Lumberyard Board Foot Mystery

[David Davies]

So today I went and bought some 4/4 cherry. I purchased six boards and was surprised by their total. Here's what I bought and it sums to 35 board feet but I was charged for 55 board feet. Is there a normal rounding up factor they use that would add 20 board feet to what the mathematics calculates it to be? They used the lumber stick thing but it seems to be a fairly large discrepancy.
Thanks,
Dave


Width
Length
Sq/in
Bd Ft


6"
120
720
5.0


6.5
120
780
5.4


7.25
120
870
6.0


6
120
720
5.0


8.75
120
1050
7.3


7.75
120
930
6.5




Sum
35.2

[Gregory Carles]

This looks a little shady to me. I think you got overcharged.

[Hoang N Nguyen]

I know some lumber yards will add 10%-20% to the final BF number to account for shrinkage and/or rough milling. The lumber yard I go to adds 10%. Even with that, it doesn't add up to 55 BF. However, if they had charged you for 5/4 instead of 4/4 and added the 10%, than you're right at about 55 BF.

It's not unheard of for them to miscalculate so you have to speak up if it's different than what you figured. I recently picked up around 50 BF of popular but they charged me for just over 100 BF, I questioned them on it and asked the guy what his measurements were. He told me he got 1.5x144xwidth (can't remember)x1.1. I still didn't get it and asked him what the 144" was for and he said the length. Turns out, he assumed my boards were 144" long since he had just cut down those boards in half for me. By cutting my boards in half, I ended up with twice as many boards as when I started but at half the length. That's when I said the boards are only 72" long and not 144" long and that he had just cut those in half for me. He stopped and looked at me with a pause. "You know what? You're right"!! was what he told me.

I learned it's always good to have one of the BF calculator apps on my phone so I can punch it all in. Even if they add the few percentage to the total, it would still give me some numbers to look at and double check their math.

[Joe Jensen]

was it finished to 4/4 or 3/4?

[Doug Hepler]

David,

I think you were overcharged. Here is a brief(??) summary of lumber economics. When a board is cut at the mill, it is cut to a nominal thickness, e.g., 1". If you buy it rough, you should get a 1" thick board. If you buy it S2S, however, you get a thickness of 13/16" but you pay for 1". This is normal business practice and should not raise your suspicions. It sounds as if you are OK with this.

Some lumberyards write the number of board feet on the end of a board, and they mean to use that when they calculate what you owe them. It may or may not be accurate. If you don’t agree, have a tape measure and a calculator handy.

Gross or green tally is the volume of wood (board feet) delivered to the mill. When lumber dries, it shrinks. The normal expectation is that the volume will fall by about 8-10%, especially in the case of kiln dried lumber. Further, if the mill performs a straight line rip the volume shrinks again because of the strip cut away. If the boards are dimensioned, then maybe two sides were cut away, so the volume shrank even more.

The resulting final volume is called net tally. The mill or lumber yard may calculate the theoretical loss of volume by a shrinkage factor. It is necessary to understand whether a lumber quote or price is based on gross tally or net tally. Possibly you were charged by gross tally while you thought the price was net tally, i.e., the amount you actually received. If so, you paid another 8-10% more than the quoted price per board foot. I believe that selling lumber by net tally instead of gross tally is the standard for retail lumber sales, and may be required by law in many states, but some lumber yards will claim the right to sell by gross tally or add on a shrinkage fee. It feels like you are being cheated, and I think you may be, but gross tally is a commonly understood concept in the wholesale lumber business. Let the buyer beware.

My attitude is that if I don’t have an alternative supplier, then the price is what it is. But if I am shopping around, I want to be clear about which tally method is being quoted.

Next, most rough cut boards taper along their length, because the log did. Some lumber yards like to measure the widest part and charge you as if the board were straight. Again, it is well to have a tape measure and calculator handy if you have any doubts about the business practices of your lumber dealer.

Finally, I have been to lumber yards where I felt (was made to feel) like a PITA. At least I was rushed and razzle-dazzled and felt like I had been cheated when I got home with my lumber. If you can, find a vendor who will take a bit of time with you so you can understand the price of your purchase. Of course, such vendors charge more per board foot than the big lumber yards, but at least you will understand what went on.

I hope this helps

Doug

[Rick Fisher]

I get 36.67 BF

They could charge 8% for Green vs Dry size.

If those dimensions are right, that's not 55 BF

[Yonak Hawkins]

It looks like you have a lumber yard like the ones we have here in Atlanta. They use the "magic stick" to justify cheating their customers. Even when you show them by real math their calculation is wrong they won't back down. You either have to pay or unload your truck and leave without what is required for the job and they know it. That's why I try to only deal with local sawyers. At least they're honest.

[Alan Schwabacher]

It looks like they charged you for a 1 foot width for anything over 6" wide.

[Danny Hamsley]

I believe that they made a mistake. It may not have been intentional.

[lowell holmes]

As I understand board feet, a board foot is width x length x height. It really is a volume calculation.
If you calculate the volume of the boards you bought, they check out. I calculated the first and last board in the list and got the same numbers they did.

[George Bokros]

As I understand board feet, a board foot is width x length x height. It really is a volume calculation.
If you calculate the volume of the boards you bought, they check out. I calculated the first and last board in the list and got the same numbers they did.


The numbers shown in the table are Dave's calculations not the suppliers.

[Mark Wooden]

A board ft is a board ft.. I'm paying for what I've pulled,when I pulled it- not any shrinkage, MC gain or loss, what they line ripped off the material or any perceived or estimated changes in the wood etc.,etc.,the supplier may have calculated. I also will measure the center width of a tapered board and call that the net width and I don't count bark.
FWIW, there aren't a lot of suppliers with help that can accurately read a bd ft rule; it's really a tool for measuring units of material, not individual boards. I'd say you were over charged by 20 bd feet. Don't know what they were charging for it but I'd consider that a whack and would have dumped it on the floor and spent the difference on gas to another supplier

[lowell holmes]

The numbers shown in the table are Dave's calculations not the suppliers.
I missed that. Dave calculates board feet the same way I do. :)

I think I would go back and make them answer to it. That's why I normally have a calculator with me when I buy lumber.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Danny, I know you don't like to think bad things about allegedly legitimate commercial businesses but, I have to say about the Atlanta lumber yards I must sometimes deal with, 8 out of the last 10 times I bought lumber the calculations have been in error and the error has never been in my favor. I have been cheated out of over $200 in the last three years. You drive an hour to the lumber yard based on quotes they gave you over the phone but when you get there you discover they gave you "gross" figures but they're charging you "net" prices. They add 12% "shrinkage" even though lumber really only shrinks about 6% ~ 7% .. this, aside from the fact that commerce regulations in every state in our Union require quotes be given based on actual dimensions.

I have found sawyers, like you, are invariably honest.

[Joe Jensen]

Woodworkers source in Arizona is bad about measuring too. They measure the widest part of the board and round up to the next 1/2". Then they measure the length and round up to the next foot. You just know going in that you will pay for 50% more than you get but on a Saturday and when you need a couple more pieces you pay for convenience. The commercial suppliers are only open weekdays.

[Danny Hamsley]

Yonak,

Good point. I don't have any experience with the Atlanta suppliers. Maybe that is why people drive down and buy lumber from me.

[Rick Fisher]

Measuring to the next inch is the norm .. A 7.5" Wide board is 8" .. A 3.25" Wide board is 4" ..

At the retail level, they don't generally charge a green size or dry size.. but a sawmill will charge the retailer that way..

[Anthony Whitesell]

I asked a similar question to this years ago, so I'm sure if you search through the archives you will find it.

I turns out the actual measure and selling standard (USDA reg) for hardwoods says to round up to the nearest inch in width or foot in length and then round the resulting number up to the nearest board foot. So you boards are 6, 7, 8, 6, 9, and 8 inches wide. Being 120 inches or 10 feet long doesn't have an effect. The bdft calculates to 5, 5.83, 6.67, 5, 7.5, and 6.67 which becomes 5, 6, 7, 5, 8, and 7 for a total of 38 board feet. I can get 38 but not 55. Someone is definitely not reading the rules...

P.S. There are different rules for softwood and hardwood.

[Mark Wooden]

I asked a similar question to this years ago, so I'm sure if you search through the archives you will find it.

I turns out the actual measure and selling standard (USDA reg) for hardwoods says to round up to the nearest inch in width or foot in length and then round the resulting number up to the nearest board foot. So you boards are 6, 7, 8, 6, 9, and 8 inches wide. Being 120 inches or 10 feet long doesn't have an effect. The bdft calculates to 5, 5.83, 6.67, 5, 7.5, and 6.67 which becomes 5, 6, 7, 5, 8, and 7 for a total of 38 board feet. I can get 38 but not 55. Someone is definitely not reading the rules...

P.S. There are different rules for softwood and hardwood.

This ^^^ is also how I'm used to measuring and paying for my hardwoods( but I still don't count bark ;) ). My small quantity supplier- one who sells 10 or 1,000 bd ft per order- doesn't differentiate between hard and softwoods pricing rules when buying under 250 ft.
Always ask what unit of measure they are quoting when asking prices over the phone- is that bd ft, lineal ft for a 1x6(was given this one once) and what quantity is the phone quote based on, at what footage does the price change. More often than not, the quote is per 1,000 board feet, in a banded unit, to a resaler. Your price will be higher.
Another thing is etiquette- Don't mark up the wood with a pencil or crayon, or carve chunks out of the lumber to see the grain, or leave the stack in a mess. Do that and expect to pay .50 more a foot. Just sayin...

And the OP still got gaffed IMO.

[Justin Ludwig]

I order S3S 1" material. Comes in at 13/16. For short boards (96"), they are allowed 7% error in measuring - the 7% has NEVER been in my favor. For long boards they allow 10% error. Again, I've never been on the receiving end of either of those percentages.

I calculate for the shortages and order 30% more than needed for doors/FF material. That allows for their percentage plus material prep waist. I complained about it years ago and they brought out a book on mill industry standards. Was it legit? I have no idea. If the project is big, I just order S4S door and FF material because their Wienig molder gives me almost perfect stock to take straight to the chop saw.

[rudy de haas]

1) your numbers suggest that you need to take your receipt back to them and argue that someone made a mistake and they owe you some money - probably around 17 board ft worth.

2) in general.. what you need to do is establish a mutual trust relationship with key suppliers - but be aware that most lumber yards need to sell by the pallet, not by the board, if they want to stay in business. To accommodate that, work with their people: come when they're not busy, be insanely patient about special orders, don't leave the stack a mess after picking out the boards you want, refer a few bigger customers to them if you can, etc. After a while you'll be a prefered customer they bend over backwards to serve, even though you buy very little from them.

[Chris Fournier]

I would have looked at the numbers for review and asked the salesperson on the spot, there is clearly some sort of mistake here (or a very big communication problem). I don't know why people don't look for their solutions with the source of their problem but rather go online to ask strangers who can't possibly resolve their issue. Of course asking a question about shrinkage or lumber scaling would be an entirely different affair at least to me.

[Chris Merriam]

I've never seen all these variable pricing models before. I've only ever been to one commercial reseller, and three local sawyers, so my experience is limited, but... I go in and ask "do you have any 4/4 walnut?" They say yeah it's over there, $4 a bd/ft. I gather the boards I want, and normally they lay them all flat, side by side and take one width measurement. Length is always a standard 8 feet. Say the width is 24 inches, then 24 * 96 / 144 = 16 bd feet.

if the board is in fair to poor condition many times they charge me half price for it.

The commercial yards 4/4 is of course less than 1in thick, but some of the local sawyers will cut their 4/4 a bit fat, to ensure you get full use out of the board.

some sawyers charge extra for greater than 4/4 thickness, some don't and the $/ft is the same

[Danny Hamsley]

I have to charge more for the thicker lumber. For example, it takes 2.5 times longer to dry a 8/4 board than a 4/4 board. It adds to the cost of drying, and there is more loss to degrade as thicker lumber is harder to dry without splitting, checking, or drying stress because the shell dries faster than the core, so you have to go slower to control that relationship. Still, the pricing of the lumber should be for what is in the final measured board, as is.

At the lumberyard, a finished framing 2x4 is not a 2x4, it is actually a 1.5 x 3.5. So a 2x4 measured at the lumberyard that is 8 feet long is sold as 5.33 board feet. It is actually 3.5 board feet surface measure. That is a big difference. I sell 6/4 hardwood that is 1.5" thick x 3.5" wide by 8' long as 3.5 board feet, not 5.33 board feet. Big difference.

If I have a tapered board, I average the wide from 3 measurements. In the middle and a third of the way from each end. I believe that is fair. Unless you are a wholesaler, the market for most hardwood lumber is for dry lumber, not green. It does not matter what the volume was green, it only matters in what the finished volume is, and that is how the lumber should be measured in my opinion, and that is the way that I do it.

[Prashun Patel]

Did they charge you for 6/4? That would come out to about $52-$55.

Or maybe they just counted wrong and double charged you for 2 of the boards.

My vote is that they made a mistake; Hope you're taking it back to them for fixing.

[Roger Nair]

The way I think about it is this, it starts in the forest with a guy scaling standing timber, there are different scales for estimating the volume. Logs are harvested and sold to mills on an estimated board foot yield scaling again. Timber is sawn into rough lumber where a 2 x 4 is close actual inch size. At that point actual board footage is known. Drying and milling to finish size takes place but the board footage remains throughout the wholesale to retail process. the board foot accounting should be consistent, from input to output less culls. Depending on facts about your lumber order, it is very possible that your order represents 50 bdft or so of resource. So from what I know, I think your case for complaint may be weak. So be on your toes at the sales counter, be ready to haggle a little but remember lumber is bought and sold in units of thousand board feet, your volume puts you in a weak position.

[Brian Akers]

It looks like you have a lumber yard like the ones we have here in Atlanta. They use the "magic stick" to justify cheating their customers. Even when you show them by real math their calculation is wrong they won't back down. You either have to pay or unload your truck and leave without what is required for the job and they know it. That's why I try to only deal with local sawyers. At least they're honest.

Are you taking about peach? I'm in Atlanta as well.

[Anthony Whitesell]

The way I think about it is this, it starts in the forest with a guy scaling standing timber, there are different scales for estimating the volume. Logs are harvested and sold to mills on an estimated board foot yield scaling again. Timber is sawn into rough lumber where a 2 x 4 is close actual inch size. At that point actual board footage is known. Drying and milling to finish size takes place but the board footage remains throughout the wholesale to retail process. the board foot accounting should be consistent, from input to output less culls. Depending on facts about your lumber order, it is very possible that your order represents 50 bdft or so of resource. So from what I know, I think your case for complaint may be weak. So be on your toes at the sales counter, be ready to haggle a little but remember lumber is bought and sold in units of thousand board feet, your volume puts you in a weak position.

There are three standard scales for estimating the board feet possible in a log (Doyle, Scribner, and 1/4 International). Possible. The sawyer and the logger strike a deal on price based on quality and estimated board feet. It is up to the sawyer to set the logs in the mill to achieve or exceed that estimate. There is a difference between using a circular mill and a bandmill (typically the band mill runs a thinner kerf, therefore less loss and more bdft from the log is possible). If the sawyer exceeds the estimate and the price he paid, then he is in the money, but it still cost him time and money to make the extra bdft. When this lumber goes to market the sawyer and the retailer strike a price based on the board feet in the stack, not what was estimated in the log. The sawyer will take any loss (such as a rotten log that was unusable but paid for) into account when stating his asking price, but the reseller will be concerned with they price they can sell at and what is in the stack, but the unusable log laying off to the side. When the reseller marks the lumber, there a rules (laws and regulation) that must be followed.

When cutting to the quarter scale, there is only one quarter scale. Where a rough board labelled 4/4 is nominally 1 1/8" thick and 4/4 planed is 3/4" thick. Dimensional lumber is not cut on the quarter scale, hence the 2x4 you buy planed and finished is only 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 (or slightly larger). This is about the same loss in thickness as 4/4 rough vs. planed.

The NHLA provides all the guidelines necessary for the sawyer and reseller to measure and tally the board foot of lumber. In no way can I interpret the NHLA book to get the OP list up to 50+ bdft.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Danny, thank you for employing the honest, straight-forward method of selling lumber that the average consumer can understand. It seems like the commercial lumber yards try to make it as confusing as possible in order to take advantage of a less-than-knowledgeable consumer by using methods that were developed for selling in large quantities to large operations such as commercial furniture mills, etc. State regulations in every state are on the side of the small consumer, us. They base their regulations on the NIST Handbook, which says :

"2.12.4.1. Sales of Random Width Hardwood Lumber. – Sales of random width hardwood lumber measured after kiln drying shall be quoted, invoiced, and delivered on the basis of net board footage with no addition of footage for kiln drying, shrinkage or surfacing. Sales of hardwood lumber measured and sold prior to kiln drying or surfacing shall be quoted, invoiced, and delivered on the basis of net board footage before kiln drying or surfacing. If the lumber is to be kiln dried or surfaced at the request of the purchaser, the kiln drying or surfacing charge shall be clearly shown and identified on the quotation and invoice. (Amended 1993)"

A seller can charge whatever they want to charge but their price must be clear, understandable and standardized with all other sellers of the same product. Many commercial lumber yards do not follow these regulations and, in my opinion, they should be called to account. Every time I am given a quote based gross calculations I inform the seller of the regulations. Usually they claim they did not know about them because this is "the way they've always done it." They're a registered commercial business, they're operating counter to their state regulations, and they don't even know it.

Danny, how do you do the calculation that was addressed earlier : When the board dimension is fractional, such as 6-1/4" wide or 8-1/2' long, do you round off or calculate at the fractional dimension ?

[Danny Hamsley]

I use the exact measurements. No rounding.

[Matthew Hills]

I was also wondering if the wood had been 6/4, but saw that the OP was clear that it was 4/4.

Did your receipt just give a total price, or did it say 55 bf @ 7.99/bf (etc.)?

If your boards are uniform length, it is pretty easy to stand them up side-by-side and measure the total width with a tape measure.
You can then multiply out by the length to get a good approximation of total board-footage.