What kind of nails is everybody using to fasten sheathing to CCA sil plates with? Is it something that I should be concerned with?
edited
sorry, what is the right answer for ACQ sil plates?
Edited 2/15/2006 4:57 pm ET by paul42
Discussion Forum
Edited 2/15/2006 4:57 pm ET by paul42
Discussion Forum
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CCA is history now. ACQ is worse. I would use hot dip or stainless on the sill. Bet most don't though.
Stainless steel.
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You and I both know that stainless steel is the only right answer. But, how many walls are getting put up with the studs nailed with stainless? How much sheathing is going on with stainless? How much sheetrock has stainless nails or screws at the sil?How much strength does a regular galvanized anchor lose over the years?
I don't worry too much about the anchors, they have some mass and don't have tight contact with thte PT in many places. All the old house around here just sit on granite with no hold-downs other than gravity and they are not blowing around yet.But you have a valid concern about other naiuls in contact with the PT. I have told my guys that we have to use SS for all that, but they did foret on a garage they erected whil i wasout of town. It was easy to spot the rust streaks running down the concrete block stem wall from each nail in the sheathing to sill plate. Hadda point it out and point to the bos of SS nails...
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Have any of you guys had the chance to try Strand Guard from Timberstrand. It is an LSL mudsill material.
Bullet straight, no cupping, twisting, crowning, bowing, and no fastener issues.
Here it costs about .05 per foot more than ACQ. That's eeasily made up in labor and nail savings.
If you can get it I'd give it a try!
Jim at Great White
The borate treated timberstrand looks like a good answer to me. It should be available somewhere around here.
Can you use borate-treated sill plates in your area?
We use them and while they're not rated for ground contact, they are rot-resistant. They also offer some insecticidal benefits.
I don't know if we can use the borate treated lumber or even if it is available here yet. It doesn't seem to be in very wide spread use. Looking at the response the thread in the Editor's corner on the subject, it looks like almost nobody is using it.
Not to hijack, but speaking of this topic, the house we are framing right now used ACQ sill plates (apparently the supplier doesn't carry borate stuff) and I bought HDG gun nails to shoot it.
Two things:
1) While both the ACQ and borate treated stuff we get are both SYP (and normally soaking wet), the ACQ seems to twist and crown more readily. Some of my bottom plates were so badly out of alignment on this house, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fix it short of cutting out & replacing bad sections.
2) OK, BT stuff is cheaper (in my area) than ACQ, and requires only regular brite nails, which are cheaper than HDG gun nails. What's not to lose here?
Not to get back on the "ACQ vs. CCA" topic again, but what's so wrong with CCA for bottom plates? Kids ain't gonna be chewing on it, the dog's not gonna lick it...it's buried under paint, drywall, plastic, etc. Who's honestly going to know it's even there?
I'll gladly go back to using CCA for sill plates. ACQ may have its place, but framing is not one of them.Jason Pharez Construction
Framing & Exterior Remodeling
Borate material is slow to come here. I can only get it if I buy a full unit. Everyone seems content to use ACQ and galv nails, or probably just the brights that are already in the gun. The good news is that in dry conditions (i.e. a mudsill should be fairly dry if not completely, whereas deck framing will be wet) the corrosion is less of an issue.
I can see that a dry location would slow the corrosion. But I don't have a good feel for how dry it has to be. Most treated wood around here is very wet when it is purchased.
I guess I will run my own experiment. Stick a few brights, galvnaized, and sheet rock screws in a piiece of ACQ treated lumber, leave it in the shop for six months or so and see what happens.
Leave one piece in the shop sitting on the floor behind a cabinet, and another outside laying in the weeds under a tree.
David,I've been meaning to ask you about your expirement (I can't remember if I already did or not). I do remember you saying about 2 years ago that you were leaving a sampling of scraps out in the weather to see what happens.Any results?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Jon,
I finally concluded that the sample must not have been ACQ, even though it was a cutoff of 3x6 PT that had the manufacturer's tag right on it. I bought the material in September '03, before the mandated change... in fact, before I even really got wise to the issue. I remember coming across the scrap sometime in '04, after I had installed the material as mudsills under my house, and I had a definite sense of Oh Sh!t as I realized the implications. I still had access to about 75% of the bottom of the sheathing from the outside, so I went around with SS nails and re-shot it.
No corrosion ever showed up on any of the sample fasteners. I had bright, electrogalv, HDG, SS, and three or four Simpson items stuck to it, including a couple of Z-Max. It was left laying the tall grass against the north side of the barn...wet and not sunny.
So, what's the chances that the treatment plant got the tags printed up and then started stapling them to the wrong units? I was expecting the sudden, ugly corrosion that I read about here and elsewhere, and it never happened.
I do have some definite ACQ joists on my deck, and some Z-max hangers with them. Maybe it's time to crawl under there for a look.
I know I read somewhere that some of the earliest ACQ treated lumber was showing up with some mold problems and because of that, in later versions the amount of preservatives, including copper, was increased. That may be why your test did not show anything.
Excellent, I will call my lawyer. I'm sure we can show that the treatment plant has irrevocably damaged our home (sob!) and that the mold can't be removed. Should be good for low 7 figures at least, and I was getting tired of working anyway!
You can take the man out of California, but you can't take the California out of the man.
;-)
This is America... everyone's looking for their free ride. And remember, I'm the guy that got a FREE Hitachi SCMS from Amazon due to a shipping error, and I sent it back.
Experment started. Four pieces of ACQ treated lumber, four untreated. Six fasteners in each, plain box nail, galvanized, hot dipped galvanized, sheet rock screw, deckmate screw, and SS screw. One pair of boards outside in weather, one under a lean to, one in insulated but usually unheated shop, and one in the junk room in the house. I will try to remember to take a look at them about once a month or so. Construction on my house doesn't start for about 10 months, hopefully, I will come up with some kind of answer before then.