Rant: My buddy swore pressure treated lumber was fine for a chicken coop floor

My friend Dave kept telling me to just use regular pressure treated plywood for the floor of my new chicken coop last spring. He said it would hold up fine and save me like $60 compared to using exterior grade plywood with a coating. I listened because he built his own shed and seemed like he knew what he was doing. Fast forward six months and that floor is already warped and starting to rot where the bedding stays damp. Now I gotta tear the whole thing apart and redo it because the chickens are basically walking on soggy wood. Turns out pressure treated wood still absorbs moisture if it's directly on the ground over time. Anyone else had a friend give them bad backyard building advice that cost them time and money?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryanh7715d ago

Pressure treated lumber is actually fine for framing, just don't use it for the flooring.

anthony_wells15d ago

And that's just it, people treat "pressure treated" like it's some kind of magic shield against water. It's not. It's treated to stop bugs and rot from the ground up, but if it's sitting in damp bedding day after day, it's still just wood that soaks up moisture. I've seen this same pattern with deck building too. Guys use treated lumber for the top boards and then wonder why it splinters and warps after a couple years. It's that thing where people assume one label means it works for everything. They skip reading the fine print because a buddy said it was fine. Real lesson here is that the right material for the job is always worth the extra money, even if it seems like overkill at first.