Stock length packing: why a takeoff in linear feet costs your yard margin
Linear feet do not tell a yard what to ship. How packing a cut list into stock lengths works, with a header example that takes six 12-footers or eleven 8s.
By the LumberSet team
A takeoff lands on the counter: "2x10, 1,240 LF." Someone now has to turn that into sticks, because a truck does not carry linear feet. It carries 12s, 14s and 16s. That conversion is where margin leaks, and it leaks in both directions: ship too much and you either lose the bid on price or give lumber away, ship too little and you pay for a second delivery.
Sticks, not feet
A framer installs pieces of particular lengths. A floor joist spanning 13'-6" comes from a 14-footer. Nothing shorter will do, and nothing about a linear-foot total says so.
Take 65 joists at 13'-6": 877.5 LF. Divide by 16 and you get 55 sixteen-footers. Each one yields exactly one joist, with a 2'-6" offcut that is scrap, so the framer is ten joists short. Divide by 14 instead and you get 63, still two short, because every stick loses six inches to the cut. The right order is 65 pieces of 14', or 910 LF, and no division gets you there. You have to count pieces.
Two kinds of lumber
- Spliceable. Plates, blocking, furring, fascia. These can be cut anywhere and joined end to end, within the rules: plates break over a stud, and top plate joints are offset (the IRC asks for at least 24 inches). For these, linear feet plus a modest waste factor, shipped in long lengths, is an honest order.
- Not spliceable. Studs, joists, rafters, headers, beams, posts. Each piece has a required length, so the takeoff needs a cut list, and the cut list has to be packed into the lengths on your rack.
Packing a cut list
Here is a small one. A house has nine openings with two-ply 2x10 headers. Each header is the rough opening plus three inches of bearing on the jacks, so seven 3'-0" openings and two 5'-0" openings need fourteen cuts at 3'-3" and four cuts at 5'-3". Total: 66.5 LF.
In 8-footers: no 8-foot stick holds a 5'-3" and a 3'-3" together, since that is 8'-6". So the four long cuts take four sticks, and the fourteen short cuts go two to a stick in seven more. Eleven sticks, 88 LF.
In 12-footers: one 5'-3" and two 3'-3" fit in 11'-9". Four sticks take all four long cuts and eight of the short ones. The last six short cuts go three to a stick in two more. Six sticks, 72 LF.
| Stock length | Sticks | LF shipped |
|---|---|---|
| 8' | 11 | 88 |
| 10' | 8 | 80 |
| 12' | 6 | 72 |
| 16' | 5 | 80 |
Same headers, 22 percent more lumber one way than the other, and the longest stick is not the cheapest answer. Notice too that the obvious greedy method, filling each stick with the longest cuts first, puts two 5'-3" pieces in a 12-footer and ends up needing seven sticks instead of six. Packing rewards a little patience: pair long cuts with short ones before filling sticks with like pieces.
Waste is not offcut
A waste factor covers culls, miscuts and damage on site. Offcut is geometry: the three inches left after a 12-footer gives up 5'-3", 3'-3" and 3'-3". They are different things, and mixing them costs money. Apply ten percent to linear feet and then round up to sticks, and some lines are covered twice while others are not covered at all.
The order that works: count net pieces from the drawings, pack them into stock lengths so the offcut is what it really is, and then add waste as whole extra pieces on the materials where culls actually happen. Studs, yes. An engineered beam, no.
Where the margin goes
- Over-shipping priced into the quote loses on price against the yard that packed properly. Over-shipping not priced in is lumber given away, or lumber that comes back as a credit with the handling cost attached.
- Under-shipping means a second delivery. Trucks and drivers are the scarcest thing at most yards, and the framing crew stands around while it comes.
- Inconsistent conversion means two estimators turn the same linear feet into different loads, so the same drawings get two different quotes depending on who was at the counter.
Show both numbers
Keep net quantity and order quantity side by side on every line. Net is what the drawings need. Order is what you ship. When the builder asks why six sticks for 66.5 feet of header, the cut list is the answer, and it is a better answer than "that is what we always send."
Doing it by hand
- List the cuts for each material, longest first.
- Write down the stock lengths you actually carry in that material and grade, with your cost per stick.
- For each stock length, pair the long cuts with short ones first, then fill the rest with like pieces, and count the sticks.
- Compare the total cost, not the total feet. Longer lengths often carry a premium per foot, so 72 LF of 12s can beat 80 LF of 16s by more than the footage suggests.
For the handful of materials in a house, that is an hour of care, and it pays for itself on the first delivery you do not have to make twice.