Wood Decks in St. Bernard, OH

Now and then a bundle of treated pine arrives at a St. Bernard (ZIP 45217) job with white fuzz or small black spots on some of the boards. It looks alarming on wood that was bought to resist rot. It is surface mold, and it is a harmless consequence of how the lumber was shipped.

Treated lumber leaves the plant saturated, and bundles are often wrapped in plastic for the trip. Wet wood in a sealed wrap in warm weather is a greenhouse, and mold spores land and grow on the faces of the boards within days. The treatment protects the wood inside from decay fungi, which is a different organism; it does nothing to stop a mold living on the damp surface.

The mold lives only on the surface, and it cannot survive once the wood is exposed to moving air. So every wrapped bundle is opened on arrival and the boards are spread so air reaches their faces. Within a day or two of drying, the growth dies and turns to a dusty film. A stiff brush and a mild cleaner take it off, and the boards are clean before they go down.

It is worth telling apart from two things it resembles. Blue stain sits inside the sapwood and does not brush off, and rot softens the wood, which mold never does. A screwdriver pressed into a moldy board meets the same hard timber as any other. Opened, aired and cleaned that way, lumber that arrived looking unwell goes into a St. Bernard deck as sound as the rest of the load.