I’m picturing him down at Home Depot yelling at customer service about their false advertising of their lumber.
And I’m giggling while thinking about it.
They also wouldn’t ask for “2 by” they would ask for 8/4 rough. Or 8/4 S3S if they are sissies 
Just a wag, but they probably cut the studs out of already-seasoned timbers, so there wasn’t any shrinkage from drying. They’re also rather rough, compared to today’s studs, so there wasn’t any planing loss. HARD as HELL to work with - they make today’s lumber feel like balsa when you try and punch holes through it for wiring.
Oh, another GOTCHA. The lumber industry has been doing something that’s incredibly valuable to the home-building industry, but can infuriate the hell out of the unaware. There’s a piece of wood sold under the generic name “stud” that is the usual “nominal” 2x4, but about three and a half inches short of eight feet. This lets the carpenters quickly build walls that come out neatly to eight feet tall, matching the 4x8 foot sheets of wallboard. Before the advent of the “stud” carpenters had to cut that 3 1/2" off each board to make the walls come out to the right size, eating up a lot of labor time and wasting a lot of wood. Just something to be aware of if you need something 96" long.
Umm-if I want an assembly to stand at 8/0, and my top and bottom plates are each 1 1/2", I’d take 3", not 3 1/2" from the vertical members. If I want a true 8/0 ceiling, I’d take only 2 1/2" (which would be reduced to account for padding, carpet, CBB, tile, etc.). 
But not for the deck? I’ve never had a problem framing steps at 16" OC using 5/4.
Never said I actually measured it. 
Besides, it’s a consideration for the 4x8 foot panels, not the actual distance between finished ceiling and finished floor. The extra half inch is for the rock on the ceiling, since it’s held up around the edges by the rock on the walls. It all works out brilliantly (and quickly) in the end.
FWIW, even the hammers and framing techniques are different out here - there’s a critter called a California framing hammer. AFAIK, the main difference is the handle and claw are both longer and straighter than a 49-state framer. And, the California Corner is a clever way to do corners.
Oops… forgot that this is the Pit and we’re supposed to be mad, not helpful… Even the damn hammers are different, and the uckin’ stores don’t sell any of those crappy non-California hammers. All the rest of you who don’t build with California corners are morons. 
This goes without saying, doesn’t it? After all they choose to live elsewhere don’t they?
Not that I want them here, we’ve already got enough morons.
I guess I’m the only one who thinks **Buttonjockey **has a real bitch here. There’s really no excuse for a “nominal” 10-inch board to be 9 1/4. And for the matter of that, you’re lucky if the board is 9 1/4. I’ve taken a tape measure to 10-by stock at HD, and found it to be 9 1/8, even 9 1/16. There’s cheating all across the board (so to speak). 2 x 4’s are very often not quite 1.5 x 3.5, they’re a 32nd less all around. The mills, and HD, are just cheating. The mills are not losing as wastage anything near the difference between the nominal and the actual dimensions.
On some level, of course, it doesn’t matter, since most customers know the relation between nominal and actual sizes. But it’s irksome all the same. What’s worse is that manufacturers of other items have gotten into the act. Look at a cinderblock, for instance – it’s marked as being X inches long, when in fact it’s X minus something (1/2", maybe?).
How about a little truth in retailing?
Concrete block are 3/8" less than nominal because mortar joints are typically 3/8" and thus the wall remains ‘regular’.
Heh. Yes, I prefer the 8/0 1/2 framed wall for the same reason.
First saw them in the now defunct home improvement chain Hechingers. Hart California Framer-best damned hammer I’ve ever used. When Hechinger was going out of business, I bought 4 more! Many tradesmen have looked at the curved extra-long hatchet handle hanging from my toolbelt and asked where the hell I got it.
That’s a smart construction detail-thanks for passing it on. Oh, and screw you, too.
If you want to pay more for kiln dried lumber you will get a more regular size. Lumber shrinks as moisture leaves it.
Well, the sawmill has to make enough money to stay in business or there won’t be any lumber. They cut the log up as efficiently as they can. If they rough sawed it to a dimention that allowed the finished size of a 2x4 to be actually 2x4 they wouldn’t get as many boards out of the long. Ergo, each board would have to cost more. No matter how you cut up a log, the customer pays for the whole thing including the waste. Saying “give me a 2x10” is a lot easier than saying “Give me a 1-1/2x9-1/2.” Or at least I think it is.
This is kiln-dried lumber we’re talking about. 9 1/4 should be the *minimum *width for a ten-inch board, and it shouldn’t be subject to further shrinkage for whatever reason. If your argument were valid, 1 x 10s at Home Depot should be closer to 9 1/2 inches in summer – which of course they aren’t.
You’re right, but they should drop the pretence that 2 x 4 is the rough dimension, which, when planed, gives you 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. I find myself wondering, actually, why studs aren’t sold rough. Back in the day they never used to be planed. Have people just gotten prissy about splinters?
I don’t know about the splinter thing but if people have decided they don’t want splinters in their hands, what’s wrong with that?
The current sizes of about 1/2 inch below nominal were agreed to by the lumber industry a number of years ago. These sizes are a slight reduction, about 1/8", from the previous standard. Until continually cutting the sizes down on the sly starts to result in structural failures, nothing will be done about it.
I think your problem is in assuming this is primarily a “retail” product. It isn’t, it’s primarily a business to business product, sold to professionals who expect a “2x4” to be 1 1/2 x 3 1/2. Professionals who have NO interest in constantly calling out for someone to give them another “one and a half by three and a half”, nor are they interested in lugging 50% more weight around because you want a 2x4 to be the real dimension.
DIYers are basically inserting ourselves into the professional realm of construction, we have to follow their rules and terminology. If you don’t know enough about construction to know that a 2x10 isn’t 2 inches by 10 inches, why is that Home Depot’s problem?
It’s Home Depot’s problem because they are a retail business. If some of the stuff they’re selling conforms to the stated dimensions, and some doesn’t, and it’s not clear what’s in the first category and what’s in the second, why shouldn’t that be considered a problem? The real issue, to my understanding, is that where lumber is concerned, there are no official standards, either as to sizing or grading – there are only the voluntary standards promulgated by the industry itself. And when Home Depot begins cheating with impunity, even if just a little, on those voluntary standards, it unfortunately has enough market clout to begin to influence the overall industry, for the worse.
They are not cheating. When the lumber is milled, it is all the same width. Overtime, different pieces shrink at different rates, based on the original moisture content. Treated wood shrinks the most because it has been pumped full of chemicals as part of the rot-resistant treatment.
The mills produce lumber to an indusry standard. HD buys from the mills. What would you have them do, sort through every pallet load and cull the pieces that have shrunk? What you consider to be a grievous deviation from industry sandards is no problem for contracters and proffesional remodelers, who buy the bulk of the product. What are using this lumber for that makes this shrinkage so problematic?
Sorry, did not see this.
Rough dimensions have looser tolerances than finished dimensions. Back in the day, walls were plaster, and the plasterer could smooth out any deviations from a flat plane with his skim coat. If studs were sold rough each one wouldn have to be planed on-site so that the sheetrock wall would be flat. Not very cost effective.
I disagree that it isn’t clear. Every single person in the construction industry knows 2x4s aren’t 2"x4". Your personal ignorance does not make the subject unclear.
2x4s haven’t been 2x4 since LONG before HD existed. If HD started selling 2x4s that were 2 inches by 4 inches, nobody would buy them, they wouldn’t fit in existing construction. Are you suggesting that HD stop selling items known as 2x4, when every single lumber yard in the entire country sells them with at the reduced size? I’m not really sure what action you want HD to take that will fix this “problem”.