Posted on 09/25/2014 1:47:34 PM PDT by Abathar
Lowe’s has new rules regarding how it can label building products in California. A Superior Court judge laid out terms by which the retailer must advertise its 2x4s and other dimensional materials in a $1.6 million settlement order and final judgement filed on August 27. The order, brought on as part of a civil consumer protection action, lists three main rules for the retailer to follow going forward:
“Common descriptions” must be followed by actual dimensions and labeled as such. For instance, a 2×4 must be followed with a disclaimer that the wood is actually 1.5-inches by 3.5-inches and include a phrase equal or similar to “actual dimensions.” “Popular or common product description,” like the word 2×4, must be “clearly described as ‘popular name,’ ‘popular description,’ or ‘commonly called.'” Dimension descriptions are required to use the “inch-pound unit,” meaning they must include abbreviations such as “in., ft., or yd.,” and can’t use symbols like ‘ or ” to denote measurements.
(Excerpt) Read more at threepercenternation.com ...
Darn...wish I would have thought of that one.
For instance, a 2×4 must be followed with a disclaimer
Morons.
I was thinking the same thing....”tubuhfor” has always been that size, right?
Got some in my house that really are 2x4”. That wood is so old it’s like iron.
/johnny
It isn’t about labeling, it was a shakedown.
I want to whack any person that clueless upside the head with a one-and-a-half by three-and-a-half...
goofy.
Gee is a 2X4 made of wood? they kill trees to make 2X4’s who do I sue??
Yep. The plaintiffs need to be horsewhipped. So should the judge. Then the plaintiffs should to be horsewhipped again.
Lumberyard person: How long do you want them?
Obama voter: A long time. I’m building a house.
The spotted owls. They started it all!
Yep, old houses actually made them that size, the mills kept making them undersize to get more from the log so they finally stopped at 1.5 x 3.5 for interchangeability sake.
It was driving people crazy when it came from different mills at different sizes, or so my grandpa told me.
I always find it interesting that wood products are “rounded up” in the measurements, but metal bars are exactly sized. If you buy some steel or aluminum in 2” x 4”, that’s what you get.
I was about 16 when I discovered that a 2x4 is not really 2” x 4”. I confess I was ticked about it.
But I didn’t sue anybody, nor did it cross my mind.
So, if I get beat by a cat o’ nine tails can I sue because it wasn’t really a cat with nine tails?
Can I sue if I got a “baker’s dozen” from the bakery and they gave me one extra?
All you can do is laugh at our situation. I mean that. Well, that and recite the last words of Revelation.
The moron judge, who probably never bought or even touched a 2X4 in his/her life, is the one who is at fault here. No one with so little street smarts should be on any bench.
Well, maybe a park bench.
I always thought it was 1 5/8” by 3 5/8”
Nope. They used to average 2 real inches by 4 real inches. The studs in the 100 year old section of my house are that dimension. 1.5” x 3.5” was the lower end of the tolerance level for old sawmill technology. They couldn’t cut as accurately as we can now, so anything between that lower limit and 2.5”x4.5” could be called and understood within the trade to be a 2x4.
As sawmill technology improved, they took the industry standard — a 2x4 is anything between 1.5” and 2.5” thick + 3.5” and 4.5” wide — and set all the tolerances at the extreme low end. This results in us getting perfectly uniform boards so the architects know exactly what they will do, and the sawmills get more useful boards out of the same tree.
Hey Troy, would you like to buy a few ounces of gold?
Ping to your interest.
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