GERMANTOWN, MD - The Southern Pine Inspection Bureau (SPIB) asked for more time to revise its new lumber inspection review values. 

They were submitted last month by SPIB to the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC), and were scheduled to be reviewed at an Oct. 18 ALSC meeting, but were pulled from the agenda at the last minute,

SPIB is working with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory to verify all data to establish new design values for visually graded Southern Pine dimension lumber, for final consideration by the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) Board of Review.

SPIB Secretary Bob Browder said, “It is our opinion that our submission has been properly prepared and that the only changes involve rounding in some of the cells. We believe that extraneous issues need to be carefully reviewed and differences resolved prior to the Board of Review consideration.”

The last major change for visually graded dimension lumber occurred in 1991 when design values for Southern Pine and other North American species were published based on In-Grade testing of full-size samples of commercially produced lumber. Since 1994, SPIB has conducted an annual resource monitoring program developed in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory (FPL).