I have been getting different opinions on the type of anchor
bolts to use on the new ACQ treated lumber for sill plates on
a utility shed/garage. The people at Simpson-Strongtie have
said use a minimum of heavy galvanized anchor bolts with a
preferred stainless steel anchor bolt when using the new ACQ
treated lumber for a sill plate. A couple of contractors have
told me that if the anchor bolt is at least 1/2″ in diameter,
there is no need for galvanized or stainless anchor bolts, that
regular steel anchor bolts will be fine. I am wandering who is
right? The contractors I have used have put regular steel
anchor bolts in my concrete foundation wall and I am
wondering if I am going to run into trouble, or if I could place
a stainless steel tubing sleeve over the anchor bolts to
protect the plain steel anchor bolts if corrosion will be a problem
with ACQ treated sill plates?
Thank you,
Louis Hamberg
Edited 4/18/2004 1:01 pm ET by hamberg
Replies
regular anchor bolts are fine, It they wasn,t then why do they sell them. gavl or SS for around salt water.
Yeah, it'd take a lot of corrosion to eat through a 1/2" anchor bolt. If you're really worried, you could go between the anchor bolts with stainless lag bolts into shields, or some such. Keep in mind the bolts are more there to resist horizontal forces than to keep the house from lifting off the foundation.
The whole ACQ thing is still pretty murky to me, even after reading all about it here and elsewhere. Since your mudsills aren't exposed to the elements there's a lot less expected than if they were deck parts exposed to rain. I have read that the 1/2" and up bolts are not a problem in plain steel--in fact most of the discussion is about the interaction between zinc and copper, so I'm not even sure why plain steel would be much of a problem (but I ain't a metallurgist).
I salvaged a scrap of ACQ material from a job and drove a couple dozen different types of fasteners into it and left it sitting outside--plain steel, coated sinkers, galv, SS, yellow screws, powdercoat deck screws, the works. No sign of anything happening and it's about a month old at this point. I'm surprised because I read at least one post where someone said they saw a reaction within 24 hours. May depend on the treatment level of the material.
Edited 4/18/2004 4:25 pm ET by davidmeiland
FHB #160 Jan 2004 pg 82-85 discusses the next gen pt wood.
I am curently building a deck with ACQ lumber and my local lumberyard said only galvanized should be used. I also questioned Senco about there deck screws and they came out with an improved coating for there screws.