Getting stamped or code approval?

[beenthere]

??
Don't think at this time that logs are bought/sold based on structural integrity of the wood.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

It is questions like this that keep the U.S. lawyers busy (or should I say employed?).  My grandfather and father were lawyers and son is.  I was smart and went into the wood business.

[Brian_Rhoad]

 Logs are bought and sold by grades. The best logs are usualy sold for veneer or high grade products. Sawlogs are graded as to the grade of lumber that is expected to be cut from each log. From the best grade to pallet grade each log is graded according to its appearence and species. If the log won't make the grade for a sawlog it goes for pulp or firewood.

If each person who looses the lawsuit goes back to the person they got the material from why not go all the way to  the first scource? I think the whole stamping deal is a bunch of nonsense. It is big business controlling who they have to compete with. It's almost like saying the framing can't fail as long as it was stamped. The junk I see for sale in the lumber yards makes the stamps a joke. Any lumber can fail if it is used incorrectly. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any guidelines to follow, common sense has to be used also. But we all know that commom sense isn't so common. If using unstamped lumber is so bad, how are the 100 year + homes still standing?

I sawed lumber for a neighbor's house from his logs. The county gave him a hard time about the lumber not having a stamp. He got an engineer to check the lumber. The engineer told him that the lumber was better than anything he could have bought at a lumber yard. Lumber from a small sawmill operation is most likely inspected more than in the big mills. Each piece is handled several times as it is processed. And the mill owner is usually directly involved. There is no way every piece of lumber in the big mills is inspected as it should be as fast as it is run through the mill.

I did a bathroom for my father in law where the house was built in 1848. The floor joists were 3x6 pine on 3' centers. The floor was 3/4" pine with no subfloor. If you listen to the supposedly educated people today there is no way that house should be standing.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

The lumber yard can buy different grades of lumber.  The better the grade, the higher the price and the longer  the span, the stronger the piece and the stiffer.  Next time someone has a complaint about the junk at a lumber yard, check the grade and see if it is actually a low grade. Then find a lumber yard with higher grade material.  The big box stores sell low grade because they buy low grade.

The designer of a building , with guidance from the code and from industry span tables, etc., will specify the quality or grade needed so that the walls are straight, OSB can be fastened, floors are stiff and straight, etc.  Using a higher grade than necessary is not necessary and is of limited benefit.

[Brian_Rhoad]

I have checked the grades and alot of their "best" should have been put through the chipper!

[Ianab]

This is often true.

All the grade stamp means is that it meets the MINIMUM strength spec, not that it's necessarily a "good" board. So pith is allowed in the board, often knots that would cause us amateurs to reject a board make it though the stress grading machine. The better boards are sold at a higher grade (for more $$), or better logs made into higher value materials.

All the grade stamp says is that the wood is up to standard for some simple purpose, like holding up a wall. If the design and construction methods are also up to standard, then it wont fail under "normal" conditions.

The minimum standards are sorta needed as you can be sure if they weren't there some unscrupulous developers would try and use something cheaper and hope the drywall and cladding held the place up long enough for them to be paid.

I think what bugs a lot of small sawyers, and house owner/builders, is that they know they can produce better boards, and often build a structurally better building, but there is no easy way around the red tape that's set up to keep the "professional" builders in line.

Ian

[Brian_Rhoad]

A local contracter told me he had built a house and was asked to build an addition to it several years later. When he opened up the wall for the new addition the studs had at least 1/2" shrinkage. That's 10% on a 2x6 wall. Now, was the lumber not dried to the correct moisture content, or did it get wet before it was used. It doesn't really matter since it was stamped, so it "had" to be ok to use it.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Softwoods shrink 5% from green to 10% MC.  So, the report of 10% shrinkage seems a bit exaggerated.

The stamp, if it is legitimate, indicates a MC at the time of grading.  Mills are inspected once a month randomly and that inspection includes thorough inspection of random piles.

When designing a house, it is the stiffness that controls the size of most pieces.  So every house is stronger by far than it needs to be.  Plus when we design, the clear wood strength values are reduced to about 1/6 to get design values.

I am not sure, but I seem to recall that pith is not allowed in any structural grade that is approved for homes.  Even if allowed, most pith pieces will warp out of grade.

[Brian_Rhoad]

1/2" loss on 5 1/2" is about 10%

[Ianab]

I am not sure, but I seem to recall that pith is not allowed in any structural grade that is approved for homes.  Even if allowed, most pith pieces will warp out of grade

I've seen pith in grade stamped wood in a recently built house, but probably not for more critical components like roof trusses etc.  Yes it's likely to move, but once it's in the house frame this limits that.

That's what I mean by,  "If we were grading the wood for you own use." That section of the log around the pith would go in the firewood pile. But if a mill is cutting framing studs from 6" dia logs they can't really avoid the pith and juvenile wood. The pieces then make it though the machine grading process and end up as lower grade construction wood. As you say the house design has a lot of excess strength built in, so the wood doesn't need to be perfect.

Ian

[Dstrnad]

Around here the lumber at the yards is only visually graded. Trusses use mechanically graded lumber. I have actually been pleased with some of the lumber from the box stores compared to the smaller yards. On their larger sizes the bunks are a mix of #2 and select for the price of #2. At the smaller yards select runs 20-30% more, not sure if they sort the bunks themselves of if they order it that way. Most the stores here have utilty, stud, #2, select for studs and the other sizes are mixed #2 and select. 

[dail_h]

Most of the lumber we cut at Georgia Pacific,had either bark or pith or both. Most graded #2 or better. It's a racket guys plain n simple

[beenthere]

dail
How is it a racket?
Does it meet the grade specs?

[ohwc]

It has nothing to do with anything other than revenue. Do you think all the old buildings in your town have stamped lumber? No.

Fact is fire codes also talk about how it is all about safety but that is also crap. If it was all about safety they would require sprinklers in residential structures.

Any regulation that allows government to charge citizens to enforce that regulation is for one purpose and that is revenue production.

[SwampDonkey]

Thread on getting grade stamps for portable mills.

[black spruce]

Hello everybody, just some commenta about Lumber graded product At big Mills. 

I visit 50 to 75 big Mills per years for my Day job varaigne fromage 50mbft to 350 mbft /year. Like doc is saying this all depend on quality when you buy 1-2 and better, premium or M.S.R. Rated wood the quality is very impressive. Some of the stuff made with black spruce that take 80-120 year to grow 10-12'' in diameter at 4' from ground is so good that some mills have 30% of there lumber that pass M.S.R. Grade. Each board got deflected and the reading given by the load cell is given to the sorter and they all go in that bins. When you look at one bundle of Lumber 2x3 to 2x6 m.s.r. The quality is just amazing.

Most of theses mills don't have grader anymore and used sophisticated scanner that read,decay, wane,knot, moisture,..... So there is more consistency then a
grader who miss 15 minutes when producing 200 log per minutes.

The faster mill I have seen running is doing 240 board per minutes ( 2x3x4x6) 8-9-10 feet long the standard is 150-170 board per minute. So a bundle of 2x4 every minute and half.....


Very small knot no wane 100% square edge... Some of the stuff is nice you could make furniture with it.....

Yes they do get a premium for it  but I.M.H.O. Lumber of that quality is not sold at it's fair market value. Some of the issue is often the building center trying to sell on price and dropping on grade..... Not the mills.....

If you talk with the top pre fab and trusses manufacturer in the U.S. they love this wood because they have less waste and jam when using it in their automated component builder for structure.

No went you take fast growing wood from plantation in southern us or faster growth here like Norway spruce you can have a visually nice board but does not mean the strength is there....

That been I have a portable sawmill and have no problem using our wood but I don't have a sophisticated scanner to grade it so I built with full 2'' and require more checking for structural component and high quality log.

Sorry for the long post hope this helps

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

I enjoyed the great insight black spruce provides.  i see the same in the U.S. Southern mills, but i have not seen anywhere as many as black spruce visits.

The grading rules for many products allow some wane, but it is limited so there is a very good nailing surface.  However, as black spruce indicates, I have seen a lot of mills that program their computers for no wane, as customers recognize the improved quality.  These mills can sell their lumber more quickly.  I have seen improved MC too used as a selling bonus.

The sale and marketing of a commodity product is very tricky, at the least, for these large mills. 

There are a fair number of personal examples in posts at Forestry Forum about how smaller mills also recognize the benefit of better than the minimum quality standard in the rules.

[Kansas]

Here in Kansas, we are fortunate to really not have to worry about lumber inspectors. About the only thing they inspect is septic. I have heard of certain counties having more strict standards. I built my house in one county, and only septic was inspected, and that was after it was already covered up; the guy was on vacation when it was put in. The building at the mill we put in is a commercial building, and there was no inspection. I truly wonder this. Are big box stores and/or local lumberyards the one that push the inspections?I remember when there was a law passed in Kansas that had to do with sales tax at the point of delivery, not the point of sale. Supposedly because of the hope of taxing internet sales, which never happened. But big business actually pushed it. The reason I was told was because the software cost megabucks, knocking out a lot of small stores. So all of our sales are at the mill, not delivered. Um.. yeah, right. I do know it caused a lot of headaches for small town newspapers. Lots of people who have moved away from the home town like to still get the local weekly paper just to see what is going on.

If you look carefully, most every time, its all about the money.

[Ianab]

take fast growing wood from plantation in southern us or faster growth here like Norway spruce you can have a visually nice board but does not mean the strength is there....

I'm guessing what you are seeing is Juvenile wood. Those first 10 or so years of growth. In your slow growing spruce this might only be a 1" dia section in the heart of the log. The other 90 years of growth are the stronger mature wood.

In a faster grown tree that core of juvenile wood might be 10-12" before you get to the mature part. Much bigger percentage of the log is poor quality.

A lot of the development of tree cultivars here in NZ has to do with the minimising of that juvenile wood. Actually developing cultivars that have less of it, and more stable mature wood. Also growing trees from cuttings, so they are genetically "mature" and although seedling size, the biological processes occurring in the wood are those of a 10 year old tree. Then you get a much better percentage of the higher grading wood.

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

I can tell ya that those old growth black spruce or red spruce of size are getting scarce. There's lots of shrub old growth, that might make rail fence or posts that won't last like cedar. There's lots of spruce, they aren't scarce, just not as many desirable ones. We had a I joist plant that ran out of local ones and had to ship them in from Quebec and they didn't need to be huge logs because the pieces for the I was only about 2-1/2" wide when machined. Had a groove on one side that was glued to particle board. I saw the operation one time and it wasn't what I'd call too well set up. You had some of the workers having to climb up on a turn about once in awhile. I saw a lot of joists about half put together. I wasn't impressed with the set up. GP was trucking the particle board in by truck. I do believe from NB, but all the GP ground now is all gobbled up by the Irvings by now.

[FeltzE]

Relative to a comment earlier about the "racket"...

I understand why we need grade and inspections, It's actually quite simple. If we didn't the less responsible contractors and builders would be building to the minimum required to hold up a roof, not the minimum required by code for wind loads, or snow loads, or earthquake etc. 

BUT, I also believe that it is a hinderance to the responsible, who would and do build to exceed code. The lumber grading rules are not that difficult, and almost anyone could review the basic code for grading and come up with a reasonable mental picture of what is and is not acceptable for #2 structural 2x4 2x6 and larger.

AND, I believe that the local town and counties use the building permits as a set point to re-evaluate your tax basis and the fees associated are just another income source or (tax substitute) for the county revenue. Now some will say that the cost to do inspections are covered by the fees, but be assured it is a chase your tail event, we justify more jobs, set higher fees, and chase that money Tail like a puppy.



OPPs did I vent a bit.  Sorry.

8)