Travis Perkins timber

[Theo]

Went to Wickes to buy some wood, came home with a banana.

This happens every time, and is getting rather tedious. It would be nice to have somewhere that sells vaguely straight wood for a change.

I seem Travis Perkins have finally put non-account prices on their website, and also indicating which branches have a timber cutting service (so I don't have to try to fit 3.6m lengths in the car). But is their wood any good? Does TP Group somehow send all their awful wood to Wickes?

We also have Ridgeons locally, who have also recently started admitting prices on the web, but it's unclear what their policy on cutting is (and they don't list the base lengths).

(hello Jewson, it would be nice if you could join the pricing party too)

Thanks Theo

[Fredxx]

Do you have a Harlows near you?

I find it's worth spending some time sorting out timber at places like Wickes. All places will sell you bananas if they can get away with it!

Why not take a hardpoint saw with you? What size timber are you trying to buy?

[Bill Wright]

Find a proper woodyard. Not a DIY shop.

Bill

[Rob Morley]

This.

and this.

[Rob Morley]

Roof rack. Then when you get home you can take time with your cutting list so you make best use of the straightest bits.

[tony sayer]

In article <jxs* [e-mail]>, Theo <theom+news@chi ark.greenend.org.uk> scribeth thus

I was told in a deadpan way by one of them not so long ago now that they;

Don't grow the tress like they used to"

Sez it all really.

FWIW we needed some OSB boards recently, Travis Perks were cheaper than Ridgeons, now Huws Grey by another name, but if you use them a lot i expect they are more competitive.

You can haggle a bit with them sometimes if you are buying a decent amount of timber...

[T i m]

My roof-bars are more often on the car than not because I often find myself carrying stuff and what won't go inside goes on the roof.

Like, I went to pick up some shelving daughter bought locally on eBay and the guy went to question how I would carry the room height uprights then he looked closer and said 'ah, roof bars'. ;-)

But are there as many people carrying stuff on roof bars / racks these days? I can remember regularly seeing all sorts of stuff on roof racks, from sofas to wardrobes to boats and sheet materials / fence panels but the last time I saw a sofa on the roof of a car was ours? ;-)

A friend tried to get roof-bars for his Megan Coupe but it seems there may not be such a beast. You could see how one might be able to clamp onto the roof at the front but not at the back because of the non-opening rear windows. Not unless you can slide the 'foot' in between the rubber and the bodywork?

The recommended Thule (Aero) roof-bars for our Meriva are quite short, meaning we can't carry some of the stuff we used to on the likes of the Sierra Estate that had long bars that sat further out on the gutters, rather than a specific mounting point. Whilst they were much more flexible re what width stuff you could carry, I have tried to get out of the car under the end and it does hurt (so 'get' why they might not stick out so much these days). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Andy Burns]

My last car had roof rails and I added thule bars, it was useful for long timbers and with a home-made roof-rack useful for 8x4 sheets of osb, plasterboard, present car has no rails so now looking for a trailer instead.

[Martin Brown]

You can surely inspect them before buying though.

I have found TP or Jewsons (or even better local timber specialists) handy when I needed something heavier and bulkier than the sheds offer. Timber specialists are pretty much essential for hardwoods. My local farming supplier also does a good line in rough cut fencing timber.

Depending on what you need and how much chasing around you are prepared to do you can always go in and ask them. One of my motivations was that they would machine cut a large 18mm marine plywood to the required size for a very reasonable price and the resulting bits would then fit into my car. Saved hiring a van and making very long manual cuts.

The sheds material was pretty poxy and weak by comparison. But it wasn't as nice as the marine ply the window fitters I had in recently were using - that had all the knots on the outer surface replaced by veneer.

[newshound]

I loved my two Astra Estates with rails. I had four bars for them and so could carry all sorts of mixtures and combinations.

[newshound]

Valid point sometimes, but Wickes is cheap and convenient, and the multi-packs generally keep stuff reasonably straight.

[Jeff Layman]

I've still got my "Paddy Hopkirk" roof bars originally bought in the early 70s for use with a Viva HB! They are still used once every year or two for long items, and have been easy to adjust to fit five different models of car.

[alan_m]

Around my way even the dedicated timer yards seem to stock crap wood but charge much more than the sheds for it

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ridgeons are good. It is supposed to be 50p a cut or something, but frankly I am not sure they bother to charge unless its a lot of cutting. Last time I just selected some batten and they cut it into lengths that would fit the car.

And only charged me the total length

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am sort of in the same camp as you. Wickes is sadly a bit of a toy shop

you want a builders merchant

I prefer to use homebase for smaller stuff and ridgeons for bigger.

[Tricky Dicky]

In my experience timber merchants usually offer the best quality timber over the builders merchants like Jewson & TP, who in turn are better than the usual sheds. If buying a large quantity of timber slipping the yard man a fiver, for the extra effort of selecting the timbers gets results. If you are having a delivery then you are in the lap of the gods, although I have witnessed a joiner reject a load of studding because quite a few lengths were banana shaped. I suspect if you manage to read through the small print in the terms and conditions you may find the supplier reserves the right to supply a certain percentage of out of spec. material which might cover the banana shapes.

Richard

[Brian Gaff]

I don't think any timber is how it used to be. A guy I got to build me a fence had to come back due to a gate post that visibly twisted in three months even though it was obviously treated for outdoor use. Is it just that we do not actually allow timbe3r to season long enough before cutting it into the shapes we want? Brian

[whisky-dave]

I doubt TFL will allow me to put a roof rack on their bus. So if mail ordering ... what then.

[sm_jamieson]

Last time I went to Travis Perkins for some timber - just roofing battens, I said that I didn't have an account. She gave me a price. I said that is too expensive. She umm'd and ahh'd, then created a temporary account for me and gave me a much better price. Now I know that is an option, I will try it at other places.

The timber was straight (I was not actually using it on the roof).

Simon.

[sm_jamieson]

The multi-packs themselves are straight but sometimes when you open them a banana or two springs out. Or within a few minutes in the sun they start to bend. I tend to open the multi-packs, get the good ones and make sure I keep the multi-pack bar code.

The only trouble is the remaining bananas are not bought by anyone so they take ages to re-stock the shelves.

Simon.