I’m building a house in VA and the builder wants to use a mixture of pine/spruce and fir for framing-says that’s what he can get. Does this sound OK? We’d requested Douglas fir.
Thanks
NancyM
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Replies
It's not actually unique at all. It's very common in many parts of the country. I'm a framing contractor in MA and 90% of our framing lumber is SPF. You're not missing out on anything.
Welcome to the forum and good luck with your project.
SYP (southern yellow pine) wouild normally be used for structural items, like floor joists and roof rafters. SPF (spruce-pine-fir) would be used for the wall studs. Douglas fir would be used for exposed wood that needs to look nice.
The wall studs are structural too, but they get loaded in compression along their length and they are plenty strong enough for the walls. The floor and roof lumber will have to span across an open space, from one foundation wall to the other, and hold up the floor. They need to resist bending or sagging.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Edited 7/5/2005 11:25 pm ET by Ed Hilton
Ed, it depends what part of the country you are in. SPF is common up here. Doug fir and SYP need a travel visa to arrive. SYP is from down south and DF is from the PNW. The enivironmentalists love for us to shop close to home. Since you have no trees in Texas...laugh with me here...
Besides, I have never seen framing DF that looks good and the SYP I see is not exactly fine quality stuff, even if the books rate it slightly stronger than SPF.Nancy, as long as the engineering is done for the lumber chosen, you are fine with it. For instance, if a given floor or roof span is 2x12 @16" OC for a given load rating, the SPF might span 15'8" while the Doug Fir will span 16'2". Or for the same span, the DF might handle another four or five pounds with the same deflection.
I'm just pulling figures out of the thin air for puirpose of example, but it is likely close. Not much to be worried about.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
The DF we get is one of two items: either mixed in with regular 2x4's (whatever 'regular' is) or special order for trim and exposed beams ... and pricey.
We seem to be getting quite a bit of spf from Europe.
SYP is nusually only stocked in 2x6 or 2x8 and larger.
But what do I know ... all we have here are are tumbleweeds and cactus.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Since you have no trees in Texas...laugh with me here
Only in the interesting bits <g>
Actually, almost a fifth of Texas is in forest. The folks at Stephen F. Austin State U in Nacogdoches call themselves the Lumberjacks. There's some rather imposing arboreal specimens on campus (seems like there's a six-footer over by the Forrestry building).
Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I don't know Cap'n...Based on what I'm reading, that 6 footer could be 6 foot high and still be a big one in your state. <G>
that 6 footer could be 6 foot high and still be a big one in your state
LoL!
Went and browsed, the SFA site does not have any pics of their trees on the web page (given how hard it can be to see the buildings, no big surprise).
I want to remember that there was a 12 or 13' diameter stump near the forrestry building with a plaque on it (the forresters I was with said it was "thanks for giving us a building site"--but they were a less-tha-serious bunch.
My campus has a pretty cool tree referred to as the "century oak": http://www.tamu.edu/00/tamu-images/une08.html (this one is a smaller image from the other way around: http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/tamuflora/fagquevirb.gif)
This one used to have a plaque, the inscription of which was required memorization for cadets: http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/tamuflora/fagquexcoa.jpg
"The Ness Hybrid Oak./Q. Virginnina X Q. Alba/Dr. Randoph Ness succesfully crossed english white oak and live oak/1903"Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
that 6 footer could be 6 foot high and still be a big one in your state
Around San Antonio that's not far from the truth. The predominant native trees are Live oak and cedar ashe, and 25' is about as high as they getI'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
East Texas and the hill country does have some beautiful greenery, but I never thought of it as harvestable lumber.I also lived in West Texas in Lubbock for three and a half years. now there is a treeless landscape!But every place has it's own beauty
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I lived in Austin for six weeks or so. I saw the trees there.Both of them;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Around here in NJ everything on the house is Doug Fir.
Virtually all framing--roofs, floors, walls--is done with SPF #1&2 up here. 99% of what is graded Sruce-Pine-Fir is actually Spruce.
The better builders use KD; cheaper ones and a lot of DIYers use green because it's less expensive, easier to nail into, and hasn't twisted or warped yet. But it shrinks after it's put up, and you'll get screw-pops and cracks in the joints in the gyprock for the first two years as a result. Kiln-dried lumber--whatever the essence or grade--will give you a better job.
Douglas fir (generally called BC Fir up here because that's where most of it comes from) is considered a specialty item, used for oversized or overlength framing members such as exposed beams.
We do not see any SYP up here. No point in it....
SPF graded framing lumber is perfectly fine for pretty much anything you need to do. If your framer says this is what he can get most easily, he probably knows what he's talking about. If you insist he do it in BC Fir, you're going to raise your cost and it'll likely make the job take longer because of the delays involved in special ordering the wood.
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
"...cheaper ones and a lot of DIYers use green..."
Really? That's a new one on me. Never in my life have I seen a house framed with green lumber. Not even a pole barn.
I filled my humidifier with wax and left it on. Now everything in my house is shiny.
Haven't been out there but I've heard that everything in CA is green, the only kiln dried are at the box stores, Lowes and HD. I met a cabinet builder and he said all the wood they get is green and doesn't know of a place in state that sells kiln dried.
Maybe dried lumber is known to the state of california to cause cancer. lol. They are #### backwards in most of what they do there, so I'll believe it.
"...everything in CA is green, the only kiln dried are at the box stores..."
Never heard that before, and it sounds unlikely. I'll be interested to here what someone from the area has to say...
A sharp youngster with four years of progressively diverse experience could often be a better bet than the ten-year seasoned pro, who has in reality repeated one year of experience ten times. [Martin Yate, Hiring the Best]
A cabinet builder from CA told you he builds cabs from green lumber?
The lumber in CA is no different than anywhere else, green or KD, you get what you pay for.
HD and Lowes have their "Prime Cut" or "Taster's Choice" or whatever they call it this week, same as they sell in the other 49 states.
Joe H
Never in my life have I seen a house framed with green lumber.
Me neither, till I moved up here.
Historical:
25 years ago when I bought this place, this area was still primarily populated by DIY-built 'camps' and weekend cottages. Most of the older ones were, in fact, built with AD lumber (a lot of it custom milled from the HO's own trees and then air-dried for a couple of years on site), but along in the early to mid 70s people started using green lumber on them as the $3000 cottage started turning into the $10,000 cottage and 'instant gratification' became the norm instead of the exception....
The local sawmills (there were five or six back then; only two or three left) were happy to sell the stuff green for a discount, and the weekend warriors trying to drive 4" commons with a 16-oz claw hammer found the going a good bit easier, I dare to say....
After a while, the practice got so common that green lumber became the standard stick and KD was sold at a premium. Some local contractors refused to work with KD, claiming it was 'Unworkable' (too twisted, yadda yadda yadda....)
Now that 'fine' homebuilding (read: "7-digit+ McMansion$") is eclipsing the inexpensive family-built cottage as the principal type of construction project in this area, KD is back in vogue, and the same guys who ten years ago hollered blue murder that they'd never buy another twisty KD 'hockey-stick' again are now self-righteously bragging about how they only build with 'top-quality seasoned lumber'....
Practical:
Although it is far from ideal, framing a place with green lumber will work. It will work better if the frame is built early in the summer and the house isn't closed in till a month or two of hot weather has passed. One 'advantage' is that the lumber dries 'in place' and if well and tightly framed, it tends to dry pretty straight.
But it does shrink; we all know that. So if gyprock is used in interior finish work, you can pretty well guarantee there's gonna be cracks and nail pops galore which it will be a waste of time to try to fix for the first year or two.
In addition, the cellular humidity out-gassing through sheathing and into exterior finish has been known to create 'issues' with paint bubbling or peeling off the following year after one freeze-thaw cycle.
The $$$ difference used to be on the order of 18-20%, but now it's much lower. Personally, for today's 6% price difference between KD and green for the framing lumber, I don't find the savings worth the problems. I mean, framing 2x is maybe what? Not even 30% of the total materials? So it comes out to a big 1.8% savings, max.
With the argument that KD sticks are more warped and twisted, I have no sympathy. If it's not good, don't use it. The yards I work with will take back any stick of lumber I reject even six months or a year later, with no argument and no 'restocking' fee...so I just order 20% more lumber than we'll need, and toss the bananas and hockey sticks in a pile for return at project's end. I spend enough time fighting with ornery people in this life; I've got no time to waste fighting with a 2x6....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
You guys must have horrible lumber Dino. I'd consider hari kari if I had to order 20% more lumber.
I like it when there's only one stick of everything left over. I hate handling too much material-no time for that nonsense.
blue
You guys must have horrible lumber Dino. I'd consider hari kari if I had to order 20% more lumber.
It's not really 20%; I just tossed that figure off the top of my head. What I actually do is figure my needs for each cut, and then round up to the next nearest logical number. So if my take off says I need 83 2x6x8's, I'll tell the yard to send me a whole bundle. Saves them trouble loading the order, too, so they don't whine.
I'd guess offhand that we reject something around 5-8% as either not usuable or not worth wasting our time figuring out how to use it without screwing up the frame. Since I personally have hands on in all phases of our projects, I'm not about to use a banana in a stud wall because guess who is gonna have to hang gyprock on that later? Me, that's who....
Handing the extra material doesn't bother me a bit, nor does it slow me down. It probably speeds me up, since I pick up the stick, look at it, and toss it within two or three seconds if it's no good. If I didn't have extra stuff on site, I'd wind up standing there with a bent board in my hand for a good 15-20 seconds trying to figure out if I could 'get away' with using it without causing myself too much trouble on down the road. That time could be better used to the HO's benefit in some other way, in my opinion....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Sounds to me like everyone should switch to ICFs and steel. Uhoh... did I just open a can of worms?
For me, Ithink theframing lumber only comes to about 7-11% of the materials cost, but they say that remodelors use less lumber per foot than new builders
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
For me, Ithink theframing lumber only comes to about 7-11% of the materials cost, but they say that remodelors use less lumber per foot than new builders
Again, I apologize for rough figuring. My projects are mostly remod's, too, so your figures are probably closer to my reality most of the time. If I had the energy, I could probably get my invoicing software to spit out the 'truth', but it'd likely take me all night, LOL....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
>> ...I think the framing lumber only comes to about 7-11% of the materials cost... <<
For the new construction I do, I'd say more like 7-11% of the total build cost. Not sure what the context of your statement was, and 7-11% may not seem like much to some folks at first glance, but considering it may well be the largest single bill a frame construction builder might receive (other than the land) framing lumber costs are always worth taking a hard look at. Matt
Some other big percentages of cost are:
the Cabs and Appliances
The windows and doors
the foundation
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Way back when...I was just learning which end of a hammer to hold and I called out measurements as "eighty one and four of those little ones"I worked with a couple of DIYs who used green lumber. They built the frame and roof, sheathed it all in and planned to come back in a year to finish it off.but I have never worked with any professionalls who built with green lumber, with one exception. Hemlock floor joists. This wood is extremely hard when it is cured off. So you have a choice of hard wood you can hardly get a nail into - or green wood so heavy, it'll bust a gut lifting it into place. I use them occasionally when I have a long span to match in these old houses built with rough cut 2 x 12s. It is a strong wood, possibly a bit better than DF when you get it clear
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Nancy -
D FIR, SYP, S-P-F, HEM-FIR .... It's all good for a house frame so long as each piece bears a mill and grade stamp, and is the right size for the calculated loads.
Beware of lumber dealers who will give you a really cheap price and substitute (i.e. hide) a lift or two of No.3s or even ungraded lumber in your package. If you are unsure about what you have on hand, ask your building inspector whether the lumber meets with his approval.
In these parts (British Columbia), structural framing lumber is No.1&2. We don't worry much about the species, so long as the grade is No.2 or better. These grades are assigned after visual inspection by mill workers.
Some mills produce Machine Stress Rated lumber. Though MSR lumber looks no different other than the MSR/Machine Rated stamp and usual grade No. stamp, each piece has been tested by non-destructive means for strength, deflection, and elasticity. A nice performance guarantee if you are looking for absolutes. But keep in mind that for most applications, No.2 or better is perfectly fine and not at all shoddy.
There is even better lumber than No.1: Select Structural (SS). I've seen some 2x12 Selects....straight grained, almost knot free, and no twists, cups or wanes. A joy to work with. Iirc, some mills sell their Select as J-Grade (Japanese grade), for export to the Japanese market. I don't know the reasons for this: maybe Japanese builders are fussy, maybe it's a seismic requirement. Maybe it is because 2x framed homes are a relative novelty in Japan, so their building depts. are extra cautious.
Other tips:
Avoid buying lumber that is identical nominally but differs in actual size. It is time consuming to build from a mix of 2x4s when some are 3½" and others are 3 5/8" (because they come from two different mills or two different dealers). This 1/8" difference (in plate thicknesses, for example) can add up to some big problems when matching up ceiling or floor planes. Also makes it harder to build flat walls, floors or ceilings, or to drywall and trim a house.
Look for a S-DRY marking which means surface dried. Avoid S-GREEN lumber which has a higher moisture content, and is more prone to shrinkage, twisting and cupping once installed in the house structure.
Take care of your wood. Place sleepers onto flat ground to receive your lumber lifts; this keeps the wood off the ground and air flowing. Tarp it against sun and rain, but make sure wind can blow in around and under each lift. Keep the banding on until you are ready to produce from that particular lift; loose 2xs have a mind of their own if let loose prematurely.
Edit: what Dino said about KD lumber!
Edited 7/6/2005 2:02 am ET by Pierre1
As you see the choice of framing lumber is highly regional. Here in Central NC we use 90% SPF with a little SYP thrown in for special applications. Rarely ever seen DF framing material.
One thing an experienced builder brings to the table is being able to control project expenses by making decisions such as these. Many inexpierenced DIY owner-builders end up spending extra money on 'belt and suspenders' type building that increases the intregrity of the structure marginally at best and doesn't increase their home's resale value by even a dollar.
Thanks to all of you for your input. I am always impressed by the amount of knowledge that is shared on these forums.
Our addition calls for syp #2 for all exterior walls.
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