The Southern Pine Inspection Bureau (SPIB) further refined the specifics of its design value reductions to include No. 2 dense wood, which it originally planned to eliminate as a category, in a request submitted today to the American Lumber Standard Committee’s (ALSC) Board of Review.
In its original design value reduction proposal, SPIB did not include the dense category and instead intended to lump it with an “unclassified” category, stating there was not enough data to justify publishing separate design values for dense lumber.
SPIB instead put the decision aside and decreased design values for bending, tension, compression, and modulus of elasticity of dense No. 2 by about the same amount it reduced design values for regulate No. 2.
The request also clarified the dimensions of the lumber affected to be two to four inches thick and two to four inches wide. The ALSC’s Board of Review will consider the request at its Feb. 23 meeting.
“It has come to our attention that there is need to be absolutely specific in this matter as there may still be a lack of clarity as to whether the ruling applies to any size but a 2x4 and whether design values for classifications of 2x4 not included in out original submission would retain their 1991 values, even in the face of the actual testing,” said Robert M. Browder, secretary of the SPIB in a letter to the ALSC.
