According to the American Wood Council, the National Institute of Standards and Technology permits stores to label lumber with nominal dimensions if the label or other sign clearly states that the size given is a nominal size and states “the actual or minimum measurements.” The size labels now have a new requirement. However, there was one change mandated by the courts. The lawsuits were settled, and it was found that the use of nominal sizes to describe lumber sizes was a long-standing and accepted standard industry practice. Builders, design engineers, architects, lumber buyers, and sellers of lumber are all familiar with the differences between the nominal and actual sizes of lumber. The courts eventually found that lumber sizes are appropriately described in nomina l inches in the US, or in millimeters in other countries. Modern sawing, drying, and planing technologies are much more precise, and the boards can be cut a little smaller than 2×4 inches and still leave the board large enough to dress after drying at 1 ½ inches thick and 3 ½ inches wide.Ī few years ago consumer groups brought several lawsuits against some of the big box stores and a few hardware and building supply chains for false advertising by selling lumber that they maintained, was undersized.
#ACTUAL DIMENSIONS OF A 1X6 FULL#
Today the boards are no longer cut green to a full 2×4 inches. Green southern pine lumber shrinks in width and thickness as it dries, and surfacing removes up to an additional ¼ inch from both dimensions. Originally, (almost 100 years ago), a 2×4 was cut as a rough green piece that was close to a full 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide, but by the time the boards were dried and planed the boards became smaller, approaching the now standard 2×4 dimensions of 1 ½ x 3 ½ inches in size. The actual measurements are the final dried and surfaced size. The simple answer is the nominal measurements were derived from a board’s size before it has been dried and planed smooth (surfaced) on all 4 sides. Why are the nominal dimensions of lumber larger than the actual dimensions? This is a well-established industry practice. The reason for the differences is because lumber sizes are traditionally given in their nominal size. The first dimensions are its nominal ones, the second measurements are its actual or minimum dressed sizes. Why isn’t the 2×4 at the lumber yard 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide? The 4×4’s are 3 ½ x 3 ½ and the 1×6’s are ¾ of an inch thick and 5 ½ wide. To the novice do it yourselfer softwood lumber sizes can be hard to understand. The Home Depot plaintiff bought his lumber at a store in Palatine, Ill., in December.Author The SPIB Team Softwood Lumber Sizes The Menards plaintiffs bought their lumber at stores in Gurnee and Fox Lake, Ill., in November. The cases name three plaintiffs - two against Menards and one against Home Depot. A Home Depot spokesman said only that the firm disagrees with the claims. “Plaintiffs received exactly what they were supposed to receive - lumber that complies with applicable standards,” a court document filed by Menards contends.Ī Menards spokesman declined to speak about the case. They say the practices of Menards and Home Depot “cause substantial injury to consumers.” Plaintiffs in the lawsuits who bought 4x4s got about 23% less lumber than “advertised and represented” by both retailers, the complaints allege. And Turin said comments on the Home Depot website show that “there are actual customers being confused.” Stich, the MATC carpentry teacher, also said the average homeowner might not know about such distinctions between lumber names and dimensions.
“But then again, we just started building things.” “I just assumed that it would be the same,” Angela, a funeral director, said.
Neither Angela nor Pete Silva, a Menomonee Falls couple shopping the Germantown store as they plan a garage workshop, knew. And they’re gonna pay me extra for my time.”īut an unscientific survey of 18 Menards shoppers found that about a third were unaware that “4x4” doesn’t represent actual dimensions of that piece of lumber. “My God, that’s crazy,” the 60-year-old bulldozer operator said of the lawsuits. “They haven’t measured 4 inches by 4 inches since the ‘50s,” Scott Sunila said after loading purchases from the Germantown store into the bed of his pickup. That leaves the “average consumer” to conclude that the pieces measure 4 inches by 4 inches, Turin said. But the lumber in question is labeled only with a nominal size - 4x4 - 10’, for example - that consists of numbers “arranged in a way to represent the dimensions of the products,” the document says.
With some of Menards’ lumber products, both the nominal and actual size are shown, a document Turin filed in the case against Menards says.
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