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Thread: Drying Lumber Neander Deck Question, & Panhandle Life

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Drying Lumber Neander Deck Question, & Panhandle Life

    I am working on our deck, replacing decking lumber, using 5/4 treated SYP, and some of was is sopping wet yesterday although the stamp says "KD." The standards for kiln dried lumber sure don't mean much. I had no choice, either buy it or go without. The actual thickness is 1", thickness doesn't mean much either.

    To minimize splitting I doped the ends with poly U based spar varnish. I cut them to fit, yesterday then at the end of the day doped them, the ends seemed dry enough that the poly U penetrated into the end grain. There was a heavy dew last night, but just now the lumber feels dry. It was a sunny warm very dry windy day today. I think the lumber will be dry enough to paint in a couple of weeks, maybe a month, despite the rule of thumb, 1 year of drying time per inch of thickness....

    What do you think, is a couple of weeks or a month long enough in our dry warm windy area? I treated a couple of cuts offs, and may take them to work and run a moisture in 2 weeks, then 4 weeks.

    With regards to Neander, I am using just hand saws, no power except for a drill to put in screws. I can't imagine using my circular saw, the sharp handsaw is too handy, and is easier to cut dead on the line with.

    With regards to life in the Texas panhandle, I saw a tarantula in the neighbors yard a few days ago, with legs maybe 4 or 5 inches in diameter, body maybe 2" long and 1/2" diameter. The males migrate this time of year looking for females, I watched him for a minute or so and didn't bother him. About two weeks ago I killed a scorpion in the bathroom sink, and on Thursday a driver ran over a 41" western diamondback about 2' from our curb. (It's skin is now on a couple of planks on our porch on my Sunday go to meeting saw horses. I am going to start curing it this evening, I fleshed it just a bit ago, and hopefully it will turn out to be a hat band.

    The critters are not every day events, in fact pretty rare. We have only had 4 rattlers killed in our yard or within a couple of feet of our yard in 28 years. The other critters are about that rare too. My wife did kill a pretty good sized centipede in the kitchen sink this year too, the body about as big around as a pencil. She ran hot water till it expired. We live right on the edge of town, next to a vacant lot, catty corner from a pasture. Still, it happens once in a while that you have unwelcome guest critters, I have caught a few coach whip snakes in our yard and the neighbors too. I take them to the pasture to let them go.....nasty critters, coach whip snakes.

    Any advise on the drying will be much appreciated.

    Thanks and regards,

    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 09-30-2018 at 9:14 PM.

  2. #2
    Hi Stew,
    Is there a pressing reason to paint it now, other than just to get it done with? If not, I'd be inclined to let it dry out for a while just to be "safe".

    Man, the critters in your neck of the woods sure don't sound like much fun. A scorpion in the bathroom? Yow! Glad you didn't step on that in the middle of the night!

    Stay safe!
    Fred
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  3. #3
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    Fred, I just edited the note, the scorpion was in the sink and couldn't get out, I added that, and hadn't put it in at first. I have killed a few on the floor though. I'm not very fond of scorpions.....the only good one is a dead one, at least in our yard or house. They aren't very big, and the ones around here that we see most often are about like an ant sting if they sting you, at least so I am told.

    The tarantulas are pretty mild. A co-worker and I caught one in our garage many years ago. (My wife was not happy, she put a big box over it until we got there after work to catch it.....she wanted nothing to do with it but the kids wanted to see it...from a distance.) We put it in an empty constant temperature bath tank at work, kind of like a round fish tank. We let it crawl on our hands a little. I got about a foot from the one in the neighbors yard.

    The rattlers are a different matter, they have no place in town....they can be really bad news. We have prairie rattlers and western diamondback rattle snakes. The western diamondbacks can get really large. The 41" one isn't a very big one.

    I am thinking about waiting a month to paint if the weather holds. I just want to get it done.

    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 10-01-2018 at 12:05 AM.

  4. #4
    I don't think I want to know how much venom a big rattler like that might inject in one bite. Sounds darned dangerous Stew.
    Fred
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  5. #5
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    Very soon after moving into our house a scorpion walked by me while I was sitting on the potty late one night. Talk about a surprise. Fortunately we’ve only had one since. Had a lot more when I was at Fort Hood.

    I mistakenly assumed lumber would dry quickly here on the shelf at the store. Last 1x6 I bought Pringled almost as soon as I cut it.

  6. #6
    Stew,

    Life in the desert can be interesting with plenty of critters to entertain. Spring is our rattler season when the young ones come out of their gully dens and into our back garden. Scorpions in the house are not too unusual but luckily most of the time dead. Big black or brown tarantulas seem to find a way into the house a couple or three times a year, I haven't a clue how because they are big suckers but they do. Then there are the coyotes barking and singing most nights, deer traversing the gully, bobcats bounding over the pool wall to catch dove or quail feeding at our feeders, the Harris hawks also think of our bird feeders as a breakfast buffet and of course the hooligans of the desert, the javelinas turning over the trash cans. Add in the pack rats and their "art installations of dog turds, rocks and anything else that catches their fancy" and there is seldom a dull day in the Old Pueblo.

    ken

  7. #7
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    Stew, I just rebuilt my outdoor deck with pressure treated syp. In my area of the country, New England, we wait 1 year before applying any finish to pressure treated lumber.

  8. #8
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    Ken,

    I was hoping you and Tony would chime in. You from Arizona and Tony from West Texas. I was thinking you might have the same thoughts, I have heard everything in the desert is either poisonous or has thorns. As a young kid my family lived in Arizona for a couple of years.

    The plant I work at is about a mile out of town and the plant is between the Canadian river breaks and a small creek canyon. I believe that in one of them, they are both very rough rocky areas, that there is at least one rattle snake wintering den, because some years they kill a lot of rattlesnakes on the plant grounds, by far the most fairly newly hatched ones about a foot long, but some big ones. One year they killed nearly 200, if I remember correctly. They brought a couple past the lab a few years ago just to show off, ones they had killed while a couple of guys were setting on big rocks down by the creek eating dinner, it was a really nice day to be outside, it was about 200 yards from our lab. One was about a 3' prairie rattler and the other about a 5' diamond back.

    They also have seen a couple of mountain lions on the plant grounds at night. The operators were feeding the deer. I told the safety guys before they saw the lions, that feeding the deer would keep them around the plant, and potentially draw predators. After they saw the lions they brought in a state trapper, he did not catch the lions but told the safety guys that they absolutely must put a stop to feeding the deer.

    I still have no idea how long to wait before I can paint the deck lumber. It is outside on the deck, and it is so dry here that things dry very quickly here. Back in the day when women used clothes lines to dry clothes I have been told that for things like light cotton shirts that they could hang up the clothes and by the time they had the last thing hung on the line that the light shirts on the other end were already dry. I have seen that kind of thing here.


    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 10-01-2018 at 10:40 PM.

  9. #9
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    Stew, the scorpions own the whole hill country where I live and are of no real cause for much comment by anyone other than the computer Yankees/Left Coasters that are recent arrivals to (usually) north Austin. I did grow up on the Texas border where the black tarantulas were everywhere and enjoyable entertainment for outdoor-minded boys that ran the wilds until corralled in by parents. I was astounded years later, after moving north to the "big city", to find that tarantulas were considered as a deadly poisonous species. Must be those Hollywood versions because the South Texas versions didn't kill anyone. Rattlesnakes, unfortunately, were a very invasive form of life on the border and always to be respected to the max. What I have seen here in my plot of Central Texas, is the gradual return of the roadrunners, and, it gives me hope that we may all be able to enjoy the return of the horny toads. Oh, do let the deck boards dry out before painting.
    David

  10. #10
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    David,

    I too enjoy seeing the tarantulas, ours are also black but have a dark gray abdomen, folks mostly see them crossing the highways while driving in the fall. Some years there are more than others. This is the first time I have seen one close to the yard, other than the one my friend and I caught in my garage. My retired former boss lives right on the edge of a canyon, and kills a lot of scorpions in his yard. He was the one that said the sting from one wasn't too bad.

    Are the scorpions in your neck of the woods the big brown ones?

    We don't see roadrunners very often, but it is a treat when we do get to see one. Last year was a very good year, because one nested in the cedar hedge row across the street at the neighbors. One time I got to watch it up close because it was on our front porch, no more than 8 to10 feet away at most. I was watching through the front window. A real treat because some years I never get to see even one. When it nested across the street you would see it carry small prey items across the road to the hedge row.

    Regards,

    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 10-01-2018 at 11:19 PM.

  11. #11
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    Before they started building more houses behind us we used to hear coyotes in our yard at night. Have to say I saw a lot more scorpions and rattlesnakes when Lived on the other half of the state, plus coral snakes, copperheads, and water moccasins.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Stew Denton View Post
    Ken,

    I was hoping you and Tony would chime in. You from Arizona and Tony from West Texas. I was thinking you might have the same thoughts, I have heard everything in the desert is either poisonous or has thorns. As a young kid my family lived in Arizona for a couple of years.

    The plant I work at is about a mile out of town and the plant is between the Canadian river breaks and a small creek canyon. I believe that in one of them, they are both very rough rocky areas, that there is at least one rattle snake wintering den, because some years they kill a lot of rattlesnakes on the plant grounds, by far the most fairly newly hatched ones about a foot long, but some big ones. One year they killed nearly 200, if I remember correctly. They brought a couple past the lab a few years ago just to show off, ones they had killed while a couple of guys were setting on big rocks down by the creek eating dinner, it was a really nice day to be outside, it was about 200 yards from our lab. One was about a 3' prairie rattler and the other about a 5' diamond back.

    They also have seen a couple of mountain lions on the plant grounds at night. The operators were feeding the deer. I told the safety guys before they saw the lions, that feeding the deer would keep them around the plant, and potentially draw predators. After they saw the lions they brought in a state trapper, he did not catch the lions but told the safety guys that they absolutely must put a stop to feeding the deer.

    I still have no idea how long to wait before I can paint the deck lumber. It is outside on the deck, and it is so dry here that things dry very quickly here. Back in the day when women used clothes lines to dry clothes I have been told that for things like light cotton shirts that they could hang up the clothes and by the time they had the last thing hung on the line that the light shirts on the other end were already dry. I have seen that kind of thing here.


    Stew
    Stew,

    If the lumber has been on the deck for the last of Summer and it does not feel cool to the touch I would not worry about waiting to paint. BTW, my saying is "everything in the desert either bites, stings, or sticks".

    ken

  13. #13
    It all depends on the moisture content throughout the board, not just whether its wet or not. Construction lumber is kiln dried to around 15% but often left in the open or rain so the water is really surface water that will dry off.

    When I worked construction we just rolled with the wet lumber. Butt them together (no gaps) and when they shrink there will be a gap.

    But that's a poor method. If the deck is in full sun, you're in for some issues.

    The boss told us only use ring shank nails not screws because the nails will bend when the wood shrinks, screws will cause more cracks. Don't know if that's true.

  14. #14
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    My experience with pressure treated is this: get it installed ASAP. Waiting for it to dry is disaster (warping, bowing, twisting, cupping, etc). Painting _ maybe in a year although in Texas that might be 6 months.

  15. #15
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    Hi All,

    Shrinking underway as the lumber dries out!!

    I cut almost all of the decking boards on Saturday, well, maybe 2 or 3 Friday evening, that I had planned for the 1st quarter section. Between Saturday and today, Tuesday, an 86" section has shrunk 1&1/8 inches. This amounts to slightly over 14 boards wide with formerly 3/8" gap between them. The average gap has now expanded to roughly 7/16" as best as I could calculate, and that is in 3 days. I went to start attaching them to the deck this evening, put the spacers back in between the boards that I had used on Saturday to get the end flush, and by the time I had put all the spacers in, but not put the screws in, the gap at the end had gone from virtually flush to 1&1/8th inch.

    I calculated the new gap I would have and came up with about 7/16" as opposed to 3/8" on Saturday.

    Hoadley's book on Wood technology shows Longleaf Pine, a SYP at 106% moisture for sap wood and 31% moisture for heart wood freshly cut. If dried completely tangential shrinkage is 7.5% and radial shrinkage is 5.1% for longleaf pine, which is again one of the SYP types, and is used for treated lumber, so I chose to use it for calculations. I decided to use an average of 6% for shrinkage average, simply because I did not want to carefully look at the growth rings on each board and get out my calculator, and get a better estimate, but figured it close enough to use for figuring shrinkage in my head. (The actual average is 6.3%, and there is more tangential than radial wood in my stock, so maybe I should use a bigger number, but this is rough calculation.)

    Shrinkage, according to one of the graphs in his book is linear with moisture loss. If the KD lumber is dried to say 20%, a conservative figure, then for sap wood this accounts for about 80% of the potential shrinkage, for heart wood this is about a third of the total possible shrinkage. So for sap wood, if you figure 6% for 86" (lets figure 90" for grins) you get a total possible shrinkage 5.4." However if it has been KD to 20% this is at total shrinkage remaining of roughy 1.08" if you dry it to dead dry.

    If you average the heart wood and sap wood moisture you get about 68%, and if you dry this to total dryness you again figure 5.4." If it is again KD to 20% moisture, this means you have roughly 1.5" of shrinkage remaining, again this is figuring in my head, after it is KD. (This is again a rough in the head figure, so some of you may want to use a calculator or Excel to get the exact number.)

    Of course in actual use you never get to 0% moisture remaining in the lumber.

    What I am thinking is that lot of drying of the wood has already taken place with the wood setting on the deck in he sun in the warm very dry Texas panhandle wind. It will again be interesting to see how shrinkage continues

    Well, right now I have to fix the plug on one of my extension cords if I am going to use it tomorrow.

    Interesting.

    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 10-02-2018 at 10:39 PM.

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