Should I Use Pressure Treated Wood For A Garden Gate

With the British summer coming to an end and with the weather starting to worsen, we all need to start thinking about how to protect our wooden garden products. Be it a timber bench, fencing, or decking, these may be susceptible to rot, fungi, or weathering which may reduce their lifespan. Even pressure treated wood requires maintenance and treatment, and the quality of your timber could decline if neglected.

How Often Do I Need to Treat My Decking, Fence, or Timber?

Treating your wooden products should be treated as a priority, and depending on your local conditions and wood type this may need to be done from once every 3 months, to once every 12 months. Failure to protect or stain this may lead to your timber being vulnerable to decay and damage caused by exposure to rain and the elements.

Treating Untreated Wood

If your wooden product is currently untreated, this should be treated and protected as soon as possible. Untreated wood is the most susceptible to rot, fungi, and general weathering. This can be treated with a wood stain, a wood paint, or general wood protector, and needs to be maintained around every 6 months after the initial coating.

Treating Dip-Treated Wood

If the wood is dip-treated, or paint stained, this may begin to fade after 6-12 months and may offer little or no protection against the weather than it originally did when purchased. Again, this can be treated with a wood stain, a wood paint, or general wood protector.

Untreated wood and dip-treated wood can be stained and treated at any time.

Treating Pressure Treated Wood

If your wood has been pressure treated (a premium wood preservation technique), this offers longer lasting protection than a wood treated with a base layer preservative. Through the use of a vacuum the preservative is forced deep into the wood at high pressure to protect the wood from within.

However, even pressure treated wood may need protection as it is not waterproof; a weather-proofing top coat or base layer preservative is recommended every 12 months to fully protect timber through the winter months. However, it may not be best to treat pressure-treated timber straight away, as this needs to weather.

How Long Should I leave Pressure-Treated Timber to Weather For Before Treating?

If the pressure treated timber has been freshly bought or pressure treated, it is industry recommended to let this weather for 2-3 months before applying a paint or preservative product. This is as it may still have the blue-green residue (see image) from the pressure treatment process that needs time to come off. Although this can be sped up through sanding, if you apply a treatment coating on top of these salts this won't be able to adhere to the wood, and when the salts naturally come off, so will the coating.

Pressure Treated Timber with Specking Left By Treatment Salts

How Many Coats does the Timber Need?

This depends on the absorption properties of the wood, although it is industry recommended to apply 2-3 coats of stain or protector for best results.

bench treated

A Brand New Softwood Bench with 2 Coats of Protek Royal Exterior

What Should I use to Treat my Timber Product?

There are a range of Protek products on GardenStreet.co.uk which can help to prolong the lifespan of your wooden products. This family run UK independent manufacturer are specialists in quality wood stains and paints which are low in odour and VOC. By being water-based, this also makes them easy to clean up with just water and a spot of detergent.

What makes Protek great is that they are perfect and safe to use around children, birds, animals and plants. If it is a brand that is familiar to you, you may have also seen these in magazines such as Garden Answers, Country Homes and Interiors, Your Home, or many more. They even feature on Alan Titmarsh's Love Your Garden on ITV1 – talk about quality assurance!

Which Protek Wood Stain Should I Use?

Protek is available to purchase now, and with quick dispatch times you can get started in no time in preserving your garden timber! With over 50 colours available to choose from, Protek can really complement and enhance your garden, as well as offering superior protection from the elements. Finding which Protek product is perfect for your fencing, decking, or timber has never been easier, with the Protek Wood Stain Guide. The Protek Coverage Calculator also recommends how many litres of Protek you would need to protect your timber based on 2 coats.