Best way to keep a bundle of boards straight?

[NM_Shooter]

Am buying joists today.  I'll need to keep them for a few days before I can use them.  How can I best keep them straight?  I am considering storing them in my garage, out of the sun, and strapping them together tightly without using stick spacers. 

Thoughts?

[Don_P]

That will do as well as anything. Moisture change is what makes wood move. Buying the driest thing you can and then doing what you propose is about the best anyone can do. Then nail it up and sheath as fast as possible. On a dry bright day one side of a board can be trying to go rapidly from 19% down to 5% in your climate, that's gonna hurt.

[WoodSprite]

Count your blessings for your NM climate.  Out here in the woods, if we stack two pieces of wood directly on top of each other for 45 minutes, a massive ant colony moves in immediately.  No kidding - we've seen it happen overnight, and we're talking handfuls of ants.  Ugh...

[NM_Shooter]

OKay!  16 joists cut to size, plus rimjoists stacked and banded in the garage.  Next up, getting my kids to paint the OSB flooring with deck paint.  I thought that if I pre-paint it, I will hopefully have time to get one more coat on it once it is down.

I thought that it was odd that the decking says to space all sheets with a 1/8" gap.  I think this odd because the sheets seem to be exactly 4'X8', and that 1/8" spacing has to add up for folks with a big floor.

I'm planning on building a short ridge pole over the top of the deck and putting a tarp over the whole mess to try and keep rain off.  It will be three or four weeks before I can get back up to do more work and the rain has me a bit spooked.

I have a lot of heavy lumber sitting in my garage right now.  This may be the heaviest load (considering gen-set and compressor) that I've hauled up there yet.

[Redoverfarm]

Just curious Frank why you didn't put advantex on your subfloor and you would not have to worry so much about the rain.  I realize it is a little more than standard 3/4T&G sub but the stress factor is far less.

[NM_Shooter]

Just curious Frank why you didn't put advantex on your subfloor and you would not have to worry so much about the rain.  I realize it is a little more than standard 3/4T&G sub but the stress factor is far less.

I couldn't find it locally.  I called the manufacturer and they said that they didn't have anyone who stocked it in NM.

[Redoverfarm]

Thats a bummer Frank. Good product they should share with the people on the left.  There also is a product called Surefloor but they are based out of the east as well and their site doesn't show 3/4" but they do make it. You could have brought the Powerstroke this direction and PU the stuff. I could have met you and let you drive a 99 model back.

[MountainDon]

Too late to do you any good Frank, but I've found that buying a day or so before hauling it up to the mountains and leaving the trailer in the garage out of the sun works well enough for me.

I use a few loop style ratchet straps to keep the bunch tight together.

A number of years ago here I did have some wood start to grow mold between planks after being stored that way for a few weeks on the garage floor.

[Don_P]

If you grew mold then the garage might be adding moisture. KD19 lumber cannot support mold without additional moisture from somewhere. The other somewhere might have also been upstream of you. I have recieved lumber that was stored in the yard uncovered that was wet enough to grow mold so it depends. When I've metered fresh stock it generally is right on 19%, they hit the necessary moisture content and ship it. We get treated lumber in typically quite wet. I have stickered and stored T&G decking where the air could get to it but the sun and rain couldn't.  It makes it more of a bear to work with but it stays put better. However, I did that on one screen porch floor and then we got a heavy rain that wetted the floor. It took the rim right off the joists, something to think about if using dry wood that might get wet.