All the cunning moves of sellers and how, when buying lumber, are we being deceived right before our eyes?

  • Apr 02, 2021
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Good afternoon, dear guests and subscribers of my channel!

In sales and marketing, there are several moves to trick a customer. They can be: substitution of concepts, concealment of shortcomings, highlighting any unimportant characteristic for a super merit or exaggeration of actual parameters. As you know, deception is done with only one purpose, to get deeper into the client's pocket.

So, as far as commercial forest (timber for construction) is concerned, its pricing policy depends on:

  • varieties;
  • breeds;
  • cutting sizes.

And, when selling lumber, deception is clearly expressed in the exaggeration of the actual characteristics, namely, the thickness of the cut and the type of wood, which we will talk about in this article.

What kind of wood do we buy?

The fixed length of lumber is 6 m, the actual length is usually 5-10 cm. longer. The most common cutting is an inch board with a thickness of 25 mm and boards with a thickness of 40 and 50 mm and a width of 150 and 200 mm.

But, very few people realize that in fact we are given goods with a smaller width and a smaller thickness!

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1. Cut open

An inch board on the base is usually not 25 mm thick, but 22 mm thick, and in order to find a base where they sell the correct sizes, you need to try! Let a deviation of 3 mm be a little on one or two boards, but usually we take 2-3 m³ for the crate, but do you know what the price difference is? If you count it in money, then the difference will be 11%, and this, at a price of 12,000 rubles per cubic meter, will be 1,300 rubles, and for 3 cubes - 3,900 rubles! Not bad...

In the Rostov region, it remains to count the conscientious sellers on the fingers, instead of a thickness of 40 mm, the boards are 35 mm, instead of 50 mm, the boards are 43 mm. Can you imagine if the project has a ventilated facade gap or a roof ventilation gap of at least 40 mm? To ensure this, I actually need to take a 50 mm board, having overpaid a lot of money.

I usually go for the scaffolding with a tape measure, at the seller I measure the forest and drop the price on the spot ...

If you don't have a tape measure at hand, you can measure the thickness and width using a matchbox. With the help of it, it is quite possible to evaluate all dimensions of the board by eye.

2. Volume

We used to think that there is an even number of boards or timber in a cube. For instance:

  • Board 50x150x6000 - 22 pcs. in 1 m³
  • Board 50x200x6000 - 16 pcs. in 1 m³
  • Board 25x100x6000 - 66 pcs. in 1 m³, etc.

But it is not so. After the integer value, there is also a fractional value. For example, in one cube of boards 50x200x6000 in terms of the actual number - 16.6 pcs., so in 2 cubes there will be not 32 boards, and 33! Try saying that to the seller... He will get angry and still be rude to you... If you still want to release only 32 boards, then discount the price!

Table with the real amount of lumber in brackets:

3. Variety

If you order delivery by phone or come to the base only to schedule delivery in 2-3 days, then be careful. There may be a beautiful product at the base, but they will bring this one:

These can be either partially unedged boards, or twisted with a screw, or covered with blue (fungus), which lay at the very bottom of the pack for several months without ventilation.

Therefore, if it is not possible to be at the shipment of goods in person, then it is better not to make an advance payment in advance and accept the goods only yourself, not entrusting this matter to anyone else.

That's all, thanks for your attention! Good luck with your construction and repair!

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