Looking for the perfect deal on lumber

Part 8— Designing and building a DIY home recording studio

8 min readMar 16, 2018

The whole story — part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19, part 20, part 21, part 22, part 23, part 24, part 25

The green/blue studs are 16' long treated studs used for the “bottom plates” sitting directly on the concrete floor as a base for the vertical studs of a wall. The chemical these boards are treated with prevents the boards from being able to take on any moisture which could potentially come up through the concrete and cause damage and rot to untreated boards.

How I decide where to spend my money

So it’s time to start buying the studs and nails I need to frame the studio walls including some extra studs that I’ll first temporarily use to support the ceiling (so I can remove the load bearing wall and place the LVL beams).

The three things I look for when deciding where to spend my money are:

#1 Great customer service. Speaking to someone who is expert in the area I need assistance in.

#2 Convenience of being able to source the products I need. In other words, saving time.

#3 Pricing that is fair and in balance/proportionate with the level of customer service and convenience provided — and that I actually need to use.

When customer service and convenience are high, I don’t mind paying for the stellar assistance because ultimately, I still end up saving money/time by quickly getting to the right product the first time. I only get frustrated when someone wants premium pay for sloppy, inattentive help.

When I’m forced to do more work on my end because a supplier can’t provide the convenience or expertise I need, I logically expect I should get a better deal. Or, if I know exactly what I’m needing, I will looks for a supplier willing to sell the product for less because I require less of their time and help. I figure giving them a quick and easy something will be more appealing to them than me walking away giving them a perfect nothing. Making it really easy for them should potentially translate into them making it easier/less expensive for me.

What I expect

An unsolicited example of a company established on providing THE best education based customer service sales, convenience and pricing, is Sweetwater.com in the music and sound recording industry. I stumbled on to Sweetwater and senior sales engineer Ted Hunter years ago back in 1998 while managing the construction of a new recital hall. I was so thoroughly impressed with their philosophy, capabilities and education based approach that I actually ended up moving my family to Indiana and working for them for 5 years. learning how to really care for customers, using what they called “The Sweetwater Difference”, absolutely spoiled me and I have tried my best to adopt and use that specific approach in all my dealings in sales positions since over the years. Knowing that level of service is out there, I look for and expect that level of customer service any time I’m making a purchase. Especially when someone is asking me to pay top dollar for something.

Sweetwater in Fort Wayne, IN — an example of the best blend available of customer service, pricing and education based consultation

Needing help

Lumber and 2x4’s are not an area of expertise for me so I’m having to rely heavily on someone to help me quickly determine what the right product is. Ready to find that win/win deal, my first move was to return to the supplier where I bought the LVL beams.

Returning to the supplier where I bought the LVL beams hoping to have an equally great experience buying the 2x4’s I needed.

Large local specialized builder supply company. They did an excellent job selling LVL’s to me. Trying to buy 2x4’s was a completely different experience.

because this supplier specializes in working with builders and contractors, I became quickly concerned that the two employees at the customer service counter were confused when I asked them which length 2x4 would be the best choice to buy for my 8' 7" tall basement. They both decided they needed to speak to Brad to see if he could answer the question. Brad did answer my question saying the the 104-5/8" stud would be the best length. I’m curious how two employees who work in lumber all day weren’t able to answer what I though was a straight forward simple question. Brad didn’t seem to have any problems answering it. Why would both employees at the counter struggle with that? Perfect example of the difference between a knowledgeable trained sales staff and employees who are just hired to be clerks and ring up orders.

As I explain in the description of the picture above, my experience going back to my first supplier was unfortunately anything but a repeat good experience. The lack of experience of the two employees I spoke to caused me to want to check their pricing against a few other local dealers. What I found was pretty disconcerting. They were asking $4.65 per #2 Douglas Fir stud. The next dealer I called was a big box home improvement store with a price of $4.38/stud. The next dealer — another big box dealer — $4.24/stud. Finally I called my local town lumber supplier and they quoted $5.42/stud.

Obviously there is quite a range in price here which will add up with as many boards as I need, so unfortunately, what was supposed to be a just a quick call (to reconfirm my first dealer’s pricing was awesome), turned out instead to be a rabbits hole requiring me to spend a bunch of time researching the best supply option instead of being able to keep moving forward buying boards.

Savings not consistent

Because everyone is selling the same product, same grade and even same origin there just shouldn’t be this big of a gap. Imagine if gas stations had fuel prices ranging this much for the same grade/octane fuel. Needless to say, I have spent WAY too much time having to determine who has the best deal, but what I found out next complicated things even more. As it turns out, as I researched different lengths of boards, dealers who were higher on 2x4’s were lower on the longer boards needed for the bottom and top of the wall. There simply wasn’t any consistency. The only consistency is if you are a contractor/builder buying truckloads of lumber. Then there are discounts available that I simply don’t have access to. I even called another contractor this week and asked where the best place was to buy 2x4’s. He said he didn’t know, because anything less than large truck loads just wasn’t going to give a discount that he had access to for large builds. He actually had never had to price boards like I am.

So, now I’m in a position of seeing that different dealers offer different discounts on different board lengths. If I truly want the best deal, I will have to buy different materials from three different dealers. This is where my three initial criteria kick back in because I just don’t have the time to do that. Finding a dealer who provides the best service and convenience balanced with competitive price will win the majority of my business including possibly paying a little more for a few things here and there, knowing that overall pricing will be better taking into account the time I will save. You’ve possibly heard the phrase, “stepping over dollars to save dimes”. Now I need to be smart.

Why the pricing difference

Ultimately the best deal wasn’t just found in the raw per-board pricing. In speaking to one of the dealers I discovered that the “volume discounts” available — once I spent $1500 — would not really benefit me if all I was buying were studs and drywall. This is because he said they have to strip away almost all their margin off the most competitive items and that I would only really see any savings when I started buying lighting, glue, nails, flooring, window treatments etc as those items are where they would make up their profits and have some room to offer discount. But as I’m not really needing any of that right now, he said their credit card would be the better deal. Although very hesitant to consider this, I found it gives an instant $50 savings off the first invoice over $100 and 5% savings on every item purchased with their card including contractor packs which have reduced margin. This is better than using my Costco card which gives me 1%-3% cash back depending on what I’m buying. This other card is an instant 5% savings rather than a cash back deal. I like being able to save that money all up front. This also applies on top of any in-store sales or discounts. It’s a nice way to double dip and save more. Again, back to the service aspect. I actually did end up going through this last dealer for the 2x4’s and some other supplies, picking up enough to get started on the front wall that will facilitate moving the load bearing wall and putting up the beams. So I bought 45 studs which as it turns out barely fit in my van angled sideways in the back. It was a pretty sketchy trip home. I was hoping to also purchase the 16' top and bottom plates there, but I just couldn’t drive that far with 8' of board sticking out of the vehicle.

2x4x16 #2 Premium Kiln dried Douglas Fir top plates

Not knowing anyone in my new neighborhood yet with a 20' trailer, I painfully had to overspend with my neighborhood lumber supplier buying the top and bottom plates because I only had to drive 10 min on back roads to get the longer boards home using my van. I figured I’d rather drive 10 minutes that way and pay a couple bucks more than the alternative 30 minute drive risking injury to myself, my vehicle and others. It was extra time driving and buying from a second dealer and missing out on my new 5% savings, but it was the right decision.