How to Buy Lumber: A Beginner’s Guide

Lumber grades tell you about the quality of the wood

If you’re new to woodworking and getting ready to start your first project, you’re probably scratching your head and wondering how on earth you’re supposed to know what kind of wood to buy—and from where?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Just walk into the lumber section at your local home improvement store, and you’ll see why. Stack after stack, row after row…

In this guide, we’ll demystify the various aspects of buying lumber so you can stride into a store with the confidence and knowledge to choose the perfect wood.

We’ll cover all the basics, including:

• Lumber species
• What to do before buying lumber
• Big box store or lumberyard: which is better?
• What you should know about lumber
• What board sizing means
• The best wood for your project
• How to avoid defects
• A buying checklist
• How to keep boards from warping

Before going to a store, before thinking about buying lumber, before even thinking about your project, there are a few essential things to know about lumber. Let’s start with the most basic thing: the species.

Lumber Species 101

Lumber comes in many different shapes and sizes because of the variety of trees. The species affects the best use for the wood and its price.

Wood is divided into two main categories: softwood and hardwood.

Softwood comes from coniferous trees that don’t annually shed their leaves/needles. Some softwoods are:

• Pine
• Fir
• Cedar
• Redwood
• Tamarack

Softwoods aren’t as dense and heavy as hardwoods. They’re also usually, well, softer. This makes them prone to denting and scratching.

Because they’re softer, you can also drive a nail into them more easily, making them very workable. This is one reason they’re common in construction, such as framing. Another reason is they tend to be the least expensive option, so framing a house with them won’t break the bank.

Hardwoods, on the other hand, come from deciduous trees—ones that lose their leaves in vibrant displays every fall. These include woods like:

• Oak
• Beech
• Hickory
• Maple
• Cherry
• Alder
• Walnut

Hardwoods are generally harder than softwoods, meaning they are denser and can better withstand denting and scratching. We say generally, though, because there are always exceptions to the rule.

Alder, for example, is a hardwood, but it’s softer than many softwoods. So, be sure to research your wood of choice before buying.

Hardwoods are often more expensive than softwoods. They’re used for finer woodworking projects like furniture, cabinets, and smaller items.

While hardwoods and softwoods are the two main types of wood, there’s a sub-category that warrants mention: exotic wood.

Exotic wood includes rare or non-native species that are prized for their color, strength, and durability. They can be either soft or hardwood and are typically the most expensive. Here are a few examples:

• Teak
• Zebrawood
• Bolivian rosewood
• Purpleheart
• Tigerwood

Because they are so costly, exotic woods are reserved for special projects to showcase their uniqueness.

Now that we have a solid foundation of wood knowledge, let’s talk about the steps to take before heading to the store.

What to Do Before Buying Lumber

Purchasing wood can be an intimidating experience for those new to woodworking. But if you do your research ahead of time, you’ll be more informed and prepared.

Research goes beyond the wood species. You also want to think about your project as a whole. Set a clear vision—what do you want it to look like?

How much wood do you want to use? What kind?

How much time do you have or want to spend on the project?

Set down clear—and reasonable—expectations. Also, go over the plans themselves. Think about what tools are required and take notes to estimate the amount of wood you’ll need.

Another important aspect to consider is your budget. How much money do you have to spend? How much do you think the project is worth in materials? The type of wood could also greatly determine the price, so factor this in as well.

When you’ve examined your project from every angle and completed all the research necessary, it’s time to think about buying. But then there’s the inevitable question: which store do I go to?

Big Box Store or Lumberyard: The Better Place to Buy From

When you’re looking to buy lumber, there are two places to consider: a big box store, such as Lowe’s or Home Depot, or a local lumberyard. So, which one’s cheaper? And which one is better?

The answer: usually a dedicated wood supplier or lumberyard.

But it depends on what species and quality you’re looking for and your knowledge about lumber.

Dedicated wood supply stores usually have a much bigger selection of wood than hardware stores because they specialize in wood. The wood there will tend to be higher quality than that of a hardware store—the wood at big box stores often has more problems with moisture content, in part because they’re selling to trades that don’t care as much as woodworkers need to.

Quality may come with slightly higher prices, though not always.

So, if you’re on a tighter budget or you’re a beginner, get what you can from where you can, as long as you verify the moisture content with an accurate moisture meter. There are few things as discouraging as investing many hours into a project, only for it to ruin itself afterward.

More than likely, an employee at the lumberyard will be able to answer your questions thoroughly and provide you with helpful tips and advice.

If your project involves just a few pieces of wood, it may be easier and cheaper to head over to Lowe’s. But if you’re building a serious woodworking project, or some other large project requiring lots of wood, a lumberyard might give you a deal for a larger purchase, and you’ll probably see a significant difference in quality.

Remember, a very important factor to consider is the moisture content of the wood. While the wood at big box stores is dry enough to be used on studs in construction, it probably won’t be dry enough for furniture or other projects. A lumberyard will have wood dried for those purposes. Take a moisture meter with you and test the boards to see if they’re dry enough to work with.

Also, before determining whether to head to a lumberyard or big box store, consider looking at their selection online or calling the store for pricing.

What You Should Know About Lumber

Lumber grades tell you about the quality of the wood

We’ve already covered wood species, but there are a few other important factors to know before selecting your wood.

The first of those is grading.

Lumber Grades

Lumber grades indicate the quality of the lumber. Different systems exist for softwoods and hardwoods.

Softwoods have a rather complicated system because they serve so many different purposes. For this reason, they are graded based on their intended function.

For example, say a piece of softwood lumber is used as a beam in the construction of a building. Because of its function as a beam, this piece of lumber could be classified with a grade like Select Structural, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Stud, or something else.

Because of the numbering system and the many uses, big box stores may not list the grading of softwoods. Lumberyards and other specialty stores may, though.

Hardwoods, on the other hand, are graded by their quality. Starting from the top, here are the categories:

• • Firsts and Seconds (FAS). These grades are the best of the best. You’ll normally see them combined, but once in a while, you’ll see wood that’s just a First or just a Second. This wood is extremely good with few, if any, blemishes. This is furniture-grade lumber and the most expensive.
  • Select (Northern US)/1-Face (Southern US). While a few little defects might pop up in Select boards, they are still of superior quality.
  • Common. Common boards will probably have several knots, possibly some cracking, or other major defects. Since it’s the lowest grade, it’s also the least expensive. Within Common, there are more specific grades:
    • No. 1 Common
    • No. 2 Common—good for cabinets, millwork, and other short cuttings
    • No. 2B Common—defects and staining are allowed in clear cuttings, so it’s best to paint No. 2B
    • No. 3A Common—good for flooring and pallets
    • No. 3B Common (often combined with No. 3A and sold as No. 3 Common)—good for pallets and crates

When you’re first starting out, you may want to work with a lower grade of lumber. As a beginner, you’ll make some mistakes along the way, and lower grades will be kinder to your budget when you have to purchase more.

Besides grading, moisture content is also extremely important when buying lumber. Let’s look at that next.

Moisture Content

Beginners often don’t consider moisture content when buying lumber. If the wood isn’t visibly wet, it must be good, right?

Not always.

Even a board that feels dry to the touch might still have a high moisture content. A green board will have a moisture content of 20% or higher, meaning it’s still extremely wet and not ready to be used for furniture or any other project.

Choosing and using a high moisture content board could later result in cracking, cupping, twisting, joints coming loose, and many more disasters.

And even if the wood is dry enough at the store, it still might take some time to reach the proper moisture content of its final location.

So, how can you tell whether the wood you’re looking at is ready for use or not?

A moisture meter is indispensable for telling you the wood’s moisture content percentage. Our Orion® pinless meters will determine the moisture content of a given piece of wood in just a few moments and without making holes in the wood.

Finish

A finished board means that some or all of its faces and edges were planed smooth and even. Here are a few finish categories and what they mean:

• S4S means that four surfaces were finished: the two faces and the two edges. With S4S, the grain is visible and everything is smooth—no rough edges. This is the common finish you’ll see at Lowe’s or Home Depot.
• S3S means the two faces were finished, but only one of the edges.
• S2S indicates the faces were finished, but the edges were left rough cut.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each kind of finish, and it really depends on what you are looking for. A beginner might like S4S because the board is ready to work with.

What Board Sizing Means

Boards cut to a certain thickness and width are called dimensional lumber. If you’ve heard people talk about a 2×4, they’re talking about dimensional lumber.

But if you’ve taken the time to examine a 2×4 (or other dimensional lumber), you’ll realize something: the board itself doesn’t actually measure up to the stated dimensions.

That’s where nominal and actual sizes come in.

Nominal sizes are the ones listed in the store: 2×4, 1×6, 2×6, etc. But the actual size is a little bit smaller. For example, the actual size of a 2×4 is around 1½ x 3½. The reason comes from everything that has happened to the wood since it was first sawn from the tree trunk.

Here’s the backstory.

In the early 1900s, lumber began to be shipped farther from its source. A tree cut down in Washington might previously have been shipped to small towns nearby, but in the early 1900s, it was shipped to Oregon, Idaho, or even the Midwest and the East.

Following World War I, a standard size of lumber was developed for the lumber being shipped around the United States. This became popular after World War II when the rate of housing construction skyrocketed.¹

But since this lumber was being shipped to any point in the US, instead of the nearest town, changes began to occur in the lumber. Different climates caused it to shrink as it seasoned and dried. Then, it was planed to be smoother and more even.

With all this happening before it hit the store or lumberyard, the original 2×4 dimension it was cut to was bound to change. It shrank a bit, which is why 2x4s today don’t quite match their name.

Before starting a project, measure a nominal piece of lumber so you know what size you’re actually working with. This will help prevent disruption and mistakes.

With all this in mind, let’s look at the best wood for your project.

The Best Wood for Your Project

While you can certainly experiment with the type of wood for your projects, here are some of the most common types and their uses (generally ranging from least to most expensive):

Different types of wood are best suited for different purposes. Plywood works well in roofing and subflooring.

While using certain types of wood for unintended purposes can create some very striking projects, there are reasons for sticking to their common uses.

For example, making a table from pine might not be a good idea. Pine is a softwood, and it dents easily. A normal table will probably take a lot of dings and bumps and scratches during its lifetime. One made of pine will likely show all those dings and dents a lot sooner and a lot easier than one made of hardwood.

Likewise, using hardwood for framing a house addition probably isn’t a good use of your money. Softwood suffices, and hardwood also makes driving nails and drywall screws into the studs more difficult.

So, you’re at the lumber section of the store looking at the wood you want. How do you pick the best of the selection?

How to Avoid Wood Defects

When you’re choosing a piece of wood, one of the most important things to check for is defects. Unless you’re going for a look that embraces the knots and cracks, avoid pieces that have:

• Bowing: Both ends of the wood curl up.
• Checking: Cracks form around the growth rings, which may not extend the whole board but can prevent it from laying flat.
• Crowning: The wood is higher in the middle than on the sides.
• Cupping: The long edges of the wood curve up.
• Insect infestation: Tube-like patterns or small holes are visible in the wood or on the surface.
• Knots: No matter the size, knots can be hard to work around. Little knots are generally fine, but big knots have the potential to fall out.
• Twisting: One end is at a different angle than the other, preventing the board from lying flat or straight.
• Waning: Corners might be missing, or strips of bark might line the edges (typically found in lower-grade lumber only).

Looking for defects is not hard. Find a board you like and lean one end on the floor. Hold the other end up to your eye so you can see straight down the length of the board. Doing this on all four sides of the board will reveal most of the defects. Insect infestation and knots can be seen by a quick glance around the board.

Also, check the moisture content of the board to be sure it’s sufficiently dry for your purposes.

Buying Checklist: What to Keep Your Eye Out For

When you’re at the store, here are some things to keep in mind when you’re selecting lumber:

Defects like knots, warping, twisting, cupping, or bowing
Consistent color in the wood
Grain patterns and visibility for maximum strength and aesthetic appeal
Finish: What kind do you want? Check that the piece of lumber has the right type.
Certifications that tell you who graded the lumber. These are visible on lumber stamps, which also include:

• Mill and mill number (which could be a name or a number)
• Species of wood
• Grade
• Seasoning (how it was dried/to what percentage)

(Remember to check for bargain bins in the back of the store that might have good deals on some pieces of wood. Just be extra cautious, as they may have big defects.)

Besides all these factors, it’s important to know where your lumber is coming from, chiefly to know if it’s ethically sourced. Often, wood is harvested illegally or by damaging methods that don’t properly replant the forests.

The first major thing you can look for is the FSC label. It stands for Forest Stewardship Council and means that the wood has been approved as ethically harvested and sourced.

If you don’t see the FSC label, don’t be afraid to ask the retailer where they get their lumber from. Be extra cautious about exotic wood. Often, these come from countries in South America or Africa with a lot of illegal, or at least unregulated, logging.

How to Keep Boards from Warping

Before you buy any wood, measure it at the store with your moisture meter. This ensures that the boards are indeed dry.

However, once you’ve bought the lumber, you have to condition it to the environment of your home or shop—wherever you’re going to use the finished product.

The moisture content, humidity, and temperature of the store and the board’s previous locations are not going to be the same as your house or garage. If you don’t let the board get accustomed to its new atmosphere, your project could crack or warp.

Here are some tips for acclimating the wood so you can prevent moisture-related damage:

• Try to keep the temperature and humidity of the room as constant as possible.
• Keep the boards off the ground. Stack them on racks of plywood or something else.
• Stack the wood across each other, either crossways or with spacers in between to allow good ventilation. Also, keep enough weight on top of the stack so the boards stay flat.
• Use a moisture meter to monitor the changes in the moisture content of the wood. When the moisture content stabilizes to the moisture content of the environment (the equilibrium moisture content), the wood is set to use.

Don’t Be Intimidated

Buying lumber for the first time (or the first few times) can be a little intimidating, as you’re still learning all the ins and outs of choosing and purchasing wood. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. Start with something simple and work your way up.

In the long run, though, go for quality over price. Pay an extra couple of dollars for a better piece of lumber so that your finished project will have that necessary strength and beautiful appearance for years to come.

What have been your experiences buying lumber? Let us know in the comments!

Also, head over to our page of updated lumber prices to stay in the know in the ever-changing lumber world.

1. “Dimensional Wood: Why Are Lumber Sizes So Weird?” Conner Industries, https://www.connerindustries.com/dimensional-wood-sizes/.

Jason Wright

Jason Wright, Business Development Specialist for New Products, joined Wagner Meters in 2019. He comes to Wagner with over 35 years of experience in the flooring industry.