Why do lumber yards do this.....or am I the one that is crazy..

Garry Foster

Member
Messages
2,024
Location
North Central Ohio
Why do Lumber yards store kiln dried lumber outside in the weather and on un-level surfaces to boot.

I went to pick up a couple pieces of 2x lumber today to use in my pick up bed. Went to a private high dollar yard and ordered and paid for my boards. Go out and pull into building 2 they say. So that's what I do and when the yard man comes up he says I need to back up and pull around back. I say why and he says this stuff is stored outside. I said no thanks I'll just go back inside and reverse the transaction. This is the same owner that had the walnut cabinet plywood stored right inside by the big doors and 30 sheets of it were ruined when they were at a different location.

I figure if I am buying junk I might as well buy from the big box store.. This is a successful yard that has grown and seems to be thriving in these tough times...

Am I nuts or are they..?

I worked at a local yard back in Missouri back in the 60's for several years and we would have been fired if we would have done this. I have been in another the same Missouri small town several times the last few years and they don't store dried lumber outside. I even see it covered when it's being transported.. Maybe I am just getting to old and cranky...

Garry
 
Last edited:
i hear yu gary,, used work in one those places myself.. years ago.. under a roof would work but to be right outside if you got a couple under few on top you would have been alright if you use it up quick.. even if they say its kiln dried theses days its usually pushed threw fast and wont be real dry as it should be..
 
Well to be honest when I started there they had everything completely inside. When I came back after the Navy they had from downtown and the new yard had open fronty but had a large overhang on the front.
 
I delivered lumber for a big yard back in the late 70's. Pretty much all the dimensional lumber was stored outside. When it was delivered to the jobsite it was rolled off the truck and sat outside while the project was being built. Storing it outside seems like a common practice around here anyway :dunno:
 
they dont have to use it after they get it to sell.
I also love the policy of we pull the top boards off the rack, and thats what they sell you.
(not me anymore, they only got away with that once, then they lost a good customer)
 
Our local yards act like they have just given up and rolled over to the big box stores. Out of stock is common. Trying to get attention to be waited on is an exercise in frustration. When they go under they will blame the big stores. The fault is theirs for not trying to compete at the most basic levels. I can't/won't waste my time driving around looking for something anymore. It is big store right off for me.
 
the big stores up here dont sell anything but maple and oak(hardwoods), and its sold by linear foot which makes it quite expensive.
and every lumber yard within 15 miles of me has shut down.
15 miles might sound like nothing, but when you live in one of the busiest cities on earth, 15 miles is equivelent to 100 miles in a rural area.
It amazes me there are no more lumber yards selling a selection of hardwoods near me anymore.
I guess theres simply no call for it, and taxes and rents are ridiculous.
I would think some of the big box stores might want to stock more variety, since they certainly have the room, and staff, but not yet. probably never.
 
Our local yards act like they have just given up and rolled over to the big box stores. Out of stock is common. Trying to get attention to be waited on is an exercise in frustration. When they go under they will blame the big stores. The fault is theirs for not trying to compete at the most basic levels. I can't/won't waste my time driving around looking for something anymore. It is big store right off for me.

It's the same thing here Frank. I'd much rather give my money to the local hardware/lumber yard, but it's more times than not it'll be out of stock. I don't even mined paying a buck or two more for something there. The only reason I even try there first it that it's on the way and they have several older retired guys that really know their stuff and can usually cobble something together to make it work.

I don't get lumber there ever. They must get the last stop before the burn pile stuff.
 
When HD opened here a number of years ago, I frequented it a lot. My first piece of furniture was built from that "sold by the linear foot oak". Then the quality of "stuff" sold at our local HD degraded. We have 2 local lumber yards. It's difficult to buy good quality hardwood at either lumber yard...a piece of oak of any size or quality is a maybe. One lumber yard is open 7-5 M-F and the other is open 7-6 M-S. The one lumber yard's hours pretty well eliminate the working stiff from buying from them since they close at 5 and aren't open on Saturday and Sunday. I have talked with the owner and he says he can't open on Saturday as he loses money by paying labor. Yet.....he lost my business because he wasn't open.

30 miles north in Moscow, Idaho is a lumber yard open 6 days a week....they stock about 30 different types of hardwoods....... OR......I can drive to WallaWalla or Spokane, each about 110 miles away, where there are lumberyards with wide varieties of hardwoods. I have a special secret project that I am about to start. I will talk more about it in the very near future.

I have an Ace Hardware store, where I buy a lot of "stuff". They are open 11 hours a day, 7 days a week.....they know me......always greet me......have a better selection of what I need than HD and though they are a little pricier, it's worth it.

Small businesses have to learn to compete. A business exists to serve the needs of the customer and not just for the convenience of the business. If you aren't open when I am not at work.... if you are priced 50% higher than the big box store....if you don't have what I need or the quality I desire....... don't whine about the big box businesses.
 
Last edited:
Here in town we have 2 lumber yards. Both have their wood stored in building which are open on both sides. One is starting to go down rather quickly. You can't go out and pick your lumber. You park at the gate and they go get it for you. That is all fine and good but sometimes what they bring you is crap. I told them I wanted some straight and I meant straight 2 X 4's. What they brought me was a crooked as a dog's hind leg as my late grandfather would say. I told them they were not going to work. I was told take it or leave it. He just doesn't get it. His lumber yard since last fall has about a 1/3 of the lumber it used to have. It is just sad. The other one the kid took over from his dad who built the lumber yard up over 46 yrs. The lumber the kid gets in now is just terrible. I talked with him one day in January and he said he had to do it to make money. I told him people will pay a few dollars more for good quaility. He said well I have to compete with the big box store 35 miles away. I told him unless he started getting some quaility lumber in he was just going to keep losing ground to the box store. He stopped carrying any oak or birch plywood. Also doesn't carry any hardwoods like walnut, cherry, birch, etc. like his dad did. He said it costs to much. I said price it so you make money and people will buy. I said I bought from your dad because he is local and carried quaility for when I wanted to make furniture. Well I went down the other day for the first time in about 4 months. I noticed he now has oak and birch plywood. I see he got some oak, walnut and cherry hardwoods in. He is also expanding the inside store. It was a pleasant surprise. One other thing he did was to expand his hours back to what dad had. 6 am to 7 pm M-F and 8-3 S. The other day when we left town at 6:30 in the morning he already had building contractors there picking up supplies. Maybe he got the picture or dad put a boot where the sun doesn't shine.:rofl:
 
it must have shocked you when the guy said, take it or leave it, like, hey, Im the customer, are you kidding me?
I had something similar with red cedar I purchased before I had any tools to mill rough lumber, and I paid for linear feet.
I bought 8 foot boards, and the ends had cracks 6-10 inches long, so I told the guy Ill take it, just knock off 2 feet off each board. when he refused, I went into the boss, told him to refund my money, and within 2 minutes I had perfect boards.
 
Last time a lumber yard told me I had to take off the top and could not pick and choose I said I will just take my money back and never went there again.
 
Its a complicated problem i think.
I agree with much of the discussion, the issue really gets back to basics. If you aint got the buying power to call the shots you need to recognise you need to differentiate yourself in some other preferably several other ways and do it excellent not just well.
The issue is when these sme owners get the blinkers on and begin to believe price is the only issue they let it drive them crazy and ruin their business.
No small guy can compete with the depots of this world when it comes to volume purchases and leveraging a deal but they all try.
Yet right under their nose there are elements of a sale that they could excel at but most often dont try.
Something tells me that there is a degree of resentment coming into play where they were once upon a time the only or pretty close to only game around for a decent distance and now find they got competition but dont know how to meet it head on.
Its not just workers that need retraining....i meet many bosses aka owners that need it too.
I firmly believe there are ways and means to overcome all these problems but it takes an attitude adjustment from the owner to get it right.

I find the opposite to be the case for my local hardware store. They have increased stock carry a greater variety of all sorts and are only a little more than the borg which is a ways further away. They dont sell lumber though. But i am spoilt by my local lumber yard although its priced accordingly.

Just a word of advice for some of you, make sure to ask about shorts. My lumber yard has loads of the run of the mill hardwood in precut shorts and this stuff is priced very good. So if i were making maple cutting boards the wood would be almost already cut. Makes no sense to be paying for wide thick boards to be faced with cutting it all up into strips. :)

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2
 
Top