DIYbanter - View Single Post - Linear Ft. Vs Board Ft at Lumber Yard.. did I get ripped off?

(Larry Bud) wrote in
om:

When I got back to work I looked more closely at the receipt, and he
charged me per linear foot, where he rounded the 5.5" widths to 6" and
the 6.75" width to 7", which commanded an even higher price / LF than
the 6" boards. Total turned out to be $3.38/LF for the 6" and
$3.94/LF for the 7".

It's not worth it to me to drive back there for $14 or for a couple of
extra board feet, but is this typical practice or did they just see a
wood novice/sucker?

I don't think you were cheated per se, but that's an unfriendly
practice by a company that's not looking for repeat business.

One of the local places measures to the 1/8" in width and to the
inch in length when figuring bd ft, and they don't allow much for
wane or splitting if present. Most everyone else figures to the
inch (rounding down) for width, and the half foot (rounding down
again) on length. They don't have to do it that way, but allowing
something for irregular boards is just being sensible. I don't go
to the first place much, it's not worth the aggravation. (btw,
this is all rough lumber...figuring to the exact half inch might
make more sense for S4S).

BTW, having a table of conversion between bd ft and linear feet
isn't that uncommon, altho 6.20/bd ft should have been 3.10/LF
for 6", not 3.38, so they were playing you a bit sharp there, too.

John