Painted deck

[Shawn Siegrist]

I'm making repairs to my parents deck, it was painted by the previous owner. For the railing should we use pressure treated lumber or pine 2x's?

Thanks,
Shawn

[Sam Murdoch]

In this part of the country - Maine - 2 x stock is typically spruce - kind of knotty and needs to be selected for straight. Still the spruce is much better lumber and lot less splintery than what we can get for PT. My attitude is that unless your structure is close to the ground PT is a bad choice. Spruce or pine 2x stock , properly primed and painted, or properly stained, is a much friendlier and structural railing than PT could ever be.

[frank shic]

PT definitely looks funny with all those little cuts etched into it's surface.