You’ve got the concrete pours out of the way, and you are getting ready to have the framing done for your house. However, there seems to be a challenge still awaiting you in material choice. Standing in the hardware store, racks upon racks of pre-cut wood ready for you to buy, and you can’t quite see the difference between 2×3’s and 2×4’s. Can you frame the shed using only 2×3’s that you may even be able to get for free?
No, you cannot frame a shed using 2×3’s as they are not thick enough for all the other standard equipment you will be using. Electrical boxes, door frames, windows, and even insulation are all built using the 2×4 framing wood in mind. 2×3’s are not built to support the weight, carry the structure, or have other parts attached to them like 2×4’s normally are made.
Understanding why you cannot use 2×3’s is important, and understanding what they are normally used for. Most people are surprised to learn that 2×3’s are used in home building, but only for things that are not permanent. This is why you should know why these seemingly cheaper pieces of wood are never used for anything structural and why you should avoid using them if you are not an experienced builder.
What is a 2×3 usually used for?
Normally 2×3’s will be limited to interior non-load bearing walls used for only that, being a wall with two sheets of wood on each side. Sometimes there will be insulation placed inside if the wall is bordering an area that is not used as much inside the house. If you need to support a wall inside, you can make cross braces using smaller 2×3’s creating triangulated corners. However, this should only be an option when fixing an already established wall.
2×3’s are not nearly as strong as 2×4’s and cannot be used as load-bearing because they are prone to either snapping or splintering when nails are driven into them. This is the biggest reason you will see people only using 2×3’s sparingly as they are prone to both warpings when left in humid areas and splintering when nails are driven into them.
With the added function of being such an odd shape, their shape becomes unwieldy when they are doubled up. 2×4’s can usually be doubled up to create a 4×4 piece of wood that is considered extremely strong and capable of bearing extreme loads. Most of the time 2×3’s are not even capable of bearing a small load, which is why they are only meant for the inside walls of your home once everything else has been built.
Why can 2×3’s not be used for framing a shed wall?
If you have a pile of 2×3’s in the backyard somewhere and are planning on using them to frame the house or the shed that you have been promising to build for years, you will need to know why you cannot use them. Most inexperienced people automatically assume that they can use any type of wood that vaguely looks like a 2×4 for framing load-bearing walls.
However, even a shed needs to be built according to codes, and each state, country, or province has its codes that must be followed. Understanding why no one allows the use of 2×3’s for anything other than interior walls will mean that you can easily avoid problems in the future. Most of the time, you may not think that using, or going, the easy route now will be a problem until you want to make a change to your shed and find yourself having to rebuild it entirely.
Standard of electronics
You may want to use the shed as your workshop, a place to fix something quickly or grind through a few pieces of steel; then, you will need to connect electricity to your shed. While the cabling can easily be routed around the size of your 2×3’s you will not be able to do the same with the socket boxes. Most socket boxes will be slightly too large to fit inside these walls easily and require that you only buy awfully specific boxes.
This means that every time you are using 2×3’s like the wall, you will need to ensure that the electrical equipment you are installed can fit inside with larger pieces almost not fitting in these walls at will, with fuse boxes usually slightly larger than 3 inches, which means that the box will always be protruding from the wall. The electronics for homes are made to comfortably fit on the side of a 2×4, not a 2×3.
Weight limits
Most sheds won’t ever need to hold anything more than the roof they have on them; however, when you are using 2×3’s, you won’t be able to ever place more than on the shed. Usually, when people have larger sheds, they may build hooks, pulleys, and other systems on the walls of their shed to help keep everything organized. However, with 2×3’s, this becomes a large problem as the support you rely on becomes weaker and weaker.
While the wood can still support a lot of weight, easily carrying the average man, 2×3’s start to fail when you screw and bolt things onto them. They are not as rigid as larger pieces of wood and can quickly lose strength with each new nail driven into them. Many woodworkers have found that in areas where a 2×4 would not so much as squeak, 2×3’s are prone to flexing and bending.
Splitting and fractures
The most common thing you will see happening with 2×3’s is that they are prone to splitting and fractures as you are using them. Because the wood is thinner, nails and screws driven into them easily cause existing defects to spread further. Instead of the wood structure significantly strengthening the entire structure, the thinness of the wood becomes a liability.
Many people have seen that the thinner a piece of wood is, the more likely it is that the wood will splinter, making the wood a lot more brittle than other woods. 2×3’s suffer from this when being structurally used, as several nails will be driven into them, each nail possibly create a new fracture that can travel up the length of the piece.
Prone to warping
Thicker pieces of wood are less prone to warping from humidity simply because more of the wood helps to resist the process that would warp wood. However, as 2×3’s are the smallest that you would consider for structural building, you should be aware that even once nailed in, they can experience some warping.
Usually, people are not aware of how bad warping in wood can become until they have built a straight shed one day, and the next day the entire shed is leaning to the side. Warping can usually take place as simply bending of the wood, or in extreme cases, the entire piece twisting with the top part of the piece bending 90 degrees to the bottom.
Minimum cost-effect
Unless you are getting the 2×3’s for entirely free, you should note the cost difference between 2×4’s and 2×3’s. Most people assume that they will save hundreds if they use the smaller pieces. However, in total, the savings are only around a few dollars and can increase drastically if done wrong. Even free 2×3’s can become costly in the long run as they start failing with age and may require you to constantly work on fixing them.
Many times, DIY builders are tempted to shave off time and cost when it comes to the pieces of a shed that cannot be seen. However, this is a big mistake that they make as the sheds they are building are dangerous to have in the yard but are not structurally allowed by the laws of where they live. This has a much longer and much more expensive effect as inspectors can demand the demolition of buildings that do not adhere to codes.
Conclusion
Building a shed with 2×3’s may seem like a tempting way to save money; however, it is not advisable and can lead to you paying expensive fines. Further, because of the weaknesses of the wood, you will most likely have to use a lot more wood to make even a shed structurally sound. Most of the time, these sheds are the ones that are failing and going unused only a few years after being built.
Whatever you are doing, always remember that your house should only have a few 2×3’s in the inner walls!
