Pressure treated wood deck

[cedarglen]

I'm ready to start on my deck. The pressure treated wood at HD and Lowes here in my area of California is really ugly stuff (bright green with rectangular holes punched all over it). According to the web most all wood decks in the US are pressure treated pine. Is all pressure treated pine like ours out here (? The pictures I see on the web look like regular lumber that just has a green tint to it. Am I looking in the wrong place? I can't go the money for redwood or anything fancy, but I want it to last. Will the green tint fade over time? Can it be stained with redwood color stain?

[MountainDon]

The green fades some.

I would not stain it myself.

You are likely looking at regular construction grade 2x PT wood; some is worse than others. Look for 5/4 decking planks. This is selected from better stock specially for deck boards. Being thinner than 2x material place the supporting joists must be on 16" centers, nothing wider spaced. Use the regular PT 2x material for joists and beams. In my area Lowe's carries the 5/4 but HD does not. You might have to look for a real lumber yard.

Be sure to use fasteners and hardware approved for PT woods.

[MikeT]

After a friend told me a story about how his kid got the ugliest of ugly splinters in his foot from a PT deck, I decided there was an additional element to consider rather than cost. 

For my deck, I salvaged a ton of cedar decking from someone who wanted to replace it with Trex.  I bought the weathered cedar  (very cheap) and then planed it to remove the weathered top:  new looking cedar deck for a fraction of the cost.

I have since monitored Craigslist regularly and gotten lots of deck material from people who move into a place and decide on something else.  They don't want to deal with the removal, but one man's trash is another's  inventory!

mt

[ScottA]

I would not stain it myself.

Why not?

I stained my deck and looks pretty good. Pressure treated wood needs to dry for 4-6 months before it is stained with a sealer stain made specificly for decks. I agree that finding good lumber is hard to do. I'd keep looking. Try to find a lumber dealer that is used by builders.

[MountainDon]

Past personal experience has been that pigmented stains require more touch up in heavy traffic areas than using a clear preservative. But, that's me, and not everyone else. I prefer maintenance to be esay to easiest.

I guess it helps that we don't mind the green color. Note out gazebo and cabin are done in shades of green.

[Don_P]

Those of us that use Southern Yellow Pine predominately for treated lumber are used to basically a green tinted board. Douglas fir and some of the western pines require incising to get the treatment chemical to penetrate, they are relatively impermeable otherwise. This does not make for the prettiest lumber. I'd give it a few rains and then let it dry well before staining, it does fade, the copper in the newer treated is not as fixed.

If you see alot of hearts in the ends of the pack you are looking at low quality usually, the junk that twists and curls, look for a fair sampling of tree regions with more "jacket" wood.

[MountainDon]

Douglas fir and some of the western pines require incising to get the treatment chemical to penetrate, they are relatively impermeable otherwise.

Even that doesn't get the treatment very far into the wood. I have some 4x4 Doug Fir that was incised and the treatment still almost seems superficial. The treatment goes less than a half inch into the wood. Cuts must always be treated after cutting. (Those are old CCA type) I must admit though that the timbers are still solid after 20 years. (Mostly dry high desert with lots of active termites).

For those who have never seen the incised wood it appears to have been rolled over by a series of bicycle sprocket teeth. Functional, but as Don_P stated, not pretty.

[cedarglen]

Looking around town most everybodies decks are non pressure treated douglas fir. We are in a mountain community of Southern California. We have 310 annual days of sunshine per year. Average Annual Precipitation: 38.8". Most all decks are 4'+ off the ground (as will ours be). We are at 5500 feet. We get some snow which usually melts off within a few days. Is the doug fir ok for a decent period of time in these conditions? Or are people replacing their decks every 5 years? Calling around it looks like the only pressure treated wood available is treated douglas fir with the ugly incisions all over it.

Right now I'm considering all douglas fir, or breaking the bank and doing the ugly PT doug fir joists and beam with synthetic ChoiceDek (but not Trex) decking. I just can't have the incised PT on my deck surface. What do you guys think?

[considerations]

We get 40-50 inches of rain out here.  Fir without treatment won't last but 5 years or so.

Cedar lasts longer, but it will turn grey and rot eventually, better to treat it. 

Our PT is reddish brown, and there are jugs of treatment (Jasco?) that are the same color, but I wouldn't use it exclusively because you cannot get it into the wood the way they do treating at the manufacturer.  I use it on the cut ends to even out the color and because it absorbs well into the end grain. 

I think redwood is probably more expensive than cedar.

[davidj]

Right now I'm considering all douglas fir, or breaking the bank and doing the ugly PT doug fir joists and beam with synthetic ChoiceDek (but not Trex) decking. I just can't have the incised PT on my deck surface. What do you guys think?

Personally I'd go for PT joists and beams.  That way the structure will last for a long time and you won't get any nasty surprises if one or two spots do end up trapping moisture! For the decking, it's much more you get what you pay for - pay more, last longer.  Around our way (bay area) slightly knotty redwood comes in at the same price as the "plastic" decking.  It's also better from a fire perspective - the fake stuff burns pretty easily if you don't get the fire retardant version but the redwood is actually approved under the new CA fire codes.  The plastic decking also gets pretty hot in the sun - you can't walk on it in bare feet on a sunny day.

Our friends at 5000ft in the N Sierras have an untreated doug fir deck.  It's considerably more than 10 years old and is buried by snow 3 months/year - it's still surviving but it is getting pretty warped.  It seems to me that in the dry, sunny CA mountains the ice and the sun are as brutal on exposed wood as the moisture and it's not clear how pressure treating helps much with either of those.

[rocking23nf]

I built a deck and fence 2 years ago, beams are PT, boards are cedar, fence is PT posts with spruce boards.

The spruce already after 2 years is starting to warp, the Cedar is not, the PT looks almost the same as the day it was bought.

All spruce was kept dry and stained before installing. I personally would not use spruce again for any outdoor exposed building.

[Billisnice]

As we grow older wood decks need to be replaced and things in our lives happen making steps a problem to climb. My advice to anyone if possible build a patio with a maximum of one step as you exit the house to get to. I built my patio with lots of pea gravel to make it easier on the eyes.

Make the house handycap accessable and you will not regrete it.