| I put up this deck cover in November 2001. The
the structural members are untreated yellow pine from Home Depot. In
less than four years it developed a severe case of rot from fungus or lichen
or something. This wood does not remain wet. It dries quickly
after a rain, so it shouldn't have
rotted. The untreated yellow pine members I replaced when I built
this new structure were 20 years old and showed no signs of rot. It's clear the lumber from Home Depot had a disease inside it that has
rotted the wood from the inside out.
Letter to Home Depot that received no reply Table of Contents Here's what the deck cover looked like about a year after it
was finished,
September 2008 -- At seven years the rot has reached failure in several areas. Four of the cross members had rotted to the point they were breaking of their own weight. Two cross members were being held up by the lattice. Of course, they were very light now as the rot has consumed them. Two more were barely hanging together. I've had to spend the last two weeks replacing these four members. More need to be replaced but these were the worst and all I was up to. The pictures below show the extent of the rot.
These cross-section views show how they rotted from the inside out
This didn't split, it rotted intwo
November 2007 -- The fungus continues to progress I thoroughly resoaked the members with antifreeze and waited until February 2008 to scrape protruding fungus off hoping the antifreeze would work it's way back through the fungus to the disease inside the wood.
Serious rot has compromised the structural integrity of several cross members.
January 2007 -- Antifreeze didn't work, the problem continues I examined the structure again today and the fungus is
progressing in many areas. Below are but a few samples. I retreated
with antifreeze, and scraped off the the protruding fungus.
I wrote this in the summer of 2006 The situation has become much worse. One originally effected board is now rotted extensively on the end shown in the October '05 picture with the red arrow. The fungus has spread extensively, and over half of the area of the boards have this fungus growing on (out of) them. I have scraped off the protruding growths and soaked all the boards in antifreeze as recommended on this web page. Some of the protruding growths are 1" thick and 6" long First comments, written in October 2005 The two in the following illustrations are the only boards affected by fungus. You can see from the ones in the background of the first picture what the rest of the boards look like. The the board in this first picture has grown some kind of fungus or lichen. The board also seems to be splitting much worse than the unaffected boards. I cleaned it off once and treated it with a fungicide. Does anybody know what's causing this, and how I can stop it?
There is another kind of fungus/lichen growing on a second board. Below are pictures of the two sides of the same board.
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