I'm building a new aviary and recently went to Home Depot, Lowes, and southerlands (pricey). Does anyone have any input about using untreated wood and painting it or using something to keep it from rotting rather than buying treated wood, it seems that the untreated wood and an occasional painting would actually be cheaper. So any input of people who have used either one or both would be great.
Quote:Based on my experiences only, anything buried or in contact with the ground should be treated for rot and insect protection, paint & etc just doesn't cut it. Above ground where you can keep an eye on it and repaint if needed, untreated was clearly superior! ( I had problems with other finishes not sticking good to treated wood) On the other hand if you don't keep decent paint coverage on untreated wood it can fail fast exposed to the elements.
I second that...if it is near the ground, it will rot. If you want to spend less, just buy the posts that are treated, and the rest you can keep painted.
I recently built my aviary and about 90% of it is is all treated wood. At the very least, make sure the posts and if you set up a sight barrier are treated. The only parts that are not treated on my aviary are some very thin 1x4 boards that i put on top of the seams of the posts to cover up the overlapping wire mesh. If they sold the 1x4s as treated, i would have bought them too.
I would say treated for anything touching the ground and untreated for everything else. I stain my wood and it seems to make the untreated wood more durable than painting it. Paint can eventually chip off whereas stain doesn't.
