Treated Lumber

[Mark W Pugh]

It sounds like you have a cantilevered deck. I am currently having a small bay in my house rebuilt by a contractor. He is redoing it as a cantilever. He is sistering the joists back 8 feet into the house. The city required he go back 8 feet. A simple butt joint is unlikely to work for this.

That's exactly what I'm dealing with.

[Brian Elfert]

Its surprising the city even allowed that (but great). It often seems building officials default to the "engineers stamp" option with regards to cantilevers.

The bay is only two or two and a half feet out from the house. I think that is why it did not need to be engineered. It has to be way better than the horrible job the previous homeowner did that allowed the whole thing to start pulling loose from the house. The homeowner simply attached some short joists to the rim joist.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Kent, Im sorry but I have to disagree with you here on a few points.

First of all, this isnt really accurate. The 19% number is merely an industry standard. It can vary dramatically. The drying and heat treating standards vary wildly based on region.

We don't disagree all that much Mark.

On the MC 19% - that is the grading rule. No one intentionally leaves the lumber in the dry kiln longer than needed for a basic commodity item like framing lumber - wasted $$ cutting into a thin profit margin. If the lumber came from a region/season with very low RH, it could have dried further in storage or in transit on rail cars.

But the simple fact of the matter is that you will likely never see the wild movements in non-treated lumber.

Agreed. But - I have seen dramatic movement in untreated lumber in Phoenix area - when the operation did not properly care for it - the "loose sticks" problem.

The simple term "loose sticks" is a problem. There is no amount of restraint that is going to stop a member of any size from doing whatever it wants to do. Its going to go wherever it wants to go regardless of how much you try to hold it back. You cant hold it back. Its just that simple.

Perzactly my point - even untreated lumber is going to heck in that environment. Treated lumber even worse.

You could park a tractor trailer on top of your freshly delivered PT lumber for a year and when you pull it off, the pile is going to spring into whatever shape it was intended to.

Hence my point about buying only what you can get into it's assembled, installed, structural home ASAP.

[Kent A Bathurst]

You obviously didnt work in the subdivisions I did. Contractors were dozing all scraps, truckloads of sawdust, into the backfill on site. Numerous contractors, jack legs, and homeowners, having the "bright idea" of taking the scraps from their deck building projects, all made from this illustrious lumber than bugs either wont eat, or will die when they do eat, and packing it home to burn in their fireplaces, wood stoves, and back yard fire pits.

Rocket science huh? A board that nothing will eat. I wonder whats in it? Anyone wager a guess? Uh,.. maybe poison? Hey!!! Lets burn it!!!

"Hey... I have this board that no bug will eat, and if a bug DOES eat it, the bug will die... Hey kids,... lets have a marshmallow roast out in the back yard.. I'll go get some of these boards from the deck I hacked together today while I was laid off from work!!"

That event, combined with numerous others, cost us the material which yes, is still available today.

I have zero sympathy for the contractors or homeowners that refuse to follow basic safety standards, or choose to willfully ignore rules and regulations for proper handling of any type of materials - spent batteries, old CRTs, old cans of paint, or treated lumber scraps. Find 'em, fine 'em, and give them a good beating.

Proper disposal is landfill - put it in the trash can, or in the RO/RO hopper at the job site.

Same fools probably scraped old lead-based paint and ripped out old asbestos insulation. Darwin has a way of winnowing "incredibly stupid" out of the gene pool.