Plywood - Lumber And Wood Framing Materials
Plywood is made by gluing multiple pieces or strips of wood together in alternating directions. Plywood is commonly used for building floors, walls and roofs and believe it or not, can also be used for stairs. The picture below provides you with an excellent example of a stairway that was built out of construction standard lumber and plywood.
Plywood is created from a variety of different woods.
Each layer of wood used in a sheet of plywood runs perpendicular to the
next one. This usually creates a strong building material that can be
used for floors, walls and roofs.
Plywood comes in different grades and uses different
adhesives and wood
combinations, to create a variety of different types of plywood. You can
purchase interior, exterior, structural and marine grade plywoods.
Most plywoods also use a letter grading scale. "A" grade plywood is one
of the best grades of plywood you can purchase. From there it works its
way down to B, C and D. "D" grade plywood is usually an extremely
low-quality plywood and I haven't seen it for quite a few years.
Sometimes plywood is sold as CDX. The C represents one side of the
plywood surface and the D represents the other side of the plywood
surface. The X stands for exterior and can be exposed to moisture for
short periods of time.
Just because you purchased an exterior grade of plywood, doesn't mean
that you can leave it exposed to moisture forever. As a matter of fact,
I don't recommend leaving any plywood exposed to heat, cold or moisture,
unless it's properly treated.
Stairs / Stair Glossary
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