Pricing up wood?

[TobyB]

Just been to Nidd Valley Sawmills in Summerbridge/Dacre, west of Harrogate. It looks like an old-fashioned or traditional sawmill ... piles of logs in the front, big stacks of sticked up sawn planks drying all around.

I was looking for some ash for a couple of dining chairs, and came away with three 6' planks of 1.5" timber and one of 2", air-dried waney-edged sawn ... each roughly 16" wide, one is not much more than 12" at its narrowest, the widest bits are close to 24". Pretty clean timber, not full of knots, splits, etc.

I was charged £61 for that - which didn't seem unreasonable. I think he said he charged £16 per cubic foot ... and it was a flat rate for this and for sycamore and beech which are their other major stocks. Does this seem a reasonable price for what I've got ... and I'm probably being a bit thick here ... although I've tried all sorts of assumptions in calculations - how does that work out as 3.8 cu ft or so?

 

[Supernova9]

1 Cubic foot is 1 ft x 1ft by 1ft, so for your dimensions:

1.5 inch thick = 3/24 of a foot, so:

6ft x 3/24ft x 4/3 ft = 1 cu ft.

2" thick board = 1.5 times the thickness of the other boards, so assuming that it's the same dimensions, that's about 1.5 cu ft.

So 3.8 is about right.

 

[Chems]

1 Cubic foot is 1 ft x 1ft by 1ft,

Its also 1 inch thick by 12 inch wide by 12 feet long too right? I find thats an easier way to imagine it.

This is the calculation I was given when I started out:

Width x Thickness x Length (Inches)

Divided by 1728 = Cubic Feet then x by the cubic foot price equals cost.

three 6' planks of 1.5" timber and one of 2", air-dried waney-edged sawn ... each roughly 16" wide, one is not much more than 12" at its narrowest, the widest bits are close to 24".

16 x 1.5 x 72 = 1382 / 1728 = 0.8 x 2 = 1.6
16 x 2 x 72 = 2304 / 1728 = 1.3

1.6 + 1.3 = 2.93 cubic feet overall.

But thats going by your 16" wide. My timber yard normally measures at sort of the median point of the board minus a few inchs for the bark.

HTH

 

[coille]

almost all merchants talk ex vat too, so the £16 a cube was probably £19.20 odd with the vat, which would be about right for 3 cube approx and a total of £61. Its a fair price for odd boards of air dried or partially seasoned ash, you could pay more.

divide by 1728 and all in inches, that's the way all right.