That depends on what kdat is. J.

I'm sorry, I thought it was a common term. Here's the blurb from our landscaper who is building the deck (we've used him on many projects and known him for 10 years, so he's very reliable -- building permits and an engineer to specify the supports since the area is large). He has a painter to recommend, but we'd like to DIY the stain.

Kiln dried after treating (KDAT) Pressure Treated Limber with pressure treated rails and pickets. The KDAT lumber allows the wood to be routed sanded and stained or painted immediately after the deck is built. It also results in little to no shrinkage of the wood which is a problem with standard pressure treated lumber.

BTW, our landscaper advised against Trex as he said our chaise lounges would scratch it up. He advised against IPE as it would get too hot for bare feet. He advised against PT yellow pine for all the usual reasons. He says KDAT is the best for our situation. He is going to use aluminum pickets in bronze instead of wood pickets, so we'll have to hand stain the railings instead of spraying. (We have a bronze Jerith fence that he installed 2 years ago so we're keeping that look with the pickets).

Thanks!

Just because your treated yellow pine is kiln dried after treatment doesn't mean it won't do all the things yellow pine does, maybe just not as bad. I hate to disagree with your landscaper since you have so much faith in him, but I don't think any PT is a good choice for a pool deck. It will get hot just like any other wood decking does.

I'd use TWP rustic for your PT deck, it covers that green color pretty well & will match fairly well with the bronze balusters.

Al

John Agrees with the Al,the second stage kd will do nothing to change the nature of yellow pine. That blog thing is completly stupid x 10000 with the little or no shrinkage thing ghessssssss thats total out of line with the real world. J.

I respectfully disagree about the KDAT. I built a deck using SYP KDAT five years ago here in central Wisconsin and the the deck boards have either held their size or swollen slightly near the ends. We used Cabot semi-solid stain and are satisfied with the project all around.

Much of the pressure treated wood from home improvement stores can be wet, sometimes so wet the stuff drips out of boards. That causes huge problems when used wet as each board can warp/wane/split/bow/etc.

What kiln drying does is eliminate the excess wetness---it does nothing else. It does reduce all of those possible effects of wet PT wood drying and changing size/shape.

The best stain depends on the kind of treatment used. Find out what treatment was used, go to a real paint store(not a HI/hardware/variety store) and ask which type stain they recommend. The stain also needs specific finish types as well.

As for color, the wood treatment usually adds color to the wood(yellow/greenish/blue/etc.) which also affects the final color after staining. The same stain on untreated wood of the same species will look very different than that stain on treated wood.

Dyhgarden, this thread is 10 years old but I see that you are still very active here on Houzz. So can you tell us how your deck is holding up? Did the KDAT crack as much as regular PT? What products did you use to stain?

I sold that house three years ago, sorry.

Not to pester you and I am not sure why a 10 year old thread came back alive, but before you moved how did you like the deck after four or five years? To me, no deck is impervious to the elements including composite.