The 2 x 4

My work for the last few months has involved close daily encounters with standardized stud lumber. The logic of these standards -- width, depth, and length -- seems baffling on its face. A 2 x 4 is actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2". It gets even more curious as these lumber standards interface with a whole universe of other measures -- sheet goods, nail lengths, insulation batting widths, and non-structural accessories.  Now, 2 by 4 has become a colloquialism, slipping into common speech as a stand-in for wood, regardless of size or shape. 

Europeans arriving in America faced a forest of epic proportions. It had been managed with fire and agriculture by Native Americans, but it had never been logged with steels tools and draft animals. An abundance of timber informed the the building choices of early settlers, who were coming from a lumber-scarce continent that had largely been logged over by the 1600s. The first buildings erected by settlers -- in Jamestown and New England -- replicated building methods from the Old Country. Timber frames, made of braced posts and beams, were mortised and tenoned together. The notching, pegging, and extreme weight of the members made slowed construction and required skilled labor.

Maya Lin, 2 x 4 Landscape.

Pallets

A week before Christmas, I fell into conversation with an old Polish scrapper at the ReBuilding Exchange.  He had an epic beard (one that may have supported a small ecosystem of bacteria and woodland creatures) and a slight accent from his boyhood in Eastern Europe.  He and his brother were there to pick up pallets, which they would then strap to the roof of his biodiesel Mercedes wagon and sell.  Small -- 36" x 36" or so -- go for a dollar each, while large -- 36" x 48" -- go for a solid two-fifty.  


It seems like small cash, and it is.  You have to collect a helluva a lot of pallets to turn a profit.  But, as my Polish friend discovered, if you can drive costs down, and find an efficient pick-up route, the economics creep into the black.  By using vegetable oil in his car, he's eliminated the biggest cost, fuel.  By finding an efficient route, he's cut man-hours to the bone.  I saw him again last week, prowling my neighborhood for promising construction dumpsters.  The car was rattling within an inch of its life, throwing up a stream of french-fry scented exhaust.

A pallet recycling yard near my work, at Hoyne and Grand.