I'm going to be replacing the decking on my daughter's deck. It currently has pressure treated 5/4" decking and will be replacing with the same. When picking out boards at the "Big Box" retailers, is there a way to examine a given board to determine its likelihood of warping, twisting, cupping etc. as it dries out? Does the end grain pattern provide any clues?
The deck is 16 ft long with 12 ft joists. I'd like to buy 16 ft boards but transporting will be a bit of a problem. I'm concerned about the joints using two 8 ft boards per row. Am I overthinking it?
BTW, I called a couple of places to price kiln dried PT boards and they were quadruple what HD charges for the "wet" stuff !