My bad call on a pressure-treated lumber order cost me a full day's work

I ordered a load of 6x6 posts from a new supplier in Tacoma last month, thinking I was getting a deal. The wood was green, I mean really wet, and it twisted so bad after a week I had to pull and replace eight of them. That mistake set me back about $400 in materials and a whole Saturday. Anyone else run into this with green pressure-treated stock, or do you have a supplier you trust to deliver dry wood?

2 comments

2 Comments

terry_mitchell2d agoMost Upvoted

Man that's a rough one, sorry to hear it. Actually pressure treated wood is almost always wet when you get it, that's just how the treatment process works. The real trick is to let it dry out for a few weeks before you use it, otherwise it'll move on you every time. Do you have space to stack and sticker a load to let it air out first?

wadepalmer2d ago

Ugh, that's so true and it applies to way more than just lumber. We live in a world of instant results now. People buy a green board and want a perfect deck the next day, or plant a tree and get mad it doesn't look full in a week. Everything needs time to settle. Paint needs to cure, concrete needs to harden, new grass needs to root. Rushing the process just guarantees a bad result later. Letting things dry out or set up properly is the boring, invisible step nobody wants to do.