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Just overheard a guy at Home Depot say he skipped pressure treating on his deck build
Some dude in the lumber aisle was telling his buddy he saved $200 by using regular pine for his deck framing because it's 'dry enough here in Arizona.' Honestly I wanted to grab him by the shoulder and explain how that stuff rots in like 3 years even in the desert. I didn't say anything though, felt like it wasn't my place. Has anyone else run into folks cutting corners on treated lumber for outdoor projects?
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sethm584mo ago
You ever had to bite your tongue that hard? I actually did chime in once when my neighbor was about to build a pergola with untreated wood. I just said "hey man, I did that exact thing and ended up ripping it out two years later when it started looking like a sponge." Showed him the pictures on my phone of the rot and the carpenter ants that moved in. He ended up going with treated stuff. Felt awkward for like 30 seconds but now his pergola's still standing five years later, so worth it.
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garcia.wren4mo ago
Untreated pine near Phoenix? @adam186 is right, that's gonna be a mess. That $200 savings gets eaten up in year two when the dry rot sets in from the morning dew alone. I've seen that same trick backfire on two different patios out here.
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adam1864mo ago
Three years is honestly generous for raw pine on a deck, even in bone dry Arizona. I've seen untreated framing rot out in two summers just from the morning dew and monsoon humidity alone. The bigger issue nobody talks about is that Home Depot's "regular pine" is often still wet from the mill, so it shrinks and warps way worse than treated stuff too. That $200 he saved is gonna cost him way more when he has to tear out that whole deck frame and rebuild it with actual PT lumber in a couple years.
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