preservative treatment

[stilhusk]

Anyone know of a good, cheap, easy way to treat timber to prevent rot and/or insect attack? Nothing worst than going to all that effort and then have it rot or get eaten!

 

[woodshop]

Anyone know of a good, cheap, easy way to treat timber to prevent rot and/or insect attack? Nothing worst than going to all that effort and then have it rot or get eaten!

Kiln drying at a high enough temperature will kill the bugs/eggs that are already there or came into your wood, but lacking that if it's stickered and drying or even when it's relatively dry and dead stacked somewhere... answer is no, there is not a cheap... easy way to keep the bugs out. Expensive difficult ways... sure, gas, chemicals, keep your wood in a sealed bug free environment. Got a hermetically sealed warehouse?

Not trying to be a smart a$$... just being realistic. Bugs have been eating wood for eons. Best way is to keep the wood away from bugs as best you can once it's dry and stacked/ stored somewhere. That's difficult to do if you have thousands of bd ft as I do at this point, and don't have a big warehouse. Keeping the wood dry does a pretty good job of keeping most of the rot away, but I am always checking my piles for signs of carpenter ants, or powder post beetles.

 

[Backwoods]

I echo what wood shop said.
I milled some Myrtlewood over the weekend and today the powder post beetles were standing on there heads trying to boar into it. Pesticides help, but kiln drying is the cure for them.
Last week I had an order for some Oak beams that are to be used outside. I saturated them with old diesel twice a day for a total of about a dozen times until they would not absorb any more. How well that will work is still to be seen. I done that with the deck boards for a tree trimmers chip truck 8 years ago and it is still sound, but that was under cover.