# Paintin new shed/workshop



## GrahamLinton (16 May 2021)

I am shortly going to have my new 8x8 shed installed. 

It is pressure treated although the interior timber isn't. I'd like to put some wood preserver on but don't want a big brown box, I'd like to see and keep the character of the wood somehow if that's at all possible. 

Is it OK to paint both inside and outside and what preserver would you recommend?

Thanks Graham


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## Adam W. (16 May 2021)

I had an old shed as my first workshop and I painted the interior with genuine turpentine, the stuff made from pine trees. Ballentines make it and you can get it off ebay for about £40 a gallon if I remember correctly and a gallon of it goes a long way.

It smelt really nice, like wood shavings, and I'm pretty sure that it made the wood on the interior poisonous enough to deter the bugs. Most timber decay organisms have trouble getting established in timber with a moisture content of 18% or below, although once they're in bugs like furniture beetle will survive in MC of 8%.

What that means is that if you ventilate your shed and keep it dry, it will get below 18%, as that's classed as air dried for wood and sheds are normally drier than that, especially in the summer.


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## Sgian Dubh (16 May 2021)

Adam W. said:


> Most timber decay organisms have trouble getting established in timber with a moisture content of 18% or below, although once they're in bugs like furniture beetle will survive in MC of 8%.


In general Adam, I agree, but research and data suggest that in fact 12% is the lowest wood moisture content at which newly hatched furniture beetle grubs can exist (Ridout, 2004, p58, _Timber Decay in Buildings: the conservation approach to treatment_, Spon Press, Abingdon, Oxfordshire). Slainte.


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## Adam W. (16 May 2021)

I'm referring to mature insects. We had Ridout as a tutor years ago, interesting bloke.


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## Sgian Dubh (16 May 2021)

Isn't dry wood MC largely irrelevant to the feeding needs and life cycle of an adult furniture beetle? The level of wood MC is only relevant to the life cycle of the grub because it lives in the wood and on the nutrients it can find there - too dry wood means the grub can't survive and mature to adulthood. As I understand it dry wood discourages, but doesn't necessarily prevent, the adult from laying its eggs. Slainte.


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## Adam W. (16 May 2021)

Ran out of battery......and the lowest MC they will survive in, which is why people panic when they come out of old furniture in centrally heated houses.

They have them emerging out in the lab at college and it's pandemonium and full deep clean action stations.


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## Adam W. (16 May 2021)

Sgian Dubh said:


> Isn't dry wood MC largely irrelevant to the feeding needs and life cycle of an adult furniture beetle? The level of wood MC is only relevant to the life cycle of the grub because it lives in the wood and on the nutrients it can find there - too dry wood means the grub can't survive and mature to adulthood. As I understand it dry wood discourages, but doesn't necessarily prevent, the adult from laying its eggs. Slainte.




Well, they slow down their life cycle as the MC drops, but it doesn't necessarily kill them straight away and they can still emerge from the timber. We've known them to chew their way underneath polychrome until they find a place where they can get through the unpalitable and sometimes toxic layer.


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## Sgian Dubh (17 May 2021)

Adam W. said:


> Well, they slow down their life cycle as the MC drops, but it doesn't necessarily kill them straight away and they can still emerge from the timber. We've known them to chew their way underneath polychrome until they find a place where they can get through the unpalitable and sometimes toxic layer.


Presumably, if it's reckoned that about the lowest wood MC that the grubs can survive is 12%, then during earlier stages of grub development the timber would have been wetter in order for those grubs to chew and find sustenance. I know emerging common furniture beetles chew on wood only to escape and they're no longer feeding. It seems reasonable to assume that during the grub's maturation the wood's moisture content has gradually diminished from something higher than 12% MC, conditions in which it can survive, down to something at or below roughly 12% MC when the mature insect needs only to emerge to repeat the the insect's life cycle. Slainte.


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## Adam W. (17 May 2021)

Sgian Dubh said:


> Presumably, if it's reckoned that about the lowest wood MC that the grubs can survive is 12%, then during earlier stages of grub development the timber would have been wetter in order for those grubs to chew and find sustenance. I know emerging common furniture beetles chew on wood only to escape and they're no longer feeding. It seems reasonable to assume that during the grub's maturation the wood's moisture content has gradually diminished from something higher than 12% MC, conditions in which it can survive, down to something at or below roughly 12% MC when the mature insect needs only to emerge to repeat the the insect's life cycle. Slainte.





You've been reading Ridout. What you don't say is that Williams believes that the infestation will probably die out if the moisture content of the timber remains below 12% throughout the year.

That's highly unlikely in a shed, and I would expect the MC of the frame of the shed to fluctuate throughout the year, which suggests that the population will survive if the timber MC drops to 8% in the hottest of UK summers and rises again to 16% in the winter.

Cheers.


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## Sgian Dubh (17 May 2021)

Adam W. said:


> That's highly unlikely in a shed, and I would expect the MC of the frame of the shed to fluctuate throughout the year, which suggests that the population will survive if the timber MC drops to 8% in the hottest of UK summers and rises again to 16% in the winter.


Ah. Point taken. I was thinking of interior furniture which, for the most part, doesn't get much above 13 - 14% MC. I'd not focused at all on the original question about a shed build; my eye was caught by the mention of furniture beetle, not the shed question. Talking of sheds, some years ago I put an offcut of kiln dried oak I'd used to make a piece destined for an interior use on a shelf in one of my garden sheds. A couple of springs later I noted common furniture beetle flight holes. All I did was photograph them, and I think the photograph was used to illustrate some text I was writing on wood and bugs. I think that lump of oak is still in my shed, perhaps harbouring fresh tunnellers, ha, ha. Slainte.


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## Spectric (17 May 2021)

Why is the interior timber not pressure treated, both C16 & C24 are treated for protection against bugs. Also if you don't want a brown box then give it a nice colour, the Valspar garden range are good, much better than there interior paints and there are some gentle shades.


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