How do contractors buy construction lumber?

[Adam Shapiro]

Around here it depends on what you're doing. The big builders usually don't buy at the Borgs, but a lot of small contractors do. There are plenty of yards and supply houses around, but if you're not a big enough account they make it pretty clear they're not interested in your business, or they'll charge you retail plus pricing. In addition, I know a lot of full time union guys who do reno's as sidework. Some turn out really quality work, but they need to order or get supplies over the weekend or after 3:30 and that's just not possible with most yards. That said, if a job is big enough to price out, I'd almost always rather deal with the yard if possible.

Supply houses are another story. I don't know how these are still in business. Just from personal experience, I've tried to buy from the big local electric house, and while they're willing to sell retail that make it clear they don't want my business. The last straw for me was realizing that going to the Borg actually took less time then standing around waiting until the salesmen finished BS'ing and eating donuts with the contractors who hung out at the house to take my order. Plus, they've generally got what I need in stock at the Borg, and the prices are significantly less (I ordered switches from the supply house for which they charged me $80/ea and then lost them in their own store for 3 days, I found them at HD in the meantime for $45).

[Mike Watts]

Really interesting and timely thread. I am getting ready to do a major renovation. Replace deck, move walls, redo MB and kitchen and have been wondering about this issue. I live in Hampton Roads, VA and the closest non Borg is 84 Lumber. There are a couple of local yards across the bridge in Gloucester also. Anyone have any recommendations in my area?

[Rick Fisher]

I am actually familiar with 84 .. they are huge .. I would be willing to bet they will treat you right..

I would be shocked if a local lumberyard was $20,000 high on a house if the quote covered lumber, roofing and drywall.. Most normal sized homes are less than $20,000 for those three things combined.. In BC right now, framing lumber is about $5.50 a foot .. 9 foot walls, crawl space.. Roofing .. typical house is $4500 .. Drywall .. Typical house is $5500 ..

A 2000 sf house might cost $20,000 for the whole package.. If the house was $3000 sf .. but two floors.. I dunno .. It would be hard to spend $30K .. To be $20 K high .. someone made an oops..

Sounds like a math mistake ..

If they are higher than the Home Depot, they are making money .. My dream would be to have a Lowes and Home Depot as my only competitors .. Much easier to compete with than smaller family owned style lumberyards and consistently good margins.. I think HD finished the year at 34% in 2011 .. Lowes would have been the same ..

[Mike OMelia]

I'm not a contractor but I do know the difference between a Borg and a lumber yard. +1 on all of the above. If I'm into a serious project, I'm heading to Wilson's Lumber. If I need two 2x4s, I'm heading to the Borg. It's closer and more convenient. Btw, Lowes will take anything back. So I would not take that as an issue. I recently bought 4 door bottom seals and a can of black rustoleum paint. Painted all 4. Paint would not dry! Not even 24 hours later. So I threw them and the paint in a garbage bag and took them back to Lowes! Next paint worked much better.

Mike

[Dan Friedrichs]

Well, I'm building a deck and decided to try out a few "proper" local yards, rather than HD or Lowes. I bought PT framing lumber from one place, whose prices were about on par with HD. I ordered 8' 2x8's, since I intentionally made many of the joists 8' long. Without warning me, the yard delivered me 16' sticks, instead - later telling me that they don't stock 8'ers, and that I "ought to have a saw" to cut them in half. Is this typical lumberyard customer service?

I ordered cedar from a different yard. The stuff they sent me was trash - 2' long checks up the ends of boards, stuff that was twisted and bowed and had knots fallen out of it, etc.

I wish there was a yard like Menards where I could pick my own...

[Steve Kohn]

I just finished building a 16X20 foot deck with my son on the back of his house. All of the 2X8 joists, posts, railings, and the decking came from Menards. The ordera were simply phoned into the store. Menard's picked the orders, banded the material, and delivered it as requested on his property within an hour of when he wanted it. The quality of the pressure treated wood was so good we didn't have to take one stick back. The one bad joist and one bad deck board were were able to be used as shorter pieces.

I really think the quality of wood is far superior at Menards than any other BORG. Menard's is the only place I go for any kind of wood, whether its PT, cedar, plywood, or #1 pine. The only exception is when I'm building something out of premium hardwoods. That is picked out any any one of several hardwood dealers.

[Rick Fisher]

At our yard, they would have cut the 16's into 8's before shipping them but if we didn't, it would rarely be a big deal ..

[Matt Meiser]

Around here the locals don't try very hard to get business from the average consumer. The one closest to me was open from sometime in the morning until 5PM M-F. That's it. I say was because now a feed store owns the property. The next closest one tries a little harder and is open until noon on Saturday and 6PM on the weekdays. I do use them when I need more than a board or two because they'll deliver very inexpensively. If they didn't it would be much less likely that I'd use them. They do have a lot nicer material but its still a pain for me to get there. The 3rd closest tried to charge me $50 for delivery a week after they delivered to my mom for free. Granted they had delivered all the construction material for her kitchen remodel, but that's a big difference. They have been running ads on the radio proudly bragging about the owner "Cranky Hank" which is pretty much my experience the 1-2 times I've gone in.

Then again, you can buy this gem at Lowes near me:
576091_477253625637224_723537407_n.jpg

[Michael Arruda]

Unfortunately, There is no other option in the high desert that I know about. 84 Lumber went out of business quite a while ago, H&E Closed down a couple years ago, Barr lumber went out of business earlier this year... I don't think there's any other options up here but 2 Lowes and 3 HDs. (1 Lowes closed, too)

I have to drive 60 miles one way down the hill to Peterman Lumber to purchase anything else.

-Michael