A Sensible Answer to the Bark Side Up or Down Debate for Deck Board Placement. End grain view of flat sawn board (C) Daniel Friedman. For flatsawn boards if we want to follow the advice of wood experts cited at REFERENCES for this article we'd put the bark side down when setting deck boards or wood stair treads.
Using protective stains on your deck can prevent some damage to the wood by slowing down the drying process in order to limit checking. Stains can . Because trees growth rings are made up of earlywood and latewood layers repeated cycled of wetting and drying can cause the earlywood to separate from the latewood.
Although often laid reeded face up, reeded decking is actually intended to be laid reeded face down so that the reeds form an air gap above the joist to allow any moisture to Wood in an application like this should be set bark-side outwards, or with the curve so that the grain looks like a dome, not a cup.
Apr 1, 2015 The result is either a cupping of the wood or a crowning, depending on which way you face the board. . Diagram of the Grain on Wood Pieces. Source: About.com. A board that is correctly installed right side up (or bark side down) will form a crown and allow water to run off the edges. If the board is installed
Oct 23, 2017 This tutorial shows you how wooden deck boards can warp and whether you should install bark side up or bark side down to prevent problems. The wood distorts much less significantly than flat grain cuts and the issue of "bark side" does not matter here. The more heart cut and edge grain lumber you
Jan 1, 1997 R. Bruce Hoadley, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and author of Understanding Wood , replies: The which-side-up question has There are many factors to consider, so let's first assume that most of the boards are flat sawn (the grain lines intersect the surface at an angle of less
Watch this video to find out the proper way to put down decking to make it last longer and hold up better. When using pressure treated wood that's still saturated with preservative, install the boards without a gap between them. As the Orient the deck boards so the growth rings in the end grain have the arc facing up.
grain orientation bark side up, Bark side up orientation will help reduce weathering-related defects. Figure 2. (A.) is a cross section of a painted decking board that has been installed with the grain orientation bark side down. (B shows moderate raised grain (circled) and loosened grain (arrow). In unpainted wood these
tangential to the grain—is used for decking or siding (Fig. 1). The usual reason given for placing deck boards bark-side up or siding bark-side out is to reduce cupping, a form of warp. Cupping results from the shrinking of the top and swelling of the bottom of the wood, which are caused by exposure to moisture and drying by
My guess is that wood growth rings change in relation to weather as against if wood is dried for indoor use. On my own deck I put the "smiles" down 5 years ago and the deck has remained basically flat and level. So I'm going with bark side up otherwise known as smile down. Treated or untreated may also make a
Nov 14, 2013 The author buys high-grade, vertical-grain southern yellow pine from a local high-end lumber mill, which trucks it to a treatment plant, where the lumber is . This is especially a problem for decks built in full sun (because the sun dries out the top surface) or low to the ground (where the bottom absorbs
Usually the best policy to use for surfacing an attractive wood floor is to always expose the best side of the board. If your deck boards are wet some carpenters prefer to install them bark side up to prevent cupping. This technique will orientate the visible growth rings in a downward arc like a dome to eliminate any protruding