Treated 4"x 4"

My nephew was given a 24' x 24' pole building. We have it most of the way down. I started wiggling one of the posts to see how well it was stuck in the ground and it snapped off. Very rotten. We went around and they all snapped off. The owner said the building is twelve years old.

When I was still building, treated was heavy, wet and very green. I have pulled posts that have been in the ground for years with no apparent deterioration. Is the modern treated that different or are there different grades of treated? I remember reading that the chemicals have been changed but this is unacceptable

Kid is planning on putting it back up but doubling the size and using new siding on the front and the reclaimed on the sides and rear. We want something in the ground that will last.

Does anybody have knowledge on contemporary treated or replacement materials and/or methods?
Jay

I use pole construction with 6x6s for lean-to wings on buildings but for the main structure i much prefer to have concrete in the ground. It just seems better that way to me. Black
locust is also supposed to last forever but I have no experience with it. Modern treatments do not have a stellar reputation in what I have heard about them when used in ground
contact.
Zach

use the concrete tubes and then you will have less rotten "treated" 4x4
make sure the tubes extend below the frost line
k

There are two different grades of treated. .40 and .60. The .40 is just for landscaping. That's probably what those were. Use .60 4x6 with 6x6 in the corners.

Check out Morton Buildings on the net. I think you can purchase just the cement post system for your own building.

rrlund- When I built my pole barns, I nailed treated 2x6 sandwiched together 3 thick. It kinda made a 'laminate' post that way. No weak points due to knots as you would find in some solid 4x6's. Also, less chance of warping and twisting using the laminated posts.

Just my 2 cents.

You don't happen to know someone who has a few pails of creosote squirreled away that they would part with, do you? Just don't get caught using it. Heaven forbid you'd use something that actually works!

I have a living room addition built onto and over the top of my existing mobile home. The whole side of the structure over the top of MH is supported with 8x8 "treated" posts. According to those who "know" they should last long after I'm dead and gone. Maybe they will, but I don't share their confidence. I'd feel a lot better if they had been coated in creosote.

*&^%$$$#!!@+&^%$$#@! politicians and greenie-weenies anyway.

Sure, Copper Chromated Arsenate (CCA) was taken out of the consumer market '00 or early '00's. As was stated there were different treatment or saturations of same if that is the correct way to put it. .40. .60 were most common, one was touted to last 40 years, the latter 60 years, if I recall. .40 was a blue tag, and .60 was a red tag from the treatment plants we dealt with, I hauled tractor trailer loads of it directly from the plant, fresh and laden with CCA. EPA made this move regarding CCA

You can order it for farm, ag or commerical use, its not completely outlawed, but you will not find it at H-D or Lowes etc. You will find ACQ or another, one is ground contact, one is not, but its not the same as CCA. YOu have to be careful with fasteners as this newer treatment is not compatible with some types of fasteners, like deck screws, also remember those do not have any shear value at all.

I've seen it mentioned here, marine grade, fresh and salt water, if were me, I'd be ordering some of that from a lumber yard, or that detail below if affordable. Perma posts made of concrete would be great, but I priced them for our barn, too costly at the time.

Osmose was one name brand for many many years, but its change to Koppers now, heres a link to some information about CCA treated wood you may find useful
Koppers/CCA

I've seen that done and the treated 2x6s were staggered. Long on the outside and short in the middle,then they spliced regular construction grade 2x6s to them at 18-24 inches above the ground.

Treated now a day's just means that salt is added so bugs will eat it faster.

Hopefully you were or will use bigger than 4x4 for a bigger building.....

The laminated of (3) 2x6 or so posts comes out nice, you need the ground contact treatment not the homeowner cheap treatment.

You can then use the treated laminate below ground, and stager the seams, use regular untreated above ground. Put the money where it is
needed, below ground. As well I believe a 2x can be treated easier than a 4x or 6x, so the wood gets treated all the way through in your
sandwitch in the ground. As well new wood is weak and knotty and probe to warp; laminated sandwitch of wood is stronger and straighter these
days.

The cement column as shown in another message are top of the line, cost more but will last anyone's lifetime. Can even make your own, the
key is to realize a pole barn needs a strong pole from the bottom of the hole to the top of the post. You need to make a good strong bracket and
connectors so the concrete to wood acts as one piece, not a flex able joint.....

Paul

I used some left over creosote on the bottoms of poles, that were PT, dry as heck, and I pulled on after 8 years, clay/gravel, but well drained soil, it percolates well enough for a leachfield septic system. Nothing wrong at all, and this was just hand applied.

I thought you may be able to make a coal tar creosote, homebrew. None of this properly used for applications that make sense has any adverse effect, the country is littered with creosote treated utility poles. Cripes I had a volunteer cherry tomato grow right next to one of the ones I installed, last year, all kinds of tree frogs, toads and other wildlife around. Its the open pit treatment and similar abuse of a perfectly good material that caused clean up sites and so on from what I saw of it. Same with CCA, ok so maybe you don't want it as a picnic table or playground material, was used like that for years, I handled trailer upon trailer load of it, as well as picking orders of it for 4 years, laden and crystallized CCA, used gloves, never burned it or got splinters of it, of course I did not eat my meals off the surface of it either.

Yep, I can tell you exactly. I'm a retired building inspector. The ordinary posts in stock at lumber yards, and for sure ordinary 4x4, are rated to last only a vey short time. These posts are meant for your residential decks, fence posts, planters, etc. They are not NOT rated for building structral ratings, called "Structure Critical."
The building codes and the lumber manufacturer's require these amounts of chemical [ depending on which chemical it is ] to be suitable for structure critical ratings;

“NatureWood” Alkaline Copper Quaternary ACQ
Minimum 0.60 pcf ACQ for Structural / Building Pole / Foundation Use

“Micro-Pro / Smart-Sense” Micronized Copper Quaternary MCQ
Minimum 0.60 pcf MCQ for Structural / Building Pole / Foundation Use

“Micro-Pro / Life-Wood” Micronized Copper (tebuconazole) Azole MCA
Minimum 0.23 pcf MCA for Structural / Building Pole / Foundation Use

Ordinary lumber yard poles may not have enough chemicals.
Those poles might only be approved by the manufacturers for decks or fence posts, not for permanent structural building foundations.

Even though you may see a label reading "Ground Contact", unless you see this amount of chemical, you are not getting the right post.

After you decide what kind of post you want, back fill them with foam, not dirt. Google 'utility pole back fill foam' and you will see a variety of brands that will set your poles (or fence posts) a lot better than back filling with dirt. I see the local utility using foam to set transmission poles over 60 foot tall with the yellow foam.

Sounds like a "farmer-built" job to me. No engineered 24x24 post frame building is going to have 4x4 posts. 4x6 minimum. So who knows where those posts came from?

If the building is at least twelve years old, they should have been CCA-treated. And if it's less than twelve years old, even poorly-treated wood should still be good. I would be very dubious of the trusses and any other materials you intend to reuse.

some years ago I was involved in building a house oer water. The new thing then was a wrap put on the poles to stop rot. Ten years later I built a dock and used that same method. Foam against the wood sounds like a great iddea as long as it is applied properly

Thanks for all the replies. This building was a "kit" from one of the Lowes type places. It was installed by a "professional" crew. :roll: Other than these poles it seems to be a standard cheapo pole building.

It is our intention to use a laminate treated underground and untreated above. It will have a poured floor. We have kicked around the idea of fastening the poles to the slab(with appropriate hardware) as some around here have been doing.

You all have gave us a lot of good info. Now to do some pole shopping. We have lost most of our good lumber yards to the big box stores.
Much obliged.
Jay

Old farmer around here once said a good locust
post will wear out two holes

Billy is right on---CCA was the better of the preservatives except for creosote which I believe was completely banned.
We used CCA 1.0 retention for timbers and CCA 2.5 for sheathing and poles in Marine waters. We also used CCA 2.5 for pilings in structure foundations.