[Greenbuilding] Alternatives to Pressure Treated Wood

Keith Winston keith at earthsunenergy.com
Tue Oct 9 00:15:05 EDT 2007 

Dan, I think me and everyone else are stalling because there aren't very 
good options ;-)

Yes, you're right sleepers are used all the time. Plastic lumber 
typically has very poor strength, so while it might be used for a 
sleeper design (as long as it's "full contact"), I'm not sure I'd trust 
it structurally, from what I've seen. I sort of like the concrete pier 
ideas, except that everything has to be quite high to make space for 
full-fledged structural lumber in that case. If you're using sleepers, 
you should probably try to align them with the underlying framing 
(unless they are across it), since if you've got 1/2" plywood sheathing, 
it might not support the weight of your deck happily between rafters.

There is some borate & polymer treated wood that I've heard about but 
haven't seen. It can be found here:

http://www.eswoodtreatment.com/

Probably won't be too easy to get locally.
 
There is cedar or redwood or ironwood/Ipe or whatever else you might 
find, none of which (well, maybe Ipe) could be considered sustainable 
(the Ipe distributors say it's grown sustainably, rainforest activists 
typically say there's no such thing as a sustainably grown rainforest 
tree, last I heard...). Ipe is extremely hard, has to be drilled to be 
nailed or screwed, and would be sort of painful to use. Oh, and it's not 
available in 2x lumber I don't think. Although it's extraordinarily strong.

There's another option on the books for pressure treated wood, 
acetylated wood. I believe it is only currently available in Europe. Go 
on vacation and bring some home! Take a freighter and it might not be 
too ungreen! You can find out more here:

http://www.titanwood.com/

I've heard of a possible silicone treatment of some type for 
direct-contact wood, but I haven't seen anything develop for the last 
couple years.

Good luck. Keith


dantonioli at earthlink.net wrote:
> Hi Keith,
>
> People keep wanting information about the design, which is understandable
> but which distracts from the question. The only real alternative here that
> I'm familiar with is to use redwood or other rot resitant woods. Sleepers
> tapering down to zero are used all the time quite successfully....it's only
> one end of a tapered piece. 
>
> A typical "floating deck" on a roof has to account for slope. Even "flat"
> roofs are sloped. The point is to make a level deck. If you have plenty of
> room to work with, then you can cut 4x4 or 6x6 posts and create a shoulder
> to fit under sections of girders, underneath a typical framed 2x6 joist
> package. The posts sit on additional roofing material and there are no
> penetrations. I've built several and they're holding up just fine after a
> number of years, but I'm sick and tired of using pressure treated wood in
> this way....all the extra ripping and treating with copper green is
> non-green and toxic to work with. I'm old enough to remember when all we
> used in California was redwood....but it's limited, politically incorrect,
> and third-growth material rots out after five years or so....it just doesn't
> hold up like old growth. 
>
> The only pitch for plastic lumber is coming from people who have no
> experience working with it!
>
> Dan
>
>
>  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Winston [mailto:keith at earthsunenergy.com] 
> Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 3:10 PM
> To: dantonioli at earthlink.net
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Alternatives to Pressure Treated Wood
>
> Is the corner drain under the new deck (when built)? If I understand your
> context, sounds tailor made for drain clogs. What type of roof? 
> EPDM maybe? Wood won't be strong when ripped down to nothing, like
> everything else. You can hold the deck back from the edges, or, raise it a
> bit, as others have suggested, and use larger framing material. Sounds like
> a large deck, 20' x 40'? Or maybe I'm misinterpreting.
>
> Keith
>
>
> dantonioli at earthlink.net wrote:
>   
>> The roof deck is sloped from three directions down to a corner drain. 
>> The difference in elevation is approximately a foot, spanning a 
>> distance of twenty feet. You need a sturdy frame of joists to support 
>> an elevated deck, but as I mentioned in many areas the clearance is 
>> minimal and, thus, the need for sleepers.
>>
>> I've yet to see plastic lumber that can be ripped from, say, zero to 
>> three-and-a-half inches and hold its structural integrity, let alone 
>> be attached to a frame to create a rigid platform. But maybe there's a 
>> product that someone on the list has actually used in this capacity. 
>> Always checking the possibilities.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>  
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
>> [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Speireag 
>> Alden
>> Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 9:00 AM
>> To: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
>> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Alternatives to Pressure Treated Wood
>>
>> Sgrìobh <dantonioli at earthlink.net>:
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> I'm considering a roofdeck project where I'll have to use a lot of 
>>> pressure treated wood as "sleepers." The surface is uneven and 
>>> there's only a few inches of clearance between the bottom of the deck 
>>> boards and the roofdeck....which means a lot of long rips through 
>>> pressure treated wood, and a lot of copper green over all of the 
>>> exposed untreated surfaces. The last time I built a deck this way I 
>>> told myself that I wouldn't do it again because working with PT this 
>>> way is unhealthy--there's a ton of pt dust, too much copper green, 
>>> and I can feel the physical effects and it sucks. I'm most likely 
>>> going to turn the
>>>     
>>>       
>> job down but thought I'd look into options.
>>   
>>     
>>> The question is: is there a rot resitant, structurally sound material 
>>> that can be cut and tapered? FSC wood? Exciting new composition lumber?
>>>     
>>>       
>>      There are structural plastic lumbers out there.  You should be 
>> able to find them via Google.
>>
>>      However, I'm confused about why you need them.  If the clearance 
>> is that small, I'm picturing a flat roof.  Why not use decking as 
>> sleepers, with shims to even things out?  Then you wouldn't have to 
>> cut anything at all, except for length.
>>
>>      What am I missing?
>>
>> -Speireag.
>>
>> --
>> Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the 
>> injury that provokes it.
>> --Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)
>>
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