New technology in wood preservatives eliminates metal from the
treatment process, and special wood stabilizers help protect against
weathering. Photo courtesy Viance
choose the preferred finish color
and install. Plus, the cost of
pre-stained cedar boards is
about half the cost of hiring a
contractor to paint or stain them
on the job.
However, pre-finished cedar
decking is a fairly new product,
so it may be difficult to find in
your area. Leary notes, “Since
decks are often small structures,
the amount of material required
often doesn't justify the freight
charge if it has to be shipped.
But if you can find a local dealer,
then building a deck with pre-stained cedar can save time,
effort and money. It's really an
excellent product.”
BREAKTHROUGH
TECHNOLOGY IN WOOD
PRESERVATIVE
Treated wood is the most widely
used material for decks throughout North America, and new
developments in the treatment
process are making some products more durable than ever.
Previous types of treated
wood, such as lumber products
marked with ACQ or C-A, indicating the chemicals used in treatment, depended on copper or
other metals as the preservative.
The high copper content of these
products leads to fast corrosion
of standard fasteners. Builders
must use approved hot-dipped
galvanized, stainless or coated
fasteners with these products to
avoid rusting. But there are other
problems, too, such as when the
copper reacts with metal hangers
and lag bolts. In fact, with an
ACQ or C-A product, metal hangers should actually be insulated
from the wood with a peel-and-stick product to minimize direct
wood-to-metal contact. To mount
lag bolts through copper-treated
wood, some professionals drill
the lag hole about 1/8-inch larger than the bolt so the cavity can
be filled with epoxy to coat and
protect the bolt from the copper
in the wood. These extra steps
can add up to a lot of work.
In response, Arch Wood
Protection recently introduced
the first residential pressure-
treated wood to be protected
The presence of copper in
traditional treated wood causes
corrosion in many types of hardware
and fasteners. However, the new
decking materials from Arch Wood
Protection and Viance use no copper
in the treatment process.
