What better way to assess buying trends than to recap the lumber specified on truss designs? The following charts illustrate the material derived from 80,000 truss drawings totaling 12.8 Million Board Feet of wood. Not surprisingly, more than half the total volume is consumed by visually graded #2 and #3 Southern Pine. But the second chart shows the emergence of machine graded lumbers (53% of the higher grades), and the diminishment of 2x4 #1 Dense (less than 2% of the higher grades). As was illustrated in last month’s article, Select Structural has 50% higher values than #1 Dense in both bending and tension values, rendering it far superior on both top and bottom chords.
See also [in the PDF or View in Full Issue] the enlargement of selected grades from the chart above.