Lumber yard

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A lumber yard is a location where lumber and wood related products used in construction and/or home improvement projects are processed or stored. Some lumber yards offer retail sales to consumers, and some of these may also provide services such as the use of planers, saws and other large machines. Generally, timber yards are locations where raw logs and other wood or forest products are processed and stored. The terms "lumber yard" and "timber yard" are sometimes used interchangeably, and timber yards may include additional aspects that lumber yards encompass, and vice versa.

Lumber yards sell products made at lumber mills, Some lumber/timber yards use cranes to move logs, and sprinklers to keep the logs moist.

Ransfords, located in Shropshire, England, operates one of the largest timber yards in Europe, and processes 70,000 tonnes of logs annually.

Some lumber yards sell products that are assessed and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC), per its standards. One lumber yard in Portland, Oregon limits its product line to only those that meet or exceed FSC's requirements. In 2008, Sustainable Northwest, a nonprofit environmental group in Portland, Oregon, began operations sourcing and purveying environmentally friendly "green wood" products. The group specializes in offering wood products that are sourced from trees in non threatened forests. Products at lumber yards are very prone to fires, and electrical problems at lumber yards are a significant cause of fires. In some cities, such as Phoenix, Arizona, city fire protection and prevention codes for lumber yards exist.

In Sydney, Australia, convicts have worked at a place called "The Lumber Yard" as a part of serving their sentences, to facilitate lumber and product production and to provide convicts with skills training. A timber yard that was associated with The Lumber Yard was also in operation, where workers pulled and stacked logs floated downstream on the Lane Cove River. The Lumber Yard was a government lumber yard, and operated as such from circa 1791 to 1834.