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How long to let pressure treated wood to dry??

16K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  savage71chevelless 
#1 ·
How long do you need to let pressure treated wood dry before painting? This is fresh treated wood, there is a wet spot everywhere I put a screw in it. I need to paint this before winter. How long to wait before painting??
Ron
 
#5 ·
#4 ·
I used latex based solid color stain on all the pressure treated wood on my 12'x30' screened-in porch. Applied about one week after the build was completed but before the screens were installed using an airless sprayer.
Never peeled and it's been 13+ years.
 
#7 ·
INever peeled and it's been 13+ years.
Bill: You must have gotten lucky. Maybe your particular lumber had been aged and kept dry. I doubt that but it's possible. I installed several wolmanized fence posts seveal years ago and painted them the next day as I had to reinstall the fence and just wasn't going to be convenient to come back to paint after allowing the wood to dry. I'm sure in your case you neded to get your screen up. If there is moisture leeching from the wood when fastners are driven then the wood is way too wet. Even if you could get the paint to stick the migrating moisture would just blow the paint right off.
 
#6 ·
Ron
I painted my new deck last fall as Home Depot advised .This spring it started washing off during heavy rains. I went back to Home Depot and they told me it should have dried for a year first .Now my deck looks like its got the mange. They say to pressure wash it off as best I can and do it again after it dries.
 
#8 ·
We pressure wash this screen porch every spring after the pollen season using deck wash...still looks new.
Like I mentioned, I used a solid color (white) stain...not paint...and no primer.
IIRC, it was Behr (Home Depot brand). I remember using a lot of it...probably 25-30 gallons to cover the three walls 4x4 framing and the ceiling which is T-111.
This project was built over the course of 3-4 weekends and it was done in the Fall. In fact, looking back, it's probably been 15+ years. My son was in Army Basic training at the time.

EDIT...found a picture I posted recently about tree removal...

 
#9 ·
More than likely your treated lumber had been sitting for a while and ad dried out enough to hold the stain or paint!
I used to pick up the treated lumber for Arrow Lumber from the mill! They just run like crazy during the season and don't rotate the inventory!
When season starts the water literally would run out of the treated lumber I picked up and it was heavy as heck! By the end of the season when inventory was runing down it was only about half the weight and rather dry!
Now too I will say some of the first I picked up in the spring before production took off it was dry too having sat all fall and winter! Acyually because it was from the bottom of the stacks most of the year before!
We had contractors that would specify that they didn't want the treated lumber if it was real wet!
 
#10 ·
I really don’t like working with treated lumber, but is code for most outdoor or in contact with concrete applications. One more note: Assemble everything wet and screwing/bolting it together is better than nailing. Problem with letting it dry out before cutting / assembling is that; as it dries the lumber will end up twisting, crowning and cupping and will be more of a challenge to work with.
 
#11 ·
PT wood and paint do not go together! Use a solid color latex stain (Behr or Cabot are good brands) and don't stain it until the wood surface is dry. Paint will form a coat over the moisture and never stick properly.
Years ago the wood was kiln dried, PT'd, and kiln dried again. That wood would hold paint. Now the wood is kiln dried, PT'd and the only drying is on the truck ride to the lumberyard.
 
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