Where You Purchase wood

[Eric Hnanicek]

I always check pricing between Home Depot and Lowes before pricing wood that I am going to use for a project. I am fortunate enough to have a Carter lumber down the road and multiple Amish owned saw mills also. which i have to call before any given project after finding what my local chain stores are charging. 

I have found that most times the guys you have to call beat the chain stores by a large margin over all on a project. I have also found that chains will beat the locals (But not as often) So when you know what you need research who is around you before buying. There might just be a local guy that will smash pricing for a project. 

I know transportation of materials can get expensive too. So consider the costs of transporting the materials to your workshop. Driving 45 miles with a loaded down truck is a lot more than driving 5 miles with the same truck.

I am a person that hates to spend more than is necessary to do what it takes to do a project. So i set up basic spread sheets and figure from there. I look online for basic pricing and distance to the store. Then call the local yocals and get theirs. With gas prices rising it does matter. 

Another aspect is to look at how a particular store is selling what you are looking for. If you were to build the workbench that is in the listing to the side Lowes would save you approximately 8 bucks today. Why being, Home depot sells MDF in 2' x 4' x 3/4" for approximately $9.50 per piece. (Online pricing, may have what Lowes has at store. Just does not show it online. ) Lowes sells 3/4" x 49" x 97" for $31.00. This pricing is from my local stores. You require 3 pieces of MDF that are 2' x 4" X 3/4" to do the project. The Home Depot price would beat the pricing if you never need 3/4" MDF again. But when it comes down to it Lowes beats the price with the full sheet. 

So look into what you are doing before hand. The easier softer way is usually not the cheaper way to do it. 

A note here is that MDF will not be a readily available item at your local yocal sawmill. But if you plan on using a substantial amount of milled hardwood lumber for a project, it will be worth the call to the locals.