I have bought my flooring timber from TP.

I bought all C16 in 3.6m lengths, but they gave me 4.8m lengths and half in C24. so i got an extra 72m in length i didnt need at a price of £1.80 /m which = £150 approx they have given me.

Very strange, but it was what they had in stock. I got a good price as well for the timber so not sure how they can afford to give away so much. I have had to chain saw the joist up and will use some of the cut offs for noggins, but a lot will be wasted.

They must be making a lot on timber to give it away.

I bet they are charging you for all the extra lengths and that they do have the right lengths in stock.

I have had a row about this myself with timber suppliers.

you can be sure that they will not be making a loss on the deal.

In other words they were trying to get you to pay for it all!!!!

WhenI was buying from TP you bought by the half meter. To get 3.6m youneeded to buy 4m.

I never buy timber from TP as I find it way too expensive for the DIY-er. Maybe ok for trade customers though. I use a locally owned firm for most of the timber I need.

That's remarkable to hear evan - a dream I'm always trying to promote. Sounds easy but there's a lot more to it than that?

AFAIK absolutely nothing can beat the ridiculously low price £6/ft3 of imported kiln dried heavily-planed round-edged stress graded so-called timber that might as well be made of recycled milk cartons, for all the life it's got in it. None of it is UK sourced. Nowadays AFAIK it can be relied upon to have come from sustainably managed sources.

To get the equivalent nothing-special dried C16/C24 softwood UK sourced costs twice as much, from a local sawmill. To do the whole felling and mobile sawmill thing costs much more again - unless by a helpful family member and you do the drying etc yourself.

The picture changes once you get into finer softwoods like douglas fir , larch, western red cedar (not talking hardwoods). Imported and kiln dried these are much more expensive, and in the case of US/Canadian cedar, the best of it, fine grained, is from old-growth forests, with serious sustainability concerns.

This can be UK sourced at similar price, from local sawmills. If you can use it green, or take delivery and air-dry it for a year (or two) yourself, then it's the cheapest way of sourcing these timbers. but fixing/chippy costs may be higher, especially using it green, sawn - that's very economical as long your chippy knows how to use green timber, allow for its shrinkage and movement, and ot charge extra for that - and if you like the sawn look with gappy joints, shakes and warpage - I do! but it's a difficult and unfamiliar path to take.

Have got fed up with the quality of imported CLS that I have been using on a small building so I went to a sawmill and got some 9"x2" larch for the rafters. The timber is green - please can anyone give me an idea what range the shrinkage might be over a length 3.6m (the width of the building)?

^ As above, no real shrinkage in length, but with will shrink in depth and thickness. It is something like a 1% change in dims for a 4% change in moisture content from about 30% moisture content down to 12% ish once dry and in service.

Just use noggings between rafters at 1/3rd and 2/3rd span. That should reduce twisting (although it will, all timber does to some extent). If you are insulating between rafters, that obviously not really an option.

Timber