Ash price per board foot
Plan on about $4.40 a board foot for 4/4 stock at U.S. retail (our 2026-08 estimate — your yard gets the final word). A typical board, 6″ wide and 8′ long, will run you around $17.60.
Ash is the wood of things that move: baseball bats, hockey sticks, oars, snowshoes, tool handles — anything that has to flex hard and snap back. For a century, the crack of an ash Louisville Slugger was the sound of summer. Now the emerald ash borer is killing hundreds of millions of American ash trees, and all that beautiful, springy lumber flooding the market is the sound of a species being salvaged. It's the best bargain at the yard, for a heartbreaking reason.
Tough, springy, and light for its strength — handles, bats, chairs. Bends well with steam. Oak-like grain that takes stain evenly.
Ash at a glance
| Price per board foot | $4.40 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 42 lb/ft³ · 3.5 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 1,320 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 7.8% tangential · 4.9% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $44.00 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $110.00 |
What common thicknesses cost
Same 6″ × 8′ board, priced by rough thickness (thicker stock often carries a small premium on top of this — figured on volume alone):
| Thickness | Board feet | Cost | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | 4.0 | $17.60 | 14 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $26.40 | 21 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $35.20 | 28 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $52.80 | 42 lb |
Will it stay flat?
Well-mannered in a dry house, and the undisputed champion of the steam box — ash bends around curves that would splinter oak into kindling. If a rocking chair is anywhere in your future, this is your practice wood and your final wood both.
The measured numbers: drying from green, ash shrinks about 7.8% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 4.9% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying ash without regrets
Buy it now, honestly. Wide, clear ash boards are routine and cheap today because the trees are coming down fast; in ten years this page may read like a eulogy. Check board edges for the borers' squiggly galleries and cut around them.
At the finishing bench
Ash's bold, oaky grain takes stain more evenly than almost anything — factories have been dressing it up as 'oak' finishes for decades. It's also a natural for the modern cerused and open-pore matte looks.
Sources & further reading
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Soft Maple ($4.25). A step up: Yellow Birch ($4.50).