Decks, fences and other outdoor projects can provide years of entertainment as well as a beautiful landscape for your home. Wood is not only a very attractive material for this, but also inexpensive and easy to work with. However, wood makes a wonderful playground for the insects and bacteria in your garden and if left untreated can deteriorate within a few years. Choosing treated wood can really prolong the life of your outdoor projects and keep them looking great in the face of weathering, insects and decay.
Pressure-treated wood is a popular outdoor building material; softwood lumber that has been chemically treated to resist rot, decay and pests. However, the level of rot resistance is directly related to the amount of chemical preservatives in the wood and the type of chemicals used, which means not all treated wood is the same. This is why non-pressure treated wood is still required for use indoors, and why builders recommended that you only use pressure treated lumber for the support structure of a deck and switch to untreated wood for the surface.
Any location where pets and kids spend time regularly should be built with non-treated wood. This includes play sets, decks, raised beds in gardens, and more. Using a naturally rot-resistant wood, like cedar is a better compromise that is potentially putting your loved ones at risk for serious health problems. Of course, sometimes you just can't build something safely without using pressure treated lumber. It's better to use treated lumber and know your deck will be secure in a few years than try to use untreated wood for the supports and watch them rot away rapidly.
If you're using pressure treated lumber and are concerned about its risks, applying an oil-based sealant is the best protective measure. Oil-based sealants have been shown to limit the amount of arsenic, copper, and other compounds reaching the surface of the wood. Since the primary risk from treated wood involves touching the surface to transfer the chemicals, a suitable sealant is enough to protect you and your family. There's no need to worry about making treated wood safer that is completely covered in other materials and hidden from access, such as subflooring.
Pressure treated wood doesn't release any gases or particulates that could harm you and your family. If you're not touching the wood or exposed to its sawdust, there's basically no risk. Regardless of whether you need pressure treated or untreated lumber for your project, we have both types in stock in every size and shape here at Lyons Lumber Co.
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If you want your child to know handy skills, you should start a toolbox for them and add to it throughout the years. Follow the tips on this blog to start. Improved home security begins with strengthening weak areas throughout your home. Learn how to secure your windows and doors so that your home is safe.
The type of siding you have on your home determines how frequently your home's exterior needs to be painted. Wood siding, for example, should be repainted every three to seven years , while brick paint jobs can last upwards of a decade. Whether you want to paint your home's exterior for personal enjoyment or to preserve your home's siding, the right paint color is key to keeping your home's curb appeal fresh, modern, and inviting. If you're stuck on what hue to paint your home's outside, consider classic white, light gray, or other lighter colors.
Here are reasons why light tones are best for your home's exterior. Any cracks, blemishes, dents, stains from mold or mildew, or missing siding panel issues will not alleviate themselves with a fresh coat of paint. However, lighter paint colors will diminish the appearance of minor siding flaws to give your home a more renovated, well-kept appeal. Softer colors reflect light, allowing blemishes to be more hidden by visual trickery. Before painting your home's exterior, power wash your siding and fill large cracks or crevices with cement putty or other filler.
You can buy your paint and hardware supplies from your local lumberyard or home improvement store. The main reason for painting your home's exterior is to add curb appeal. Your home isn't the only part of your property that improves with fresh paint, however.
The surrounding landscape benefits as well. What are the main focal points you want highlighted in your yard? A decorative rock garden near your front entryway? A charming stone walking path? If you paint your home a too-dark hue, like navy or brick red, the focal points in your main yard get lost in the rich color tones.
Lighter paint colors, like eggshell white, buttercream yellow, and pastel shades of darker colors, create a soft backdrop for your landscape features. Your home blends into the background, allowing your landscape to become the best focal point of your property.
If you go and pick through a bin of pressure-treated lumber, you will see some pieces are straight, and others moderately to wildly warped.
The warped pieces are invariably the pieces that were on the outside of the bundle Once the bundle is broken they twist like Chubby Checker! Once installed in your project and subjected to freely moving air and the sun, the same effect occurs. Shrinkage of deck boards can be excessive, in both length and width, and twisting can loosen railings and floor boards.
Railings can become cracked and splintery, making them uncomfortable to use. A certain amount of PT preservative will leach to the surface of the wood over time. Applying a coating every year or two once the rain stops beading greatly lessens the amount of preservative that leaches to the surface. Applying a preservative slows drying and inhibits shrinkage and helps maintain a smoother surface to the wood.
The sun takes no prisoners and even pressure treated wood needs protection from it. Remember, the preservative protects the wood from mold and mildew, not good old Sol! The preservative should be applied immediately upon completion of the project or within a month or so if the wood is especially wet.
Be sure that the preservative you purchase is recommended for use with pressure-treated wood. More about this in the next section Many manufacturers carry full lines of both oil and latex products that can be used on pressure-treated wood. According to the folks at Cuprinol , you should wait at least one to two months before staining. You may apply a clear preservative immediately, but it must be a product manufactured for use on fresh pressure-treated lumber.
What about painting? Don't even think about painting fresh pressure-treated wood! The moisture in it "stacks the deck" against good paint adhesion. Seal your project with a pressure-treated wood preservative immediately. Follow the preservative's instructions regarding future painting, making special note of the amount of time the preservative should weather before painting. According to the EPA, studies show that the application of a penetrating oil finish can reduce or eliminate exposure to CCA in older decks and to the chemicals used in newer decks.
So it is recommended that all pressure-treated surfaces that have human contact be coated with an oil finish as needed. It has been noted in some studies that paints and opaque exterior stains do not offer the protection of stains that are absorbed more deeply into the wood. If you look at the end grain of any board, you'll notice that the rings have a particular curve to them. In other words, "bark-side up" would be a deck board that has the visible grain curve downward.
With pressure-treated southern yellow pine the most common type you might even see a little bark on some pieces. There has been lots of debate on this issue because of a process called "cupping". Cupping refers to the tendency of a board to bend across its width as it dries. Ideally, you would want all the deck boards to cup downwards so any rain would run off them rather than collect on the wood. Some people assert that the ONLY way to install deck board is "bark down".
The rationale is that a board in laboratory conditions resting across a couple of sawhorses will tend to cup towards the bark side as it dries out. This is undisputed fact and this principle used in cabinetmaking when edge-joining boards so the cupping in one board is counteracted by the reverse orientation of the next board and so on and so on. This would make you think that wood decks should be installed with the bark side down, right?
If it were only that simple. The truth is not all boards react in the "wild" as they do in the laboratory or the woodworking shop. For example, unlike redwood or cedar which are installed dry, pressure-treated wood is installed damp or even soaking wet!
The excess moisture from the preservative treatment can cause excess cupping as it dries, whether it is installed with the bark up or down! In other words, the simple drying action of the sun and wind can cause the top of the board to dry faster than the bottom, causing cupping regardless of the exposed top. I used to think that bark up was the rule, but over the years I've come to realize that it doesn't matter as much as I thought.
So now I use a couple of general principles to determine which side of the board will be the top. What is pressure-treated wood? What is the chemical preservative used, and is it dangerous? The new alternatives to arsenic-based preservatives. Is the copper-based preservative as good as the arsenic-based preservative? Are there any special considerations when using wood with a copper-based preservative?
If CCA is potentially dangerous, should I tear out my old deck? It's otherwise in great shape. What are the safety precautions regarding use of pressure-treated wood? The sawdust from pressure-treated wood can be an irritant to the nose, eyes, and skin.
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