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Preserving a cedar deck
by Professor Gene Wengert Q.
A.
Decay fungi (as well as mold, mildew, and stain fungi) have four essential requirements for growth--temperature between 70F and 100F (approximately), oxygen, moisture (over 22% MC or 95% RH), and food. The food is the wood itself for decay fungi. (Food is the sap for blue stain fungi and is dust, dirt, and microorganisms in the air for mold and mildew fungi). To control fungi of all types in or on wood, eliminate one of these four essential items. For your deck, can you perhaps treat the deck with a sealer (like the one you see on TV all the time) to eliminate much of the water--there is no such thing as dry rotting, by the way! (One concern about a water sealer--if there are puddles on the deck, when it freezes, they can form miniature skating rinks.) If all else fails, then the last resort is to poison the food (which is what cedar does naturally). There are a few poisons available at a paint/hardware store, but keep in mind that these "home" treatments are just skin deep--if the wood cracks, it may expose untreated wood. Professor Gene Wengert is Extension Specialist in Wood Processing at the Department of Forestry, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Click on Wood Doctor Archives to peruse past answers. If you would like to obtain a copy of "The Wood Doctor's Rx", visit the Wood Education and Resource Center Web site for more information. Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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