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Storing Pressure treated Post
Paladin, what are you gonna do in 15 years when your posts have rotted at the ground level? That concrete you poured into the ground is gonna be a real pain in the butt to deal with. When I started putting up fencing for my horses a few years back, I cemented every 4th post with concrete like you did only to find out that the posts will rot in time anyway and instead of simply being able to pull them out of the ground, I'd have to deal with 100lb of concrete in the ground. Not my problem now, since I'm selling the farm 
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Storing Pressure treated Post
DenisS,
A lot of people were not aware there is different grades of treatment. Not sure about now but a few years ago there was treated lumber for above grade or ground use and then treated lumber that cost more for in ground use. At least in my part of the world we had both. Put the above ground in wet ground and it did just like you said.
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Storing Pressure treated Post
We put up a LOT of wood every year, fences, decks, washroom buildings, etc., some treated, some rot resistant, some just plain old white wood.
We have noticed over the years that much of the hype about treated wood is just that, hype. We've had treated wood, nearly side by side with untreated wood, and they both rotted just as fast.
The problem seems to be two-fold, first is the wood itself and the treatment process, since the wood to be treated is usually very fresh stuff, it is still relatively very wet, so it absorbs very little preservative. Secondly, the treatment itself is only as good as how well the integrity of the barrier is maintained. Cut it, drill it, stick a nail or screw into it and you have an opening.
The last little while we have been using plain kiln-dried SPF lumber, and rough-sawn ungraded lumber, and then spraying them with a variety of products on-site. The first projects we tried this with are now about 10 years old and still show no signs of deterioration.
Best of luck.
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Storing Pressure treated Post
KT and Murf you're both right: some treatments help better than others, although most wood will rot away sooner or later (probably sooner). EXCEPT good ol' creosote treated telephone poles or old railroad tracks that have soaked up all that grease leaking from the trains. Those stay in the ground 30 years +. What I don't know, is how good is it to have this stuff around your livestock.
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Storing Pressure treated Post
So the question is: When installing a outside structure do you now just go ahead and use untreated wood (assuming you were going to use SYP). I dont think I could bring myself to use untreated wood on a new deck for example.
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Storing Pressure treated Post
Excellent question Ann! Most of the rot occurs when the wood is in contace with the moisture. So for a deck, you would want to pour your footings so they stick out of the ground at least a foot, then mount the frame on the footings - this way you avoid most of the damage. Then it's an easy job to apply water repellent / UV-blocker to your wood (wether treater or untreated) every couple of years - which is what I do. Having an actual roof over your porch or deck helps, too. That's why so many of those covered bridges in New England lasted so long.
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Storing Pressure treated Post
Denis: Easy answer - not gonna be here in 10 years. By then I will be retired to the farm where the Kubota lives and the dogs will run free. This house will be somebody else's worry. By then, the galvanized brackets on the fence will have rotted out, too.
Currently every body is going enviro-friendly with their fencing and here are my thoughts:
1. Untreated pine is a non-starter. Around here it picks up carpenter ants within 2-3 years. We have wet, heavy clay soil which they love. They eat pine in wet soil like Doritos with beer.
2. I could go with locust or cedar and depending on the natural rot resistance of the wood this is the most "eco" way to go. I had a cedar fence and I got about 12-15 years out of it.
3. I went with treated, which is going to be maybe a little bit better than cedar.
4. Creosote is the perfect material but is on a lot of enviro-freak hit lists. I know something about creosote because I worked on a railroad track gang summers during college. Railroads figure on a 35 year life, minimum, for ties. However, we pulled out ties that had lasted 75+ years judging from the markings. You can't buy creosote treated 4X4's at Home Depot because the stuff is considered carcinogenic.
5. Within a couple of years you are going to see 4X4's made from recycled plastic. When in upstate NY near the border I picked up a brochure from a Canadian company in Toronto selling black 4X4 fence posts from waste plastic. If this fence was going to be "forever" I probably would have tried to find a distributor here in PA.
Just my thoughts. At age 59 the fence will probably outlive me anyway.
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Everyone has anecdotal evidence for all sorts of things, I prefer to use hard data. Here is a paper with data showing lifespans of timber treated with various preservatives, while the objective of the research was somewhat different to our discussion, the lifespans of untreated timber are obviously relevant. While individual experiences vary common sense suggests that treated timbers will generally outlast those untreated.
Link:
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Storing Pressure treated Post
Ann, the simple answer is, we use regular old white pine, spruce or hemlock with no problems at all.
You DO however have to keep in mind, as Denis stated, that (any INMHO) wood in direct contact with earth is a no-no.
Further, as Paladin mentions, there is also the concern of insects, but again, IMHO the same applies to any wood.
My barn for instance, is clad in untreated white pine, it is now well over 100 years old and is not showing any signs of deterioration.
Unfortunately little we build is in a laboratory, in the real world we have to cut wood to size, and drill, nail & screw into it. Once you perforate the treated portion of the wood, it just plain old wood showing.
I know they sell end-cut preservative, but how exactly do you inject it into a nail or screw hole?
I have seen many, many preserved (with various things) wood structures rotted away to nothing in relatively short time spans.
Best of luck.
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Murf, would you use untreated wood to build an exterior deck or fence with timbers exposed to the ground / elements(this is a genuine uestion - I am not trying to be smart here)?
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