5/4 lumber

[Bruce King]

I had a bizarre experience at a wood supplier in Charlotte NC once. I picked some boards from a bin and was heading to the front office when a guy hopped off a forklift and said let me make your ticket. I think he had a calculator and added it up. I looked at it and said wait this is not right. He got agitated and started proclaiming “those boards don’t have any shrinkage!” I think they were S2S. I just went into the office, told them what happened and asked them to explain it. The girl just rolled her eyes and made a new ticket. To this day I don’t get it because I have found lumber places online that multiply the board footage by 1.15 for shrinkage. I know how to calculate board footage but don’t understand this shrinkage thing. Is it just them adding back the rough part and charging you for the way the board looked before planing or before the wood dried?

[Will Blick]

I am starting to feel better about all my odd experiences with how the yards deal with fractions, shrinkage, rough vs finished, etc. Often I am baffled at the strange systems, methods, whatever, and just pay cause half the time I am so burnt out picking up my wood and getting it out of the store...
the place I buy now, odd size S4S, they charge me 1/4 over the actual thickness. When I asked why, the only answer I get is... thats our policy. Since it is still a good price, I just pay

[Matt Day]

There’s additional charges for S2S obviously, but never heard of accounting for “shrinkage”. I only know of it occurring in cold water.