Is this the last round of chemical changes for pressure-treated decking?

 Isn’t it quite typical when the building manufactures try to re-invent the wheel, when comes to building materials. How often a solid well-received and proven product is replaced by a so-called “improved” version, that turns out to have unanticipated flaws. I’ll give you a fine example, for more than 60 years, pressure-treated decking and wood was infused using a chemical called chromated copper arsenate or (CCA) for short.

This involves the process of soaking the pressure-treated wood in CCA, thus causing the wood to be long-lasting in outdoor elements. This gave the wood the ability to fight off rot and termites for years, even when buried underground. However, CCA had a major flaw.

Concerned consumers and health officials began questioning the health risks involved with using such products that contained CCA in their treated lumber.  So, the manufactures stopped using CCA back in December of 03 and started using wood preservers that are less toxic, safer, such as copper azole and alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ).

All was fine for a few years until deck builders noticed that the copper in the new treated lumber was extremely corrosive to fasteners and hardware, especially galvanized-metal nails, screws, bolts, joist hangers, and aluminum flashing. It was back to the drawing board for wood preservers.

leading manufacturers of wood preservatives, recently introduced a new carbon-based, non-metallic preservative that’s has no corrosive affect on metal fasteners or flashing. It’s available in most local home centers. Interestingly this new non-metallic preservative doesn’t color the wood, so that lovely green tint we’ve all come to associate with pressure-treated wood doesn’t apply here.

If you like this article, feel free to leave a comment, and if you live in Massachusetts and in need of a new deck, you can receive an online quote right away by clicking on the highlighted link below.

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