"top choice" lumber at Lowe's - NOT!

   I was just at Lowe's looking for some 1"x3" trim to use around the window
in a bathroom I'm remodeling.

  The wood they had available was twisted, warped, and all messed up.  It
was obvious that it had all been picked through, because about 2/3 of the
space there was open - most of the boards were gone.

  In the past, I've complained about the lack of selection, with no results.
In fact, one employee told me "Oh, you'd be surprised - some folks will buy
them and just use a small section - they don't mind that they're warped".

  I discovered what I think is the REAL reason why they aren't in any hurry
to restock, and why they will happily keep lumber nobody would buy on
display - because it drives people over to the other side of the aisle,
where they have EXPENSIVE wood in the same dimensions.  Yep, wood that costs
3x to 4x as much, looks about the same, but is SPECIALTY wood like fir,
instead of the plain old pine.  What a crock!

  So why would they want to keep good quality pine on hand, when they can
just get you to give them a lot more money for what's on the other side of
the aisle?

  In article none@none.net says...

Some stores just have crap wood and should be avoided.  I doubt this is
a corporate wide Lowes problem, more likely it's just that individual
store.  Your suspicions about them trying to get you to buy the more
expensive wood is probably that store or department manager's bright
idea.  

Lumber yards are a good source for wood but they can be consumer
unfriendly when buying in small quantities.  For 1x3s I typically buy
1x6s and rip them in half with a table saw.  It's harder for a 1x6 to
warp in storage.  Plus you save a few bucks doing this too.

Around me I've been happy with the rough pine 1 by whatevers from
Menards.  The Home Depots around me suck when it comes to pine 1 bys but
they have pretty good 2x4s.  You just have to shop around and know where
to buy what.

 OhioGuy wrote:

The other reason if they restock, people will avoid the crap pieces all
over again.  If that's all that's left, some people will cave and just
buy it.  The store doesn't want the substandard wood either.  I had a
friend redoing his porch, and I think he picked over about 4-5 Home
Depots to get enough good wood to finish the job.  Luckily for him their
stores are like manure in this area.

--

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 Parallax wrote:


Yet people seem to think the big box stores are the only suppliers in
town and believe all of the marketing about how great they are.  I did a
deck on the house and ordered the lumber from a local lumber yard using
  a list I emailed to them. They dropped it in my driveway. A couple
neighbors were amazed at the quality and commented "you must have been
at the "depot" all day picking this out". I explained I had ordered it
sight unseen and all of the wood at the local yard is decent quality
with no picking required because thats what they order.

 

Thats fine, for the larger projects.
But it doesn't make sense to pay a $50 delivery fee for $100 worth of
material.