less plys.and there's some 10 ply hardwood ply out there that will make good countour maps of the Rockies....
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"After the laws of Physics, everything else is opinion" -Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If Pasta and Antipasta meet is it the end of the Universe???
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according to statistical analysis, "for some time now, bears apparently have been going to the bathroom in the woods."
Standard plywood here is 1/8" per ply so half-inch is 4 plies, 5/8 is 5 plies, 3/4 is 6 plies, etc.
I've never even seen 3-ply or 5-ply half-inch. Of course, I'm 'way out in the boonies where a lot of things don't even exist, LOL....
We do have 1/16" plies available for cabinetry, of course (½" is 8 plies, etc.); in French we call it 'Russian' plywood. Comes in 4x8 or 5x5 sheets. I've gotta drive halfway to Montreal to get it, tho....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
Well, please allow me to ask a dumb question. Why wouldn't one, given the option, go for the ply with more layers than another? Especially if they were roughly the same price?I was in that same spot a few weeks back. Out in the boonies and had to replace some rotted out OSB. Not being able to make heads or tails out of the difference between some 1/2" 3-ply or 4-ply (though it may even have been a 5-ply), I went with the one with more layers, on perhaps the foolish assumption that 'more is better'.And if that was the correct choice, why would anyone pick the 3-ply? Maybe it's easier to kerf the back and bend it for curved applications?'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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You mentioned,"Maybe it's easier to kerf the back and bend it for curved applications?"In my experience it is really brittle and if you try to bend it you hear all sorts of cracking.I would go for the five ply if I wanted to bend it.Your other question, "Why wouldn't one, given the option, go for the ply with more layers than another?"I think it is marketed to builders who want to save a buck or two and only meet the minimum requirements. This goes back to my initial bafflement at the price of five ply being lower. It has always been more costly prior to this year.Karl
True, it's been a long time since I actually bought any plywood, but I have never seen or heard of 4 ply. All the plywood I have ever heard of had an odd number of plys with each ply running in a different direction.
An even number of plys means one of the outer skins is perpendicular to the other outer skin. This seems to defeat the very theory of how plywood works. It is designed to act as a stressed panel. I really have a hard time even envisioning such a critter.
I am gong to check this out with APA. I suppose that I should have check it out before I replied but I was so surprised at seeing 4 ply even mentioned.
The sun just came out so I gotta run and go try to shore up a foundation before it rains again, but real quickly--
Plywood with an even number of plies is made with a specific rotation of grain angle on the inner plies so that the outer plies can have parallel grain. I forget the actual angles, but IIRC I don't think it's something as simple or obvious as 0º, +45º, +135º, 180º. ;o)
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Its called merchandising my friend or lets rip some more people off
You use plywood in home construction? Must not be in Atlanta. Where there are identified structural locations it is OSB, and much less than that everywhere else.
But, never under estimate the stupidity of the shopper. How do you think Best Buy stays in business?