I dont know why they have to lie about it. At $5/8ft board you’d think I paid for the full 1.5. Edit: I mixed up nominal with actual.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      741·
      2 个月前

      The two-by-fours at your local home center are not 2 inches thick or 4 inches wide…not anymore at least. They spent several weeks at that size though. The sawmill cut them to that size to stack and kiln dry, and then when removed from the kiln they are then milled straight and square. Used to be they would sell the rough stock to carpenters who would do the milling themselves, but then they figured out that the railroads were charging them a fortune to ship a lot of wood that was going to be ground to sawdust anyway, so they started milling the boards before shipment. Same amount of construction lumber arrives at the construction site and it took less fuel for the locomotive to deliver it.

        • Wrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          2 个月前

          It was straight and square when it was milled. Problem is that the big box stores cut corners during the kiln drying phase, so the boards have a ton of moisture still in them. As that dries, the boards twist and cup.

          Plus poor protection from the elements at each storage step, which means rapid temp changes, which also causes wood movement.

          Go to a local lumber yard. They tend to do a better job at kiln drying. You’re still going to have warped boards, but far fewer in my experience.

          • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.onlineEnglish
            2·
            2 个月前

            Yeah, once I get my garage sorted out (and buy a jointer or make a Jig for my planer) I’m going to start getting rough cut lumber and finish it myself.

            • Wrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              2 个月前

              I tried the sled with shims on my thickness planer. It worked, but it was certainly a pain in the ass and unwieldy due to weight and length.

              Picked up a 6" bench top jointer. Not great at long boards due to length of the feeds. Picked up some roller stands hoping that would be close enough, but I moved and the garage needs a lot of work before I can try them out.

              If you can pick up a full floor sized jointer and have room for it, you’ll save yourself several headaches if you plan on jointing a ton of rough cut lumber.

        • XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 个月前

          It’s the same 10 pieces on the top of the pile for weeks. Everyone is reaching for the pieces under. As long as it’s not 2x2PT

            • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              2 个月前

              if you own a thickness planer, you don’t immediately need a jointer. You can flatten a face with a sled and shims in the planer, and joint edges a frillion different ways. I have a jointer and sometimes I use my router table for edge jointing.

    • ferret@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5911·
      2 个月前

      Lumber is weird because it has been industry standard to lie about dimensions since before the US existed so it’s just kinda a thing they get to do

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        284·
        2 个月前

        No its not Maybe in the US? At least here, it is and has to be, very precise especially when it comes to industry quality. It is precise down to the mm!

        • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
          151·
          2 个月前

          How does that work when wood varies due to moisture content? If they give precise mm measurements, only 20% of boards will meet those criteria.

          All they are giving is the planned dimensions instead of nominal in mm form, it’s still not precise, it can’t be.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            81·
            2 个月前

            Construction lumber, especially pressure treated lumber, is sold so wet I don’t think it really matters. I’ve actually never tried to calculate wood movement for construction lumber because who the fuck cares? But for furniture lumber which is dried to between 6 and 14% moisture, there is a formula:

            width of the board in inches x percentage of moisture change * expansion coefficient for a particular species.

            Yellow pine (extremely common construction lumber) has an expansion coefficient of .00263. A 2x4 (actual dimension 1.5" by 3.5") that undergoes a 4% moisture content change will grow/shrink 3.54.00263 = 0.03682 inches, or just over 1/32". That’s in width; it’ll vary by less than half that in thickness. Wood basically doesn’t move along the grain; the board won’t get appreciably longer or shorter.

          • lad@programming.devEnglish
            23·
            2 个月前

            Maybe they mill, store, and sell under the same moisture conditions?

            Also, how big is the difference in size and moisture for the same piece of wood? I would expect that moisture is usually not higher than 90% and not lower than 10% or something like that, but don’t know how it really is

            • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
              62·
              2 个月前

              Once it leaves the mill they go to various stores and regions with different conditions. Some places store them inside, others outside.

              Once I buy it at the store and take it the site, it’s now different from the store. You should acclimate all lumber for 48 hours before using it as well, this is so the wood doesn’t swell or shrink more after installing it.

              A 2x10 can be anywhere from 9-1/2 to almost 8-1/2 depending on final site conditions.

                • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  21·
                  2 个月前

                  These were bought at the same time and are both 2x10 installed a couple days ago. You can even see the difference in the connection in the picture.

                  Over 3/8 of an inch and they both still need to dry.

        • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
          83·
          2 个月前

          Bullshit. Wood expands and contracts so ther is no way you can be precious down to the mm.

          • Thorry84@feddit.nlEnglish
            5·
            2 个月前

            That’s why the standards specify the moisture content of the wood as well as the dimensions. This is even the case for US standards.

            • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              71·
              2 个月前

              Absolutely sure. It’s not really a factor in construction because of how the structure is engineered, but woodworkers have to constantly think about it.

              Wood expands and contracts across the grain, but not so much along it. If you take a board that has been in a dry environment, put it in a humid environment, and allow it to acclimate, it will increase in width and thickness but not in length. At the microscopic level, wood is kind of like a bunch of ropes glued together with sponge, as it soaks up water the sponge wants to expand but the ropes don’t let it expand along their length.

              Us woodworkers have to think about that when building things like doors, which might fit fine in the winter and then stick in the summer. It’s why we build frame and panel doors like this:

              The large panel in the middle can expand and contract so much that it might be a problem, so we literally put it in a box. The outer dimensions of the frame are made mostly of the length of boards so it won’t expand and contract much, and the panel rests in a groove in the frame, not nailed or glued in place so that it can safely expand and contract as it wants to.

              Attaching wide boards end-to-face can even present a situation where the boards want to move in different directions and they’ll eventually break each other.

              You can even calculate the amount of wood movement given the species, of the wood, the dimension of the board and the amount of moisture change, you can read about it here.

              • usualsuspect191@lemmy.caEnglish
                31·
                2 个月前

                True, but the amount they shrink and grow across the grain tends to be proportional. A 2x4 is very rarely measurably different from 1.5"x3.5", but a 2x10 (like you’ve shown) is 1.5"x9 1/4" but is often anywhere between 9 1/8" to 9 3/8"

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.worldEnglish
          52·
          2 个月前

          That’s crazy, how can you make a profit if you give the customer the exact measurement? You have to saw a bit off and pad your earnings!

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
        222·
        2 个月前

        It’s not exactly a lie, just a standard. Nominal board sizes were based on the unfinished lumber size. Another 1/4 inch is taken off each side to get a smooth surface that makes it easier to work with.

        Here’s an old image (reddit warning)

        https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F6Oy1DmXVFs0lyKxq9OmjaI-2gsPj8QO6joLlY1rB7m4.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4fa73a2eaf8d96d4de26378be1ba9c404b210685

        that shows the rough cuts of boards from a log. When they look at a log, they determine how many of each size they can get from it, and at that point, a 2x4 is 2 inches by 4 inches.

        • 0421008445828ceb46f496700a5fa6@kbin.social
          211·
          2 个月前

          Why does the consumer need to know the dimensions at harvest when it’s been processed multiple times?

          That’s like calling an 4oz can of evaporated milk a gallon because it came from a gallon of milk before processing (I have no clue on the ratio)

          • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
            14·
            2 个月前

            I it’s like calling a quarter pounder a quarter pounder. You are not getting a quarter bound of burger after cooking.

            • lad@programming.devEnglish
              2·
              2 个月前

              And here I am thinking that it was a burger for reeeeally hungry people. No delusion anymore, it seems

          • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
            71·
            2 个月前

            I agree with this. Use whatever system you need or want internally, but there’s no reason to force whatever archaic or industry system onto a consumer. Logcutters also use a 1"=1/4 system and that is how they sell wood. A piece of wood that is 2" thick is sold as 8/4. Not 2". I get that they have their system but it seems dickish to force the consumer to use that system. There could be a good argument for it, but I’ve not heard one beyond “what, can’t you do math?”

            • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
              71·
              2 个月前

              but there’s no reason to force whatever archaic or industry system onto a consumer

              Sure there is. Look up the concept of a “standard” if you don’t understand the reasons.

              Standards only work when they don’t change

            • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
              61·
              2 个月前

              It’s like a 1/4lb paddy being a different weight before and after cooking. They can’t tell you the final weight, since it’s always going to be different. Same with wood.

              The woods final actual dimensions can vary, so they tell you its original size.

              A 2x10 can be anywhere from 9-3/8thick down do 8-3/4 depending on how it dries.

              • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
                52·
                2 个月前

                I get that. But this is for kiln dried wood. And this particular issue I’m bitching about isn’t about net loss. It’s selling wood using an internally useful measuring system instead of how the consumer would actually think about it. It’s adding needless complexity, in my mind, when there’s enough factors to consider.

                • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  2 个月前

                  What? The final dimensions of kiln dried wood can still vary. If they say 1-1/2 and you grab one that’s 1-3/8 you get a post like this.

                  So you say the original size, no one needs to do any math (what complexity are you referring to here?) since the final dimensions will always be different once acclimated at the site they will be used.

          • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            2 个月前

            You can buy planed or unplaned wood. Called “rough” lumber which is the nominal size instead. Usually only for pressure treated lumber, but it’s available in regular too.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            41·
            2 个月前

            They don’t, but every plan and instruction going back a looong time refers to things that way.

            Essentially, where they make the wood calls it a 2x4. So the places that process the wood calls it a 2x4, and so on.
            The kilning and planing process used to be much less regular, so if you used actual, you couldn’t buy four 1.5x3.5s, you’d get a 1.6x3.4, a 1.3x3.9, and so on.

            The only consistent way to refer to it was the original sawmill size, and people who built things knew you had to measure the actual size of each piece of wood, or just accept the slop.

            We got better at planing and kilning, and eventually the actual size was standardized. We still had all those plans and bills of material referring to things by their nominal name, to say nothing of the actual builders and engineers who were both used to the nominal measurements and didn’t think it was necessary to change. So stores kept selling things by the name people expected when they were looking for products.

            Most stores now label in both nominal and actual to accommodate for people who don’t know this, since buying lumber and building things isn’t as regular occurrence for a lot of people as it once was.

          • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            The consumer doesn’t need to know it. The lumber mill does, and the people responsible for warehousing and logistics, they use nominal sizes because saying “two by four” is easier than “one point five by three point 5.”

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            11·
            2 个月前

            The consumer doesn’t need to know the dimensions at harvest. But the lumberjack and the sawyer do. They care about how much of the tree was needed to make a particular board, not how much board the customer ended up with.

          • strawberry@kbin.run
            34·
            2 个月前

            its just easier to call it a two by four “yeah I gotta go out and get some 1 and a half by three and a halfs”

        • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          2 个月前

          at that point, a 2x4 is 2 inches by 4 inches.

          From my understanding, as tools have gotten more precise, the raw boards have gotten slightly smaller to reach the same standard size with less waste. So, 2x4 doesn’t even refer to modern unprocessed 2x4s, but rather a hypothetical unprocessed 2x4 at some point in the past.

          • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            That wouldn’t surprise me, but also the standard has been around for so long, changing the size of standard lumber is probably harder than changing the manufacturing process (which is likely automated and computer controlled anyway).

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
        151·
        2 个月前

        Not entirely true. I lived in a house that was just over a century old. The framing was exactly what it said it was, a 2x4 was 2” by 4”. Same for all the structure. These were mill cut, but still pretty clean. It was WW2-ish and after that we started to get planed lumber that gave us 1.5x3.5. It wasn’t even until probably the early part of the 1900s that lumber started to become “dimensional”, as in the standard sizes we know of today.

            • ferret@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              3·
              2 个月前

              This, my friend, is no mere “group” of ferrets. It is a horrific amalgam of a quantity greater than 300, bound together with simple twine in a structure of horrific dimension in a way that could only have been conceived by a mind twisted in reckless disregard to even a most basic understanding of the nature of our world.

    • Magnetar@feddit.deEnglish
      433·
      2 个月前

      As if american measurements have ever made sense. Look up how they measure screws or wires and despair.

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        27·
        2 个月前

        Or shotgun shell sizes and loads.

        “It all started in 1840 when the dram was a common unit of measurement…”

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        114·
        2 个月前

        It’s a wonder they manage to build anything. They have pocket calculators dedicated to the building industry. It’s surreal.

          • Fedizen@lemmy.worldEnglish
            31·
            2 个月前

            every house I’ve lived in has had something fucked up in it. Even if you have one guy doing everything correct, you have 20 other contractors coming in that can’t do basic addition and subtraction, let alone fractions.

            • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
              141·
              2 个月前

              I don’t think you’re implying this is exclusively an American issue or anything but that’s just the nature of construction unless you’re paying top dollar for accuracy when it matters.

              I’ve been on a hundred or more construction sites and I’d confidently wager that most houses don’t match the plans perfectly because of unforseen reasons…equipment changing due to lead times, electricians running their conduit in the wrong stud bays, etc. I’ve had to do a lot of creative problem solving and design modifications are inevitable. That’s the only thing I really miss from my old career

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 个月前

                I am in chemical and material handling stuff and it’s the same. What amazes me is when the project manager can’t allow slack where slack is perfectly fine and allows slack where it isn’t.

                One guy I will never forget had endless meltdowns about tiny tiny stuff in software and completely forgot that water pipes need heat tracing until the insulation was already installed. Whole project, multi tens of millions of dollars, died because of that. On the plus side before it died the password on the HMI was 8 characters long and required a number and a punctuation symbol.

              • Fedizen@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 个月前

                I’m just saying it doesn’t matter if one guy is really good because on projects that require multiple people a good team is all that matters. As far as uniqueness to the US vs everywhere, its probably worse here in the US but we have a lot of checks for extreme fuckups so we tend to just have a lot of low-mid tier fuckups. The big fuckups are when somebody lies on their expertise (like that university post tensioned beam bridge that fell in florida)

            • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
              3·
              2 个月前

              Part of that is that you need to work hard to find good people who do good work.

              The other issue is that all the skilled works are either old or dead. The young guys aren’t the same type.

              • phdepressed@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                2 个月前

                At a societal level young people arent getting the benefits of their work. We’re getting what is paid for. They’re paying those old guys pensions+benefits but their own has been cut to the marrow. Consumers pay isn’t going to them. And good fucking luck to any of them trying to start up against behemoths both local and national that can nip them in the bud before they become competitive.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 个月前

                What I find is culture drives them out. I am pushed a lot to take away all decision making ability from the techs and electricians. This command-and-control organization system. Anyone who can change employment does and I don’t blame them.

                Treat people like they are worthless and they leave. No surprises there.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        32·
        2 个月前

        The European wire gauge system makes no sense. There I said it. I don’t need to know the O.D. of the wire, I need to know the amp rating. The O.D. only becomes an issue for bending radius and there is a chart for that as well. Nothing is stopping some a**hole from making a wire almost completely out of plastic that has the O.D. of a typical 14AWG but can’t carry any serious amount of current under the European system. Under the AWG you always know what the current capacity is.

        And while we are at it, you might as well standardize your wire sizes based on copper. You are never going to use anything except copper. So your units should reflect the material. I am building a chemical skid, that has nothing to do with the distance between the equator to the north pole.

        Also when is the last time you were running wires that you needed a mm of precision? Meanwhile a fraction of an amp really does matter. So should not the thing that does matter be reflected in the product?

        • oyo@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          2 个月前

          How does 16, 14, or 12 AWG tell you anything about ampacity?

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            You use the chart. How does mm of a wire, including insulation, tell you ampacity? As I said it is easy to imagine a thick wire that can carry almost no current. You can’t pull that crap with AWG system. It tells you the single most important fact, how much current a wire can carry. There is no incentive for wire manufacturers to cheat the system since a thicker insulation wire just means more cost for them.

            Which ties in nicely with the other charts. Tell me how much power you need a motor to deliver and what I have to deal with and I can tell you exactly what wires to use, it’s bending radius how thick it is etc. None of which I can do in the CE system.

        • Magnetar@feddit.deEnglish
          11·
          2 个月前

          I honestly can’t tell if you’re doing a bit or are actually serious.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
      25·
      2 个月前

      The convention is 2" before milling. Milling takes off 1/4"on each side, so the result is 1.5".

      • dan1101@lemm.eeEnglish
        22·
        2 个月前

        Why was that ever accepted? I don’t care what size it was before milling. If I buy a 2x2 I want a 2x2.

    • astanix@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      2 个月前

      It’s due to the milling to square it.

      You can get rough cut 2x4 or 2x2 or anything that are actually that size but by the time you trim and square it you will end up at the measurements sold in big box stores

      Edit: I mean the size they used to be in store, not OPs version :(

      • Dabundis@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 个月前

        I think this commenter is trying to say that the nominal size of a 2x2 is 2" by 2" (and it looks like they typo’d nominal to “normal”)

        The actual size of a 2x2 is 1.5" by 1.5", and OP incorrectly calls these dimensions nominal

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      4·
      2 个月前

      It was done for largely sensible reasons.

      https://youtu.be/WaJFudED5FQ?si=7j005FmfJVr_JQL_

      In short, a 2x4 was originally 2x4 inches, full stop, but it was found that this size wasn’t necessary for the strength being applied to them in construction. We were wasting lumber for no reason. They went through a few cycles of sizing down as the actual needed strength was understood better. The naming convention stuck, though.

    • weeeeum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      2 个月前

      It’s weird because it’s the size of lumber BEFORE smoothing the edges. Manufacturers take this inch a mile and the 2x4 (as well as all other dimensional lumber) has gotten smaller and smaller.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      2 个月前

      Even if it was 2" from the lumber yard, it would shrink or expand quite a bit depending on the moisture content. Expecting natural products to be an exact size would be crazy, especially when talking about construction lumber.

      Now this is a very extreme case, but it was probably milled to 1.5" soaking wet, and shrank a bunch after drying out on the rack. That’s also a big reason why they’re all warped.

  • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11710·
    2 个月前

    Is nobody gonna call out OP for wearing socks with sandals? …and, ostensibly, while preparing to do carpentry?!?

    That’s like a cardinal sin squared!

    • bluewing@lemm.eeEnglish
      141·
      2 个月前

      Can’t you see those are safety sandals. And just like safety squints, are approved PPE across the whole 3rd world industrial sphere. OP will be perfectly safe.

    • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      165·
      2 个月前

      Nah nothing wrong with wearing socks with sandals when you’re home. Do what ever the hell you want.

      But I do agree with wearing proper footwear while doing dangerous things.

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 个月前

      I don’t condone it, but I’ve done something similar once in a Boy Scouts meeting as a scout. Had sandals on and I don’t remember the full meeting, but at one point we were chopping wood with an axe. I did it, but that’s not my brightest move. There was also a time where I was getting my metalworking badge and entered the forge one time for a kinda free time work on your project thing with shorts on by mistake. Nobody stopped me in either case. This wasn’t pre-2000s, so I’m not sure how I got away with either event considering safety is usually taken much more seriously nowadays.

    • Grass@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 个月前

      I regularly wear socks and sandals along with shorts and a sweater.

      There was also a time I went to lunch with that plus a lab coat and hairnet.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
      38·
      2 个月前

      My COVID home-improvement project was hardwoods. Something like 1000sqft. Never did it before. Did 90% of it wearing no more than basketball shorts and flipflops. W/e. Only a few toe injuries.

      • oatscoop@midwest.socialEnglish
        8·
        2 个月前

        My toolbag calipers are cheap hardware store ones. They’re accurate enough and I’m not out much when they inevitably get damaged or lost.

      • bluewing@lemm.eeEnglish
        81·
        2 个月前

        For a machinist yep. For home gamers, a waste of money. They don’t have the knowledge of where and when to use them nor the skills to get accurate repeatable measurements. So for OP’s use whatever CCC, (Cheap, Cheerful, Chinese), caliper he’s got is good enough.

        It’s the definition of “nominal size is what ever we say it is” that pisses me off. Buying wood/lumber is the worst offender of Nominal sizing, but even metals are getting worse. I used to buy a round bar of say, ASA1018 and it would be +0"/-.002". It’s now +0/-.006", (that’s +0/-.05mm and +0/-.15mm for those living in Boca Raton). At the end of my career as a toolmaker I was often forced to purchase oversized stock and waste time turning said stock into the actual sizes required.

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        2 个月前

        I can accept the poor quality tools that might be off by a few hundredths, but using imperial on precision measurement devices is unforgivable.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    832·
    2 个月前

    Um, wait. I would think that violates some sort of law (but I guess maybe we haven’t codified this?). I mean, building plans expect standards in materials, right? So how can a building meet codes if the materials are not within the expected specs?

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      172·
      2 个月前

      I’m going to guess they can get away with this because 2x2s aren’t intended for structural use. I’ve never built one into a floor, wall or ceiling.

        • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
          English
          81·
          2 个月前

          To someone from central europe it’s always weird how houses get build from wood in the US. 😅 I imagine you can hear ~everything happening ~anywhere in the house?

          • NielsBohron@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            2 个月前

            Depends. The cheap houses, yeah, there’s as fair bit of noise, but you can’t hear everything. From downstairs, you can hear when someone walks across the room above you, but not when they’re walking in other upstairs rooms. And from rooms on the same level, you can hear if someone is talking loudly in the room next door, but not enough to make out what they’re saying unless they’re yelling.

            Well-built houses or buildings made for occupancy by multiple families usually have better sound insulation between the rooms/floors/units, so it’s not always an issue.

            Edit: the plus side to that is I know all the noises my house makes at night, so as a light sleeper, I know when something is wrong in the middle of the night, and I only need one decent sound system for the whole house, which is great for listening to records while doing housework.

          • oatscoop@midwest.socialEnglish
            6·
            2 个月前

            Not really, unless the house was built incredibly cheaply with thin studs and crappy drywall.

            Wood is pretty decent at blocking sound – it the voids between the studs that’s an issue. Filling them with sound deadening insulation solves that problem.

            It’s not as good at blocking sound as a masonry wall obviously, but it’s “good enough” at a fraction of the price.

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            62·
            2 个月前

            it’s extremely common for americans to dismiss apartments because they simply cannot fathom the idea of housing that actually blocks noise, it’s one of the primary arguments i see used against denser housing.

            • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
              4·
              2 个月前

              Yup. Over here in the Western US, nearly every apartment is built as cheaply as possible and run by slumlords that will do everything that they can to refuse to return deposits. Painting over bugs and black mold between tenants is the norm, in my experience, not the exception. Add to that that insulation between apartments is scant, if present and frequently there are no physical barriers between apartment building attic accesses (in every top-story apartment that I’ve been in, it would be easily possible to gain access to others’ apartments via the attic and the attics also act to channel sound between all top apartments).

            • n0m4n@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              2 个月前

              I spent a few nights in a straw bale home, wanting to experience what they were like. They are incredibly quiet. Each bale is 1.5 ft of soundproofing/insulation. The loudest part of the house was the clock ticking. The house was heated by appliances such as the refrigerator and water heater. A local monastery built several to rent out for people wanting a tranquil contemplation.

          • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 个月前

            I want to say that stick-built homes are really not so fragile as people seem to think. There’s tradeoffs, of course, and ways to build them that make them uncomfortable at best and blatantly unsafe at worst. That being said, they’re pretty sturdy, fairly easy to repair and modify, and relatively quick and cheap to build.

            • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
              13·
              2 个月前

              Furring strips are used in plenty of places, I provide one example where it is used in most residential homes to support drywall.

              Is it not structural if it’s holding ceiling drywall…? So why are people still bickering that walls aren’t structural when they still hold drywall up…?

              If it’s part of a code wall detail, would that not be structural…?

              What’s with the pedantism over something like this to try and save face over not knowing what a furring strip is?

              • OutsizedWalrus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                91·
                2 个月前

                No, that’s is not structural.

                Structural means it’s intended to support and transfer loads in a way that cannot be safely removed.

                Since neither the furring strips or drywall are part of a structural requirement, they are not load bearing.

                • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  28·
                  2 个月前

                  Drywall is structural, when used on block walls it helps provide lateral support.

                  This is why being pedantic usually backfires.

                  Drywall is inherently structural.

                  Regardless. It’s furring strips, you want to argue furring strips aren’t used in structural applications? They are used in all three applications the person said they haven’t used them in. They also claimed to be a wood wroker elsewhere, so I don’t see how they would use anything structural anyways….

              • Dr. Bob@lemmy.caEnglish
                0·
                2 个月前

                Furring strips and drywall don’t count as load bearing. Structural means that it carries the weight of the overlying structure. Basically if the building falls down if that element is missing, it’s structural. So staircases for instance are almost never structural. Many interior walls are not load bearing so they can get knocked down without consequence. You can also split a room by building a wall that won’t be load bearing.

                • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  02·
                  2 个月前

                  Furring strips and drywall don’t count as load bearing.

                  Except for the thousands of use cases where they are used for lateral bracing to support the structure….

                  Like in shear walls… strapped drywall ceilings… load bearing walls….

                  Yes they can be used non-structurally, I’ve never claimed otherwise, yet you are ignoring the fact that they can, and are used in load bearing structural applications……

          • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            2 个月前

            That was one example, you can also strap roofs to install sheet metal cladding. Is that not structural? Strap a ceiling? There’s a ceiling use for you.

            I figured if I gave you a real world example you could do a little research of your own. Even googling 2x2 will get you a big box store furring strip page. You should know what furring strips are if you are in the industry.

            • OutsizedWalrus@lemmy.worldEnglish
              42·
              2 个月前

              No, that’s not structural since the furring strips are not integral to load bearing capacity of the structure.

              In your sheet metal example, they are only there for visual reasons - to help keep the roof flat. The roof can be put down without the furring strips. It might bend, but it still function as a roof.

              • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
                25·
                2 个月前

                The roof can be put down without the furring strips. It might bend, but it still function as a roof.

                What…? Roof trusses go parallel with the length of the cladding panel, you require furring strips on the perpendicular to install them. Just like in a wall with the studs vertical, you need horizontal furring to install them.

                These required larger furring strips due to truss spacing.

                Furring strips are not visual lmfao. They are structural components in a lot of assemblies. Without knowing the assembly you can’t say if they are or aren’t structural, that’s the entire point I’ve been trying to make here. You aren’t the quickest one are you? I’ve pointed this out multiple times. There are thousands of use cases where furring strips are structural. To say they aren’t structural is fucking asinine lmfao.

                • OutsizedWalrus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  41·
                  2 个月前

                  Those aren’t furring strips in that photo. That’s dimensional lumber. In this case, those spans are large enough that they require the strength of actual lumber.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      84·
      2 个月前

      The 2x4s that have been sized this way do meet structural code. It was found that a full 2x4 is way over spec’d for what they were used for, so why bother wasting extra parts of the tree?

      Pretty much everything built with dimensional lumber in the last century has been done with undersized 2x4s, and it’s fine. The name stuck for historical reasons. Companies that build houses and order this stuff by the pallet all know what the real size is, and so do building inspectors.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
        7·
        2 个月前

        Rough 2x4s were 2" x 4". Then we started finishing them for better consistency, taking about 0.5" from each dimension. Later we started using saws with narrower kerfs to have less loss due to saw blade width, better cutting and planing systems so the rough size could be smaller and still have the same finished size, then they lowered finished size some more.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        2 个月前

        Pretty much everything built with dimensional lumber in the last century has been done with undersized 2x4s, and it’s fine.

        It’s fine, folks. Nothing to see here.

  • XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
    55·
    2 个月前

    2x2PT has been 1.25x1.25 for as long as I can remember (10 years or more). It’s only the pressure treated deck stuff for railings. This does not apply to the rest of the 2x lumber, as those are still 1.5 actual. I got Simpson corner 2x2 brackets for crazy cheap way back but ended up not really using them. The 2x2s are warped to hell and a ripped 2x4 was too big in the original 2x dimension.

    • Windex007@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      2 个月前

      I’m wondering if it’s a regional thing? I just looked online for pressure treated 2x2’s and all the ones I’m seeing (home hardware, home depot, advantage lumber, etc) list as actual being 1.5x1.5

      • Blackout@kbin.runOP
        6·
        2 个月前

        That’s possible. I just moved from CA to MI 2 years ago. I know they were 1.5 then because I built alot of props and temp walls with it. I was reusing a 3d printed joint I designed to make a garden trellis when I noticed the wood didnt fit like before.

    • Blackout@kbin.runOP
      13·
      2 个月前

      It’s possible they stocked the wrong thing, but it was rung up as Pressure-Treated so maybe they applied the wrong barcode?

      • higgsboson@dubvee.orgEnglish
        25·
        2 个月前

        That green tint means it is pressure treated. Just take it back (this time bring a tape measure.)

          • XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            I usually bring my 9ft magnetic tape from my car’s ceiling and my 4" brass fractional caliper from the glove box into the store but always end up prowling the lumber section for the loose tape measures. Wouldn’t want to look like I’m stealing, right?

    • Blackout@kbin.runOP
      2·
      2 个月前

      This was pre-job time :) Testing a 3d printed joint with it when I noticed the wood was very undersized.

    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      20·
      2 个月前

      Pretty much all of Europe lists wood in exact size of the cut that you get. It sounds highly illegal to call it a 5x5cm piece of wood and sell some other random smaller size.

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radioEnglish
    131·
    2 个月前

    Looks oversized to me, that’s 3.25 cm x 3.25 cm, looks like they could take it down by 40% and still call it a 2x2 😇

  • RagnarokOnline@programming.devEnglish
    93·
    2 个月前

    Good thing you checked, that’s ridiculous. If I’d cut a dado for some mixed stock and found out some of them were 1 & 1/3 instead of 1 & 1/2, I’d be pissed.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      2 个月前

      For a dado, you’d better measure every board.

      But in reality, if you’re looking for a perfect fit for construction lumber, you’d also better let it dry out for a week before measuring and fitting, cause it was probably 1.5" soaking wet from the yard, and shrank a bunch.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      31·
      2 个月前

      There is a lot of manufacturing deviation with lumber. If you are that picky maybe you could try talking to one of the associates. They tend to know the best places to look and they may even help you measure.

      • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 个月前

        Dimensional lumber has negligible variance in width/depth most of the time which is why it’s called that. It’s really the length that’s a crapshoot. Gotta love when you buy a bunch of 10’ planks and a couple are a few inches short

      • RagnarokOnline@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        2 个月前

        I’ve found some applications for it, honestly.

        I made a work bench with oak 4x4s for legs and dado’d in pine 2x4s for the cross braces. Nice and sturdy with a good enough fit and no movement I noticed over the past 3 years.