Intimidated By Buying Lumber? Here Are The Options We'd Recommend (And Where To Shop)

Wandering into a lumberyard or big box store with the intention of buying lumber can be an intimidating experience. There seems to be an obscure foreign language spoken: "FAS-S4S random width, number 1 common, nominal width, select structural" ... what sort of inscrutable insider code is this? Does it involve a secret handshake? Even if you're me, a professional master woodworker with decades of experience, it's easy to sometimes get tripped up by a fast-talking lumber person. 

One reason there are so many names and grades for lumber is that humans have been using wood for just about everything for just about as long as we have been building things. Any tradition with a long history produces a wide variety of terms. Making it more complex is the fact that lumbering developed regionally, so there are a variety of names for the same action, or even the same cut of lumber. Even more confusingly, there can be multiple names for the same species of wood. See: Yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), locally known a white wood, tuliptree, fiddle tree, tulip poplar, or found at big box stores as just "poplar." 

Here's the good news: Many of those names and nomenclature are not particularly relevant to most DIYers. However, learning just a few terms can hugely simplify your task, and you'll get superior results from the lumber you purchase. Let's get you settled into this strange world of wood.

There are two broad categories of lumber: Softwood and hardwood. Deciduous trees, the kind that have leaves, produce hardwood. Coniferous trees — evergreen trees with needles rather than leaves — produce softwood. Generally, softwood is used as construction lumber. All of your everyday 2x4s, 2x6s, 4x4s, and so on, are made of softwood lumbers like spruce or pine. Hardwood is used in a variety of other ways, like fine furniture and refined woodworking, but it's also used in flooring, where that "hard" durability is a benefit.

When it comes to hardwood and softwood, the grading systems are different based on usage. Of the two, the grading system for softwood is a bit more complicated. Let's start with the "common" designation, used primarily for construction. It comes in four grades: #1, #2, #3 and #4. If you were buying wood, you would order this as "Number 2 common."  "Select" Yard Lumber comes with letter grades: C is the best quality, clear of defects (knots or cracks), D is still very good but may have some tiny knots. In each category, the best quality is the most expensive (#1 and C grades, respectively). 

Hardwood lumber is not dimensioned like softwood. It comes in specific thicknesses, but random widths. FAS, firsts, and seconds are top-equality boards with almost no defects. Then comes Select number 1 common, Select number 2 common, Select number 3 common, and Select number 4 common. Costs descend in the same manner as with softwoods.

Curiously, hardwoods and softwoods can be used interchangeably — the tabletop above uses both. You can make fine furniture from softwood and use hardwood in construction. But softwood is used in construction (framing houses, shelving, forms for concrete pours, outdoor furniture, fences, planters, gazebos...) because it works well and is less costly, and hardwood tends to be used for fine woodworking — furniture, cabinetry, decorative shelving, picture frames — because its characteristics lend itself better to furniture.  Additionally, it's used in flooring, handrails and other construction uses where the wood's strength and density add value.

In the past, people just used whatever wood was closest at hand. I've been in a very old barn built nearly 100% from black walnut, a very valuable lumber today. So, such things can be done. But that's just because black walnut trees were on the farm when the barn was built, and today, considering that hardwood is much more expensive than softwood for the same quantity of lumber, this isn't common. 

An important detail is that because hardwood does not generally come in pre-dimensional sizes like 1x4s, 1x6s, and the like, it requires specific tools to effectively shape and cut it. A tablesaw and a planer are key to successfully working hardwood. Softwood is already sized for thickness and width, leaving just cutting it to length and making any angles required — easily done by a handheld circular saw or a chop saw. If you are going to be using it for outdoor use, rot resistant softwood species like cedar or Douglas fir will hold up better than pine lumber.

Pricing softwood lumber is much more straightforward than hardwood. You buy it by the piece. An 8-foot long 2x4 will be so much depending on quality, and a 12-foot 2x4 of the same quality will be that much more. Species will affect the price, with cedar being more expensive than pine. Softwood is a commodity, so pricing varies with supply and demand. Hardwood pricing is complicated. Hardwood is sold by the board foot (B/F). To calculate a board foot you take its thickness, times the width, times the length in inches and divide it by 144. So, a half-inch thick board — 3" wide by 72" long — equals .76-(B/F) which, if it were $10/board foot, would cost $7.60. 

There is also a charge if you want the wood surfaced to a specific thickness. When a board is milled, it's called rough lumber and has very rough surfaces. At this point its thickness is measured in units of a quarter of an inch. A rough board that is 1" thick is designated "four quarters." A 1/2" thicker, "six-quarters" and so on. Purchasing it "in the rough" it is a bit cheaper per B/F but requires a planer and a jointer to surface the lumber. If you pay the sawmill to surface your lumber, they will add a description like S2S — "surfaced two sides" — as it has two smooth parallel surfaces. S3S will add a straight edge and S4S will be surfaced on all four sides. So, a hardwood order could look like this: 20B/F of ½-inch, FAS red oak, S3S. Once a board is surfaced, we use exact measurements.

The big box home improvement stores are certainly convenient in terms of locations and hours of operation. Home Depot, Menards, and Lowe's are everywhere. They generally have a good selection of softwood. The quality of their offerings, though, are — anecdotally, at least — generally discussed as being "not great."  Speaking as a woodworker, this is likely because we all select our own lumber, choosing the best we can find, and leaving behind the less desirable. Personally, I usually go to a traditional lumberyard. Their hours of operation are more limited, and you will have to drive further to get to them, but I have found the service and the quality of the lumber to be significantly higher.

Truthfully, though, there's nothing wrong with buying softwood lumber at stores like Home Depot and Lowe's. Because these places are so ubiquitous, doing so is very practical. Just take the time to select good quality lumber. And if you can't find it, go somewhere else. 

Buying hardwood at the big box chains is a totally different experience from the lumberyard. All of their hardwood lumber will be surfaced on four sides... and really, for most of you DIYers, that is a good thing. With a limited tool selection at your service, having the hardwood S4S is much more practical than purchasing random width, rough sawn hardwood that would be nearly useless to you. Sure, big box stores have less diverse species selection – oak, poplar, maple, perhaps birch and mahogany are what you'll find — but most DIYers are not going to need anything more than that. 

I've shared a ton of information here, and I hope it will clear up some of the mystery and confusing jargon that surrounds purchasing lumber. Confusing as these systems might seem at first glance, they're actually very practical. Now let me add one final twist: As a woodworker, I almost never go for the lower grades of lumber. For small projects like the ones I build, I would argue that going cheap is a penny-wise, pound-foolish practice. Here's why.

If you are a contractor purchasing a few hundred 2x4s, then saving a bit on every piece will add up: For these situations, lower grade lumber makes complete sense. But for DIYers woodworkers, the difference in cost when purchasing a few of the highest quality pieces of lumber is pretty small compared to the quality you gain from higher grade lumber. I know that a primary goal of DIY projects is saving money, but having the best quality lumber — where you don't need to cut around knots or other defects, that will not distort after you cut — will save you time and money in the long run. It will make your life simpler and give you confidence. 

So, when you get to the store, tell them you want Yard Select C or D softwood lumber. If they don't have it, say you want the next best option. You've given them solid directions and you can be confident of the quality you will get. If you are ordering hardwood lumber, tell them you want FAS and S4S: It will cost you a few dollars more, but you will waste less, and your project will look better. Now that you know, order with confidence.