The WORST home centers for wood (Home Depot vs. Lowes vs. Menards)

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I live within 1/2 mile from Home Depot. If I am going to spend $10.00 or more I will go to Menards about 6 mile away. Menards is always best.

Don't go to menards , their wood is terrible , laughable, or make you cry ,whatever , so bad less than 1 in 10 any good at all if you cut the bad part off. Their treated starts out with , white wood, the cheapest left over , no one wants pine or whatever they can get not the standard SYP.

I have found in the last couple of yrs that Menards lumber quality has gone past Home Depot. Especially deck lumber is thicker. I shop at Menards in Ionia mi. I buy quite a lot of lumber and they always help load. And price is always less at Menards with 11% rebate. This was posted may 24-26.

I had to look up what a Menards is. No such thing anywhere within a couple hundred miles of me, and no one has heard of them.

If I need 2x4's I prefer to buy 2x8's and rip them down to 2x4's. 2x8's are usually straighter, milled from the better areas of the trees and are processed to a higher quality. It's extra work but for small projects I don't mind. The same thing goes for 1x8's. I prefer to cut them down to what I need.

Most of the time Menards is cheaper and also offers a rebate if they ever send it to you.

I refuse to buy any lumber from Menards because they treat you like a criminal after you buy your lumber. They search your trailers and cars, even when the Menards employees load your vehicle.

In my area they big box stores lumber looks more like a grin than a board

We have Menards, Lowes and Home Depot by me. I think Menards is cheapest, but the worst quality and customer service. Lowes is most expensive, but has the best customer service and quality. Home Depot is in the middle on both.

Was that Grand Rapids? It looked like Alpine, but I wasn't sure. For my area, I agreed with everything you said. I like Menards, but it sometimes is the Walmart of home stores

I always spend an extra 30 min at home depot sighting 2x4's for ones that don't look like hockey sticks

Redwings!

You are doing it wrong at menards
They have everything inside, but not full pallets
our local ones the lumber person goes out and picks the best, and puts about 20 boards in the small area inside

The good stuff is bundled outside Home Depot stores. All the rejects from those bundles end up in the store. lol

I’m in Phoenix, AZ and I would kill to have a Menards. My Mom lives in a small town in Southeast Ohio and her Menards blows away any Home Depot or Lowe’s here, especially with pricing AND selection. Please Menards, come to Phoenix!!!

40 Years ago Lowes was a decent place to purchase wood in my area. It wasn't the best quality one could find for doing high-end furniture work, but it was gobs better than the junk one finds there now. For instance, one pallet of 2x4x8 #1 SYP would have very few cast offs. I'd call the stuff they pass as #1 today as #3 of yesterday. And half of the pile is laying on the floor because of people not wanting to purchase useless wood. I'd be ashamed of myself if it were me who was loading or grading the lumber, allowing the kind of junk I see. It is obvious too... bark still remaining on some edges, lengthwise splits, gouges, missing knot holes, you name it and one usually sees it... and those boards are only found on the internal layers of the pallet of lumber where it is obvious that someone intentionally put better quality stuff on the visible layers.

Wait, Lowes has lumber? Get OUT!

In my area, Home Depot not only culls their lumber, they practically give the bad stuff away. Often you can get 3' to 5' of good lumber and take the rest camping, for fires.

Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards lumber is really only good for rough or DIY projects, IMO. The trim is usually pretty good, but that's hard to screw up. I'll never buy lumber from these stores if I'm building an exterior structure like a deck, gazebo, or pergola. My two cents.

I wish we had a Menards. Only Home Depot and Lowe's around here, plus some local companies that I try to use. Home Depot is my go to when I just need to hop online and order something for delivery though.

Menards “drive-in” lumber yard is the single reason I shop there more often than the others. It’s also amazing for landscaping projects.

Home Depot and Lowe’s price gouging is out of hand compared to Menards in my opinion. When they charge 30% more for the identical items in my opinion is price gouging. Time to stop shopping at any store that’s nationwide, otherwise they’ll be the only ones left.

I don't shop at Home Depot for Lumber but I do buy tools there they have a nice selection of name brand stuff,got a Ridged power washer there that thing is awesome and a Ridged miter saw + other tools.

I have all three. Menards "sale" price of 11% off when you must mail it in, is not a sale. Home Depot meets their price without the run around of a rebate. Home Depot lumber is far better than Menards for lumber. I also prefer not to have to walk a mile to the lumber desk, then to the check out, then through the gate into the barn where there is never any help. Home Depot is far better and, they love my dog. Lowes is a bit too far away for me to go there.

Get a Menard's Contractor's Card, it allows you to drive right up to the bin and load.

I never would have guessed that you could get in trouble for videoing in a store. Also, how many planers do you need?

I’m a big fan of Home Depot’s sande plywood (not “sanded”, Sande, a tree from Central and South America). I built an entire set of kitchen cabinets, as well as two bathroom vanities and wall cabinets with sande plywood and poplar for the trim. Then stained a very light color and satin clear coat. They came out beautiful. The sande can be almost patternless, or as was the case of the sheets I found can have some striking grain patterns. In fact I ended up going to 3 different HDs to find more sheets with grain patterns.

Its NOT the store ITS money lumber has gone down hill for the past two decades. Warp, twist, cupping, and the amount of wane is stupid you pay for 2 com that should be 3 com. I have found the same at lumber yards near me. I worked in a lumber facility as a grader/kiln operator no such thing as "Top choice" in the lumber industry. And Linear foot lumber is a total rip off they buy it by the board foot. Individualy wrapped lumber is stupid it traps moisture and will not allow the lumber to "aclimate"

I moved south out of Menard's store areas. It would be about a 6 hour drive to the closest. I miss Menards. I've stood in Lowes and considered driving to Menards.

I prefer 2×10 southern yellow pine versus the standard 2×4 at home depot. I rip to the width I need and it is a stronger, straighter, less knots and defects compared to framingg 2x4. It is also cheaper minus the cost of ripping it to size. I also rip the thickness on a band saw if I want thinner boards. Home depot in Texas

If you're picky go to a real lumber yard.

Has anybody noticed that these no longer carry DIMENSIONAL RATED PLYWOOD?

CDX is specifically graded for building code but you have to go through an actual lumber yard to get it. There are multiple GRADED dimensional plywood products but NOT at these stores.

Another thing you don't find is YELLOW PINE anything. Yet the tried and true #2 Standard or Better YP 2x4 is legendary for structural strength and durability.

Canadian fir and white wood is crap.

So who is enforcing building codes since NON RATED materials are being used in New homes?