Even Lengths Only
Great moments in building history: An arithmetics proves to be trouble in the lumber yard
Recently I bought a house in upstate, New York. Before I moved in, I wanted to modernize the house. I first decided to remove a wall between the butler’s pantry and the kitchen to make the space one large kitchen. I soon found out that this wall was a bearing wall and that I would have to construct a beam to carry the load. This didn’t alarm me, because I’ve done this before and knew I could use a Micro=Lam beam (structural lumber made of laminated veneers) to do the job. I calculated that three 91⁄2-in. Micro=Lams laminated together would carry the load across a 14-ft. span. After adding the extra I needed for bearing points, I found that I needed three 14-ft. 8-in. beams.
I went to a large lumberyard that stocks Micro=Lams up to 80-ft. long. I asked Bob, my usual salesman, the price of the Micro=Lams and how they were sold.
“Price is $3.50 a foot, but you got to buy it in even-foot lengths. What do you need?” Bob asked pleasantly.
“Actually I need three pieces 14 ft. 8 in. long.”
“I can sell you three 16 footers. That’s 48 ft.,” Bob said. Then he started to enter the order on the computer.
“Wait,” I said. No one has ever accused me of being a penny-pincher, but I was never one to waste money or material, either. “I can buy any even lengths up to 80 ft., right?”
“That’s right. I can sell you even-foot sizes all the way up to 80 ft., but of course 80-ft. Micros are pretty hard to move.”
“Would they cut a length for me in the yard to make it easier to carry?”
“Sure, I don’t think that would be a problem.”
“Write me up for 44 ft.,” I said. Three times 14 ft. 8 in. came out to 44 ft. exactly. If I bought three 16 footers, I’d be wasting 4 ft. of material.
So Bob wrote me up for 44 ft. But out at the yard, things proved to be more difficult.
The yard man met me at the Micro=Lam pile with a chainsaw and a smile. “Forty-four feet, huh? How do you want that cut?”
I was a little afraid to tell him, suspecting he might not understand. “I need three pieces 14 ft. 8 in.”
He gave me back the ticket with an apologetic look. “Hey, they should have told you inside, I can only cut even feet.”
I saw then I was in for a difficult time. I reminded myself that I was saving $14 and tried to look at the money as compensation for my patience. What was making matters worse was that it was 95° out and very humid.
“They did tell me,” I said. “I decided to go with a 44 footer—that’s an even 44-ft. length.”
“How are you going to carry a 44-ft. Micro on your truck?”
“I thought maybe you’d cut it up for me so I could carry it easier.”
“Oh, sure. That’s no problem. I’ll cut one up for you if it’ll help. But I’ll tell you what, if you need shorter lengths, I’d rather cut them out of these shorter pieces on the ground. See, the boss gets mad if I pull down an 80 footer and cut it all up, when I could cut the lengths out of the shorter ones.”
“However you want to work it,” I said.
He hooked his tape on a beam and walked it out. “How long to you need them?”
I braced myself for more. I told him 14 ft. 8 in.
He stopped. “I told you before, I can’t cut that—only even feet. I can give you, say, two 14s and a 16. That’s 44 ft. How about that?” he asked. “See, if I cut you 14 ft. 8 in., that would leave an odd length, and we couldn’t sell that. See if you came in here, and I tried to charge you for a piece with an extra few inches on it that you didn’t need, you wouldn’t like it, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t like that. You’re right.”
“So just to be fair to everybody, I can’t cut you anything but even-foot lengths.”
“I understand. So why don’t you pull down a long one and cut me an even 44 ft.”
He held his head cocked for a few seconds. I could tell I was stirring dust in some deep, dark corners of his mind. “Wait, wait. If I cut you off a 44 footer, you’re just going to have me chop it up into pieces anyway, aren’t you?”
“That’s it. Three equal pieces, in fact.”
He thought about this for a few seconds. Then he knelt down on the pile and scratched out some long division with his lumber crayon. Finally, thoroughly frustrated, he said, “You can’t divide 44 by three.”
“Try multiplying 14 ft. 8 in. by three,” I offered.
He worked the arithmetic. The 8 in. had him confused for a minute, but he finally got it.
“Three times 14 ft. 8 in. is … 44 ft.!” he exclaimed with a child’s excitement.
“Yes,” I said, knowing the satisfaction teachers must feel when they see something click in a pupil’s mind. Despite this realization, however, I worried that we hadn’t made any progress.
He hooked his tape on a pile of Micros and walked it out. He mumbled, “Well I can’t leave a 6 footer or anything shorter … And we don’t sell many eights or even 10s.” Finally, he pulled three lengths together, lined the ends up and marked the pile. “Fourteen-feet, 8 in., right?”
“That’s right.” I wanted to tell him that, if he was concerned about leaving even-length pieces, he should cut it out of a 44 footer, but I was afraid I’d be there for another hour. And besides, I could tell by his confidence that he was resolved now. He cut the beams, and we loaded them on my truck.
At the yard exit, a big sign read, “All vehicles must stop to check load.” For a moment, I thought about speeding past the check point and making a getaway, but I was sure my truck wasn’t up to it. I stopped.
The guard came out, and I gave him the ticket. “Some Micros is all today,” I said, hoping to sound casual, like there was nothing worth looking too hard at.
“Forty-four feet,” he read.
He glanced up at the rack, initialed the ticket and almost gave it back to me, but he stopped. “Wait. Those pieces are all the same length. How can you cut 44 ft. into three even pieces?”
I took a deep breath and was ready to explain when he said, “Heck, it’s too damn hot out here to be gabbing.” He handed me my ticket, and I gladly drove away.
—Richard Cooley, Schenectady, N. Y.
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