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.
Shouldn’t the normal size be 2? Given, well, the name?
You’d think so, but no.
Short story is the ‘nominal’ size is the size before going into a planer to smooth the faces.
Yes, it makes little sense, like many things related to construction stuff.Yeah sorry. The tree was originally 50ft tall so we call the pieces that. But you only get 3ft
Is like buying 1200lbs steaks because that’s what the cow weighs before it gets parted
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?
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.
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.
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.
Used for furring strips everywhere. Line a block wall with them and sheet it for example.
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?
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.
It’s a big improvement from making them from straw.
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.
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.
Would you call that a “structural use?”
Structural use means load bearing. So no.
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?
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.
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….
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.
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.
