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Put in a cedar fence last spring, wood started rotting within 6 months
I went with cedar because everyone says it's the best for rot resistance. Used a local lumber yard's stock near Austin. By September I had soft spots near the soil line. Turns out the stuff they sold me was sapwood, not heartwood. The heartwood is the rot resistant part, sapwood is basically just pine. The yard never mentioned the difference. Has anyone else gotten tricked by low grade cedar? What do you look for to make sure you get the real heartwood?
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vera_lewis225d ago
Oh boy, I feel your pain lol. I once bought "cedar" from a big box store and six months later it looked like I'd installed termite appetizers instead of fence boards. Now I bring a pocketknife and scratch the wood before I buy it heartwood smells super strong like cedar and is a darker reddish brown, while sapwood is pale and almost has no scent. Learned that trick the hard way after my first fence basically mulched itself in a single Texas summer.
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wendy13125d ago
@vera_lewis2 actually I've had better luck with box store cedar than local yards so I think it varies a lot.
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