Tried setting a few decking boards in place with a 20 foot long lever, had to block the joist 8 feet to prevent them from twisting the joists and the decking is cracking, worst yet, they are bowed, the screws just drive right though before sucking em in, tried clamping and the decking boards are cracking, 50 percent of the boards are already splitting too and I never even touched em.

There are different grades of pressure treated lumber. Sounds like you got the lowest grade. Dry should not really be a problem in itself. Most pressure treated lumber is heavy and wet and causes problems after installation as it dries. Pressure treated decking is the cheapest option, but deteriorates quickly and is far more difficult to install, as you've discovered. The extra cost involved in using cedar or high quality composite decking is well worth it. The same is true for railings.

i certainly would return the lumber you have not used if that is an option.

Well you tell me, they apparently only sell one grade of this lumber which is supposed to be top of the line, my personal opinion is that they sent the factory defects of this stuff. By no means is it low grade lumber, even when shopping for the highest grade, If you don't pick it yourself you will get crap. Please elaborate???

Go down to your local lumber store, look for the best lumber, you will always find inferior lumber being sold along side of it, problem is, when one is getting lumber shipped, they can pawn off whatever they want.

Also you said dry shouldn't be a problem??? You have no idea and apparently never worked with lumber to this dryness, try working with normal construction grade lumber that's so friggin dry that you can't even shape it, 2x4s can be shaped at will even if bone dry but try 2 X 6 or 2 X 8s

If the lumber has dried with bends, twists, cupping, etc. in place, of course it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to straighten. Green lumber is much easier to "shape" if I'm understanding your use of that term correctly, but can and frequently does cause splitting, fastener loosening, twisting and other problems as it dries out after installation. Framing lumber of all types should be reasonably dry and reasonably straight. You should not have to rely on shaping on site to make it usable. If you were delivered a bunch of junk PT lumber, you're perfectly justified in returning it. It would also be helpful to have knowledge of PT lumber that goes beyond its color and includes the grading system that should be visible on each piece.

I hear you fastink. Every lumberyard I visit tries to give me the crappy old pieces. And I like to buy lumber at specialty yards. I now go and inspect each piece before I accept it. Pisses me off I have to do that. Send it back and go down and watch them load your lumber, if you can.

As everyone is telling you,send it back. Meanwhile a little primer on treated lumber. There are different grades but to stay competive retailers only carry the cheaper material. Call a lumber yard about ordering higher grade material. FYI,treated lumber commonly warps after it's installed and pull's nails out or breaks screws. For comparison,"Wolmanized" is a patented brand name that is secound to none. If it's Wolmanized,tags are attached or stamped on every piece.

You can buy better quality. It costs more. Most lumber yards reserve the bed for their best customers, which are contractors, not homeowners.

L W Oak,can you tell us exactly what you have witnessed that that causes you to say retailer hold back material for select customers? I don't witness retailers depriveing the average Joe of equal material. I'd feel safe in saying homeowners buy the majority of their home improvement material at big box places like Manards,Home Depot and Lowes. 100% of their materail is stacked out for anyone to take any time they like. The places builders order from don't have people to spend 15 minutes explaining the difference between White Pine,Yellow Pine and Fir but I certainly don't believe that is nessarly a bad thing.

This will solve your problem, but create another in your wallet.

Retailers do not "hold back" but they will cherry pick a less than bundle load for a favored volume buyer. That usually leaves a lot of cull quality for a homeowner order. On bundle purchases, they obviously can't cull, but by offering credit, and pickup for any culls for a large account, it can amount to the same thing. The less than optimal lumber again ends up being sold to those with less buying power.

Sounds like he definitely received the leftovers from the piles, no doubt. I get what LWO is saying as when I ran lumberyards the guys pulling the loads often left the crap or the culls in front of the piles. This generally sat there and one person usually ended up with most of it, lol (usually a homeowner or someone the load puller didn't like). I tried to always have the guys throw a couple of marginal pieces in the load if the quantity was there as something always needs to be cut up for blocking or such and the culls work well for that.

Culling by a builder may not happen at the lumberyard, but it can happen at the building site.

You order extra. Use the straightest as needed. Use the bowed ones as you can. The significantly twisted ones may be cut into shorter pieces up for blocking, effectively minimizing the twist. The nasty pretzels get sent back to the yard. The yard will often pick them up and bring them back to the yard for a credit/refund when they make their next delivery to the building site.

The pretzels can get cycled through the delivery/return circle of life until someone fails to return them to the lumberyard.

Sold!

You can also look for Kiln Dried After Treating (KDAT) pressure treated lumber. MUCH less chance of pretzels due to the reduced moisture content of the wood.

If we learn nothing else from this discussion it show's how different things are in different parts of the country. Home depot and Lowes in North Texas will not routinely pay employees to sort through lumber to placate select customers. The pratice wouldn't be profitable. Come to think of it,I have never seen a semi being loaded at a big box. All thier invatory is on the floor and a semi load would clean the isles leaving the store out of stock. Stores fill volume orders from the distribution center rather than clearing their store shelves. With this kind of contrast from one area to another,how conventional are opinions when someone ask's a question.

I ended up using it cause I had already started, pisses me off tho that the lumber was so dry and in such shape. it's actually lookin pretty good despite the fact, I had to install the decking with a mix of the boards being crown up and crown down because the boards were very unsightly depending on the side. I know this will cause uneven cupping issues down the road and make an uneven deck surface, not that it matters tho, the deck board thickness ranged from 1.7 to 1.4 inches. As well as the widths were in the 5.4 to 5.6 range on some boards.

After looking it up I've came to the conclusion that this is a common thing with the brown pt lumber, around here at least, apparently it's newer on the market, and there's apparently formula problems that needed sorting out with the pressure treatment for the brown, as well as circulation issues. Most people get green pt around here and the brown is relatively new to my area which is causing a lot of brown pt lumber to sit and become stale, I'm used to the green stuff, it's always nice and fresh at least.

This isn't a lumber grade issue, as far as I know you can only get this brown pt in one grade, like another poster said, people and contractors cherry pic the good stuff so the average buyer is left with odds and ends unless he cherry pics them himself.

So yea, decking is completed, because it's so dry I can hear it cracking as I walk on it, quite a few deck boards have some cracking issues already, this isn't how the green acts, at least not this soon. But I guess if the green was installed when it was this dry, it would be much the same. Obviously cracking is to be expected once it drys and settles a bit, (not straight thru) but this stuff is already dry. So I'm thinking I'm gonna water the decking lightly each day just to prevent further cracking, I mean it's typical of pt to crack in this matter, (it's not cracking straight through yet) but my fear is that it will develop cracks right through the boards. Before installation there was already cracks right through the deck boards, which of course I cut off.

Doesn't help that it's been a hot dry year with little rain, for all I know it dried out too fast already. Gonna try contacting the supplier with my concerns and see if they will reimburse or warranty this crap.

I can say for a fact that culling does happen even at your biggest hardware stores, if you ever go pick up lumber on one of those days where stocks are depleted, you can see all the left overs that people already cherry picked through, same could be said for fruits and veg while grocery shopping.

Yep, I put up a building that used a mile of 2x4's and I picked out every one myself at Home Despot. Because my carpenter said if you have it delivered, you get whatever. Almost every time I went in for a load, there were twisty pieces on the front of the pile. I'd climb up in back and get fresh ones, sight along each one, and take the good ones. I expect HD periodically takes away the really bad ones and saws them into shorter more straight pieces and turns the scraps into stakes or something.

I prefer to pick mine out, or if I get a load sent to me I expect to take back quite a few that are so bowed they look like they would be good for skiing.

There will always be subpar lumber, pros know what to use and what to return. If you want perfectly straight lumber, look into LSL lumber. Great for framing and getting nice and straight walls or for cabinets.

Not normal for all the decking to be cracked and bowed, as others said they probably sent you a pile of rejects.... very lame. I guess if lumberyards want people to go to the big box store instead then they can keep trying to pull that on homeowners.

Another great option for decking is IPE wood. Expensive but lasts dang near forever. Hard to cut though lol.

I used to go to Home Depot and pick through the pile, but the quality keeps declining, at least in my area. The last time I went, I think it took me 20 minutes to find 6 acceptable 2 X 4's. I've since found a local lumber yard that carries good quality stuff and lets you choose. It costs a little more, but it saves time and I know I won't have to worry about using marginally ok materials.

If you guys get bored here is a video of mine. I restored and old cedar barn, built in the 20's or 30's? I tried to keep as much as the old wood as possible and then mixed in some yellawood. No power out there so everything I did was with battery powered tools...and I am just a diy'er https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNi4xfZYO4

wacokid-

Pretty cool...you've got more vision than I have!

Oh Ya guys, the one thing I left out from delivery was the deck balusters (2x2 spindles) I personally went and hand picked them, about 40% were rejects.. couldn't hand pick these to my standards even if I wanted to. Mind you I picked these spindles up off another supplier who told me to return any I didn't want, mind you they were sold by the bundle, either I'm too anal or the suppliers are recycling too much defects.