Here's another pic.

kgizo, this is so ironic that you posted this! I photographed several really bad boards at our build today! One is so bad that you can see a hole thru it! I don't want that in my house -- we're paying big bucks for this and they can use decent boards! Badfish, good idea about beating them out with a board!

From what I can see it looks like a track builder house. It looks like finger jointed 2x4" for the walls. The cheapest they can get! That's what track builders use.

Sadly, that's what passes for lumber these days. When you order a truckload of lumber, you either use it, or cull out the bad stuff and return it, which is a lot of added work. That's one of the reasons I decided against a wood framed house. My trusses are wood, though, and I was disappointed with the quality of the lumber used. They are stamped 'Number 1'. My only consolation is that I had them upgraded to a higher wind and load rating than code.

I'm still undecided as I begin framing the non-structural inside walls. Not only is it hard to find straight lumber, but it doesn't STAY straight, especially at the slow pace of build I'm following. I may go with steel studs so that the walls start, and stay straight.

We had several boards that looked like that (not the finger joints but the unsquare, chewed up looking edges) in our basement. We complained to our builder and he had the lumber yard send out more and they doubled up the boards. They didn't remove the ones we didn't like but added another next to it. We were ok with that solution. The builder said that alot of the 2x6's being used today are unfortunately pretty bad looking.

"One is so bad that you can see a hole thru it!"

A knothole?

Depending on size it may be within grading allowances and does not matter.

It is wood. A natural product curt form trees.

Grading standards allow for a certain number and size of defects.

Stress rated lumber has had each piece subjected to a test load and its strength measured.
it is more expensive, but still is may contain all sorts of defects and pass.

Houses are typically so over built that a few pieces could be missing completely with no impact to the overall structure.

Engineered lumber products (i-joists, glu-lams, etc.) have been more carefully designed to save on materials ad often have a reduced margin compared to day to day framing lumber.

The lesser margin is one o the things tat allows the material savings.

trusses are a common example.
They can use different grades (and sizes) of lumber in different portions of the truss based on the actual loads in THAT member.

You end up with less total wood compared to conventionally framed roof.
The down side is that alterations require engineering approval.

I wouldn't worry about those boards. FYI, finger jointed studs may not be as pretty as regular studs, but they're at least as strong and more dimensionally stable because they've had the knots and other defects cut out.

I'll add a link to another thread here about them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Finger jointed wall studs???

What does the grade stamp show. If you don't understand it, photograph it.

Are they terrible - not really, depends on where those boards are. In your second picture, that board would be replaced - not have another one added to , but replaced. I for sure would not allow for any load bearing wall to have 2x6's looking like that (not sure if yours is load bearing). Also, if the bad spot is such that it would be by a door or window frame, or where you might hang something and need to find a stud in the wall - think about what issues that would cause.....

Thanks for all of the comments. They are very helpful.

Renovater8, I attached a pic of the grade stamp.

Is 3 7/16 the next evolution in dimensional lumber ?
I thought a 2x4 is 1.5x3.5 inches....

The sizes keep creeping down, too. I had 2X12's that were UNDER 11". They are supposed to be 11-1/4".

They just recently downgraded the span tables for Southern Yellow Pine since the quality has deteriorated so much.

Finger jointed D.Fir STUD grade is allowed by the building code but it can't be used horizontally and it must be pressure treated where in contact with the floor slab.

Studs that have rough edges or warping that will not allow smooth flat drywall installation should be replaced. The drywall sub should be happy to identify them for the GC.

Finger jointing allows them to further reduce the net dimension.

The width must be perfect for the finger jointing process, so the lumber is planned one more time and then immediately finger jointed before it can change dimension again.

Ever noted the glued up 1x lumber is not 3/4 inch?

Same problem.

Hi Guys:

We are also building a new home with Highland, set to be ready in March of 2016. The builder has started framing, and last week we went by to "inspect" the framing.

There are about 5% of lumber that looks like it's been chewed up by dogs, where the lumber is not a whole piece no more, but a chewed up whole piece.

Here are 3 pics I took.

Should I be concerned? We emailed the construction manager, and he said not to worry about it, and he said it's "structurally sound."

Please share your general thoughts about this. Should I make them replace the boards or they are ok?

Thanks in advance.

This one has been speared by the forks of the forklift. It was the corner stud of the hack (bundle) and took the abuse.

The rest of them have bark edge (wane) and should be oriented by the framer to cause the least grief for the drywall crew (and it looks like they are turned to the exterior, nice), but it's a normal situation.

Fortunately I have never had to work with FJ framing material.

Casey

Also, it's normal to do a framing check right when all framing is complete and before any MEP work starts. This involves a 6' level, a can of orange spray paint and about three hours of the project managers time. All the studs are checked for bowing into the space (bowing the other way, on the axis of the wall, is not so critical).

The check is mostly conducted with the level horizontal so to check across at least three studs. If a stud needs to be replaced, it gets a shot of orange spray paint. Even with good lumber there will be likely dozens of studs needing replacing. Also checked are the nailers for drywall, sometimes parts of those are missing and the sheathing nailing to be sure they all hit a stud. Sometimes they get off and miss the stud (spray paint the missed nails on the inside).

Hi guys:

Thanks for the replies. Highland is going to hire a separate 3rd party Inspector (Burgess) and I will hired my own Phase Inspector to do the Pre-Drywall inspection, scheduled on December 1st.

The bad boards are fortunately not load bearing ones, but it's actually on the exterior of the house.

I really appreciate the input.

What if there are 30 + damaged 2 x 4's in the picture? When I say damage I mean large gouges down the entire length of the board from one end to another? Also severely splintered down the entire length of the boards.

Hi Folks,

I purchased a home from reputed builder and it is in the initial stages of construction. As of now framing happening for the home. I looked to see and shocked that there are many bad studs/ lumber which were used for the framing and the quality of work is also not good, not sure if the framing staff look at the lumbar while installing. When I checked with the Construction supervisor, he said let them allow to work and also informed me that they will do 2 to 3 inspections before going further. Let me provide those pictures for your review.

one of the Truss is completely broken, they said that they we will have to wait until it gets replaced, the pic is from one of the angular from truss which is joined with a piece of stud

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