Home Improvement

My neighbor got em. This is a live video of the meth heads trying to get them to sell for scrap.

I was just looking at an investment property in a local touristy town that had copper gutters and down spouts. It's certainly got curb appeal on the right house but it is definitely frivolous.

Khane said:

I was just looking at an investment property in a local touristy town that had copper gutters and down spouts. It's certainly got curb appeal on the right house but it is definitely frivolous.

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I'm debating getting copper/metal gutters and downspouts on my house. My house is a darker green. Figured it would look pretty sweet with a darker bronze color.

Of course you are

Of course

It's like my point was made and I didn't even have to explain it

Vinen said:

First floor sans Foyer and Kitchen.
First room is in-laws bedroom. We converted the formal dining room on the first floor into a bedroom.

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Meant to comment on this. LOVE your home man.

So My deck, fence and smaller deck from house got finished. It's not perfect, but for the price (6k total) I'm not complaining. I can't do the grass until the weather cools down a bit, so my yard still looks meh.

I'm also told to wait a year to stain? Why is that?

Looks like a nice deck.

The color will be better if you let it weather a little before staining it. That's all I can think of. The boards will dry out a little, but it shouldn't be so much as to make a structural difference either way. It'll give it time to even up. If you stain it tomorrow you'll have some areas darker than the others.

A year does seem excessive. A few months should be plenty.

But I'm not a professional carpenter either.

Every time I've asked that question all I've been told is you need to let the wood season for a year or it won't accept the sealant properly. I don't know why that is but I can't see a reason anyone would lie about it.

All I get is "Because it's pressure treated lumber" and that sounds like a buzzword to me until someone explains it otherwise

I've never actually heard that about staining, waiting a year that is. Only about sealant. I guess most exterior stains have sealant in them though.

Brahma said:

I'm also told to wait a year to stain? Why is that?

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Noodleface said:

All I get is "Because it's pressure treated lumber" and that sounds like a buzzword to me until someone explains it otherwise

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Pressure treated lumber has a great deal of water forced into it along with the treating chemicals. (That's why it's heavy.) Straight from the lumber yard, pressure treated wood will have up to 75% moisture content. Lumber that has been stably air dried will be 10-15% or something, depending on your climate. It takes months and months for the water to evaporate its way out of the wood. (Furniture makers will let sawn green lumber, which is typically +/- 50% moisture, dry before working it for six months to 10 years depending on the species and how big the piece is.)

Staining wood with that much moisture doesn't work well. There's no space in the grain to soak up the stain, so it just sits on the surface instead of penetrating the wood. The stain may be ejected entirely as the water exits, leaving you with a gummy deck that leaves stain on anything that touches it. You can do the job now, but it will mostly be a waste of time and stain.

Captain Suave said:

Pressure treated lumber has a great deal of water forced into it along with the treating chemicals. (That's why it's heavy.) Straight from the lumber yard, pressure treated wood will have up to 75% moisture content. Lumber that has been stably air dried will be 10-15% or something, depending on your climate. It takes months and months for the water to evaporate its way out of the wood. (Furniture makers will let sawn green lumber, which is typically +/- 50% moisture, dry before working it for six months to 10 years depending on the species and how big the piece is.)

Staining wood with that much moisture doesn't work well. There's no space in the grain to soak up the stain, so it just sits on the surface instead of penetrating the wood. The stain may be ejected entirely as the water exits, leaving you with a gummy deck that leaves stain on anything that touches it. You can do the job now, but it will mostly be a waste of time and stain.

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You should check the lumber supplier's guidelines. Newer pressure treatments allow for staining within a month or two.
(I'm assuming they used treated lumber for everything - not just the framing/structural parts)


We generally source our treated lumber through YellaWood, as an example:
Sealing, Painting & Staining Pressure Treated Wood

Brahma said:

Meant to comment on this. LOVE your home man.

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Check out my Kitchen. Most of the framing is temporary while the beams are reinforced.

Shiftyx said:

We generally source our treated lumber through YellaWood, as an example:
Sealing, Painting & Staining Pressure Treated Wood

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Yeah. From that page it seems they kiln dry some of their product, which would obviously shorten the time greatly.

So admittedly I'm not in construction. So maybe I'm off base here. But this is how the shed was left yesterday as it started to rain. Also rained all day today.

My thought is this isn't good. Now you may be saying "put a tarp on it idiot" but no. The contractor left it like this, knowing it was raining.

I'm pretty heated over it all. But how bad is this? Is it normal to frame a shed and just leave it open?

I realize my shed is shitty compared to the neighbors.