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Pressure treated or not?

  • 30-07-2006 10:54pm
    #1
    Yorky
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,485 ✭✭✭


    I had a close-boarded gate made about six months ago from (supposedly) pressure treated timber. It has the appearance of being pressure treated but the boards have shrunk so there are now gaps between them. Should this happen to PT timber?

    At the time I was concerned about exposed areas of the wood where cuts had been made no longer being protected and told the maker this. He used a preservative which blended in perfectly with the rest of the wood. This raises a suspicion that untreated timber was used and then painted with the varnish afterwards.

    Any opinions on this?


Comments

  • #2
    Mellor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 39,900 ✭✭✭✭Mellor


    Yorky wrote:
    At the time I was concerned about exposed areas of the wood where cuts had been made no longer being protected and told the maker this. He used a preservative which blended in perfectly with the rest of the wood. This raises a suspicion that untreated timber was used and then painted with the varnish afterwards.

    Any opinions on this?

    If the wood was fully pressure treated then the preservative will have passed right into the centre of the piece, this may be giving the effect of it being "blended in perfectly with the rest of the wood". But infact its just that the wood is uniformly treated/coloured(if any).

    As for shrinkage with pressure treated timber, I'm not sure. To be honest, it shouldn't shrink treated or not. Any external timber work i have has never shrunk, and it was all only ever surface treated.


  • #3
    Sonnenblumen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,834 ✭✭✭Sonnenblumen


    PT timber will respond like all other timbers to temperature fluctuations and will shrink, split, expand, crack etc. This is perfectly normal. The PT is a preservative and is not undermined by any natural movements.

    However, if you cut PT timber you must treat the exposed area.

    PT colour also changes with age


  • #4
    rooferPete
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,497 ✭✭✭rooferPete


    Hi,

    I have to agree with Sonnenblumen, summer only really started in the last few weeks which would mean the timber has had about four months of damp weather.

    Some pressure treated timber is used almost immediatley which would mean the moisture level may have been higher than when kiln dried.

    Now the joints are opened a little it might be a good chance to use Protim or similar to treat the end cuts.

    .


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