hey, that there board isn't really a 2X4

In reply to novaderrik:

That stuff just hasn't dried out and warped yet.

Don't tell that judge that Ford doesn't make Mustangs out of horses.

I've seen a lot of mislabled engines in cars and motorcycles...

Time for some ridiculous lawsuits!!!

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:

True that! I piled up a couple hundred studs in my basement a few years ago in anticipation of finishing the space. Stuff came up so I didn't get to it for 6 months and one day I heard a crash. The pile had warped so badly it toppled all on it's own.

I got so pissed about this the last time, in which I needed 3 whole 2x4s to built a workbench, I did some research into the matter. Basically the allowable moisture content of the wood has been upped a couple times, to an extent that its cut and shipped out soaking wet now.

I ended up going to Public Lumber Company in Detroit (which is an awesome place for any exotic lumber needs BTW) and buying a few nice, reasonably straight grained, straight, dry, pine 2x4s for a little more money, which took me all of 5 minutes to select off the rack. The workbench is still flat within 1/8".

Duke wrote: Wait, the judge said anything other than "Get the hell out of my courtroom, you moron, and don't ever let me see your face inside here again"?!

Can you imagine the type of idiot required to LOSE a case like this?

So if you in Europe and you're remodeling your house, what kind of lumber do you ask for?

I gotta say the lawsuit is dumb but if that is what it takes to change the name of the damn things then so be it. Since I was 8 years old and I realized a 2X4 wasn't, I have thought it was ridiculous to call them that. To refer to something by its dimensions and have that not be accurate is asinine. Who cares how long we have been doing it.

Doing something dumb for the sake of tradition or "We've always done it this way" does not excuse anything.

In reply to Ditchdigger:

Should I sue the liquor store for giving me .198129 gallons of whisky when I ask for a even fifth? The ice cream companies for a 1.5 qt "half gallon" ice cream tubs?

"Two by four" is a lot easier to say than, "a one and one half by three and one half inch pine board". Quite frankly, anybody who didn't know this in the first place likely lived such a sheltered life that lumber shouldn't concern them anyhow.

Here is the whole sordid story of how the standardized sizes were arrived at. It's actually kind of interesting.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/miscpub_6409.pdf

In reply to SVreX: Are the Girl Scout Cookies made from real Girl Scouts?

I think the fact that 2X4's aren't 2X4 is stoopid. We can't just be throwing numbers around willy-nilly.

Another thought:

The article said: Lowe’s spokesperson Amanda Manna said

They only hired her so they could page her over the intercom. "Amanda Manna, please report to..." It's just fun to say.

I think knowing a 2x4 really isn't 2" x 4" is the entrance exam question to deciding whether you can hold tools or if you are one.

Ditchdigger wrote: I gotta say the lawsuit is dumb but if that is what it takes to change the name of the damn things then so be it. Since I was 8 years old and I realized a 2X4 wasn't, I have thought it was ridiculous to call them that. To refer to something by its dimensions and have that not be accurate is asinine. Who cares how long we have been doing it. Doing something dumb for the sake of tradition or "We've always done it this way" does not excuse anything.

It's called a nominal dimension. It refers to the undressed rough cut of the lumber. Wait till you find out that an 8x8x16 concrete block is actually 7-5/8"x7-5/8"x15-5/8". That should really chap your ass.

Anybody who's ever dimensioned an architectural drawing - OR laid out a building from one - understands the value of nice, round numbers.

So apparently 2x4s are so damn American that we've exported that term to describe dimension lumber to just about everywhere in the world that uses dimensional lumber. So even in a country where they use the Metric system, if you need to frame up a wall, you'll go looking for 2x4s.

If you can't find 2x4, I guess that building codes elsewhere are more worried about the space between studs (60cm on center) than they are the size of the stud.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Should I sue the liquor store for giving me .198129 gallons of whisky when I ask for a even fifth? The ice cream companies for a 1.5 qt "half gallon" ice cream tubs?

I don't think they label 1.5 qt containers half gallon. They don't label whisky bottles "fifth gallon."

DrBoost wrote: Another thought:

The article said: Lowe’s spokesperson Amanda Manna said

They only hired her so they could page her over the intercom. "Amanda Manna, please report to..." It's just fun to say.

Now we need to find a Deidra Dooley and have some muppets sing their names.

Where do I sign up for the class action "Baby oil" lawsuit?

So, I was repairing my deck last year and had to replace a couple of stringers. I picked up some 2x6s and dropped them in. Damn things weren't the same size as the ones installed in (best estimate) 1976.

At this point, everyone assumes they were smaller and that things aren't as good as they used to be and blah blah blah. Nope, they were bigger. Damn global warming increasing tree growth rates.

Ditchdigger wrote: I gotta say the lawsuit is dumb but if that is what it takes to change the name of the damn things then so be it.

So I guess you don't get the whole quarter pound hamburger thing either?

PHeller wrote: So if you in Europe and you're remodeling your house, what kind of lumber do you ask for?

You don't.

The houses aren't made of wood/sheet rock (in Hungary at least), they're more the "brick and plaster covered in stucco" variety (cement floors too). But to answer your question our 2x4 is roughly their 40 x 80 mm (I may be off by a couple mm's I seem to remember buying 44mm or 45mm at one point in time).

They think it's the funniest thing in the world that we use such flimsy materials for something as important as a house. I think the argument is actually in our favor as we win in the "ease or repairs" department.

Thas jus un'merican

Hungary Bill wrote:

PHeller wrote: So if you in Europe and you're remodeling your house, what kind of lumber do you ask for?

You don't. The houses aren't made of wood/sheet rock (in Hungary at least), they're more the "brick and plaster covered in stucco" variety (cement floors too). But to answer your question our 2x4 is roughly their 40 x 80 mm (I may be off by a couple mm's I seem to remember buying 44mm or 45mm at one point in time). They think it's the funniest thing in the world that we use such flimsy materials for something as important as a house. I think the argument is actually in our favor as we win in the "ease or repairs" department.

What he said, at least in Continental Europe. Newer buildings in the UK are a bit closer to the way things are built over here, mainly because the materials are a bit cheaper. You do find some sheet rock, but usually as an interior surface in brick houses (instead of plaster) or for non-load bearing walls that might actually have been framed in a similar fashion to out here.

Houses in Europe are generally built with a longer lifespan in mind, so that influences the choice of building materials. While houses in the US do win on the ease of repair (no chiselling into the wall to get at plumbing or electrical conduits), my unscientific impression is that a 20 year old house in the US (like, uh, mine) seems to need more repair and maintenance work than my mum's house in Switzerland which is at least 150 years old (the local church burned down sometime in the late 1800s with all the records in it) and sits on a foundation that dates back to the middle ages. Similar climate, too.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to know how much it would cost to build a house with stone walls that are between a foot and close to three feet thick.

I lived in a stick-built frame house that had parts constructed in 1770, 1830, and 1926. Who doesn't build for the long term?

I used to haul lumber to the docks from a Japanese owned mill. They bought the mill and the timber rights to supply their own business in japan, so the lumber was milled to Japanese standards. It was all very close to North American sizes but not the same at all.