Hardwood Special lssue How to get all the hardwood you pay for

By Gage McKinney Contributirrg Dditor

This is the first in a series of articles on hardwood being writtenfor this magazine by Gage McKinney, one of our contributing editors, who has wide experience in the hardwood industry-ed.

AVE YOU ever felt cheated after buying a load of hardwood lumber? Have you ever suspected that you didn't get as much footage as the invoice showed? Have you ever asked a hardwood dealer for satisfaction and gotten nowhere?

Unfortunately you're not alone. Hardwoods are a complicated product. And while most hardwood dealers are honest, there's plenty of opportunity in the hardwood trade for an unscrupulous dealer to take advantage.

Still, you don't have to be an authority on hardwoods to keep the shady dealer from getting the best of you. By following a few simple steps and by using common sense, you can assure that you get all the hardwood you pay for.

First, always insist that your hardwood dealer quotes and ships on the basis of a NET IALLY. A net tally is a count of the actual product you receive without any addition for kiln drying shrinkage-the percentage of footage that is theoretically lost when hardwoods are dried.

Sometimes hardwood dealers offer a seemingly low price based upon what they might call a "mill tally" or "green tally." In some cases selling lumber on such a tally is legitimate. But the addition of a fixed percentage for shrinkage, an essential feature of this type of sale, gives the shady dealer an opportunity to rip you off. The most effective way to take that opportunity away is to say, "l only buy lumber on a net tally."

Second, when you give a hardwood salesperson an order, tell him you expect a piece tally with the packing slip. A piece tally shows you the number of pieces in a load, the footage per each piece, and the total footage. By asking for it, you make the hardwood dealer accountable for every piece of lumber he ships.

The high labor costs associated with hardwoods, and a very competitive market, have caused some dealers to ship units or containers of hardwoods using block talliestallies that estimate the footage within a load. Since these tallies are only estimates, you can't be sure you're getting all the footage that shows on