Thread: Timber grading

Originally Posted by Krunchie

An interesting point was made to me the other day regarding timber grading and insurance, while we all have some sort of cover for what we all do ranging from small business to horticulture and so on BUT....

Who here grades timber and has professional indemnity insurance to cover it?

An interesting question. Presumeably you are alluding to a structural failure of a beam for example. Like all cases of this nature, there would have to be proof of negligence, incompetence or deception in the grading process.

I am reflecting back to my grading days (my ticket expired many moons ago and would only have museum status nowadays) and I could see that an error of one strength grade could easily be made as visual stress grading is an subjective science. Ordinarily that would probably not be enough to get you into trouble by itself. My ticket was not open ended. It had to be renewed on a regular basis to keep it up to date.

If the grading was so bad that it moved into the realms of incompetence then the person concerned should not be performing the task and should be accountable. Likewise with the deception angle, which may also be a criminal act.

Should you be allowed to insure against these last two? Another question?

Regards
Paul

So onething that has changed since your day is that it is no longer a "ticket" anybody can grade and stamp timber "as long as they grade according to the Australian standard." whilst I have done the course like most if not all small millers I do not have specific insurance cover for grade spec timber. My cover is public and property horticulture insurance ie. Tree lopper.

Is this something that you have solved or come across Sigdi, Weisy and others?

i've got my ticket for hardwood only,and the way i see it,if your grading isn't up to standard then you could be sued under the fair trading act ie;passing an inferior product.and if you were looking for insurance to cover your inability to grade timber properly,i don't think they would pay due to the fact that you got it wrong in the first place.

I did my grading course in hard and soft woods as well yet didn't account for the greater need for specific insurance

OK, if you no longer need a "ticket" it comes down to any other service or description of service.

The repercussions are if damage or injury occurs as a result of an incorrectly graded length of timber. As I pointed out before, unless the grading is way off beam (sorry ) I don't see a real problem.

If it is concerning you, I would suggest you speak to your insurer and see if it could be included under your public liability cover. I would suggest that what I would describe as "product" liability is so small a risk compared to your normal type of work (dropping trees etc) that it may already be covered or could be for very little extra premium. Having said that, I imagine tree lopper insurance is already fairly hefty.

Have you or anybody else heard of this problem being an issue?

Regards
Paul

On grading side of things, the way I see it is, if your not competent, you shouldn't have insurance for it and should get your ass sued off.

I have a grading ticket, but don't see any regular updating of it required, although feel it'd be a good thing on a personal level to clear out the cobwebs at times.

More often than not, timber I'm grading is to F14 and generally cutting F22 species such as ironbark, spotty, messmate etc so to fail F14 it'd have to be such a bad stick I'd just be embarrassed putting it on their pile

Allan

Fair comment.

It may be more of an issue with softwoods where there is not so much margin for error to begin with. If you start off at F5, there is not much to fall back on.

Regards
Paul

Great forum, people, with a wealth of useful information. I hope nobody minds me *bumping* an older thread like this one when I think I have something useful to add to the information contained in it.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

An interesting question. Presumeably you are alluding to a structural failure of a beam for example.

Yep, that's where 'liability' would lie, but the person visually grading the timber during manufacture or distribution does NOT need to carry liability insurance for it. Because that person does not incur liability!

EVERYONE involved in the production/distribution/use of timber visually grades the material. Doesn't matter if it's in the mill, in a timber yard, delivered to the builder or anywhere else among the chain of middlemen, at each and every step there's a responsibility to ensure that the product passed on is of a standard that it's claimed to be. And everywhere along the chain of production/distribution what you are risking, if you grade shoddily, is the loss of a customer.

With respect to liability in the event of product failure there's only one 'grading' exercise that is of any relevence whatsoever. That conducted by the builder who ends up using the product. Doesn't matter what anyone else along the chain to him/her has decreed with respect to stress grading of the material, if the builder uses shoddy product and the structure fails then it's the builder who incurs the liability. He/she can't pass the buck backwards.


So if you're milling timber I'd suggest not worry about carrying liability insurance with respect to your performance at visual grading. You only need to develop your skills at it to ensure that you satisfy your customers by providing them with quality product!

By the way, and as an afterthought:

Any particular 'F' rating designated for a pice of timber is NOT in any way a guarantee that the flex strength of that individual piece of timber will meet the measurement which applies for that particular 'F' rating!!!


The visual stress grading 'F' standards apply to parcels of timber rather than to individual pieces of timber.

For example, let's say an order pack of timber has been graded as F8 to serve as a framing order for a builder:

• F8 grade means a supposed 'minimum' flex strength of 22 MPa.
• Visual stress testing can only possibly be a subjective assessment, so the sawn timber's flex strength is estimated in accordance with visible 'defect' features and other factors such as direction of grain.
• If performed well, the job of grading can only, at best, provide a likelihood that most pieces of timber in the pack will exceed the rating's minimum flex strength of 22MPa if machine tested, and that the number of pieces in the pack which fail to meet that minimum flex strength should fall in the low single digit percentile.

All up, that's yet another reason why the notion of carrying 'liability' insurance for the task of timber grading is a redundant one. When you are grading timber visually you are NOT providing any ironclad guarantee with respect to individual pieces of timber, so you cannot possibly incur any liability with respect to the stress failure of a graded piece.


As said above, liability comes back to the builder. He/she has responsibility to ensure that each and every piece of timber used will be structurally sound, and the only way he/she can do that is to neither skimp on materials purchases nor offload responsibility for materials choice.




I've been around timber production since before the 'F' grade ratings were even introduced, by the way. The entire 'Grading' system is quite arbitrary and it inherently carries a pretty wide margin of error, especially as it relates across species. It's pretty much just an expansion of the 'old school' distinction which used to be made between 'scantling grade' timber and 'select grade' timber, and the majority of the 'F' stress grades in use in truth indicate visual appearance features more than they do flex strength!

Catweazle

Thanks for that information. Visual stress grading was is subjective. My impression was that it was often a means of accepting or rejecting timber by a purchaser as well as enabling the timber merchant to set a price.

Clearly boards with excessive sap, heart, knots, insect attack, oblique grain etc are going to reduce structural strength.

Regards
Paul