I know of one case, from personal experience. A young couple living in upstate New York built a log home of pressure treated lumber, near Kingston, back in the 1970's. She was pregnant at the time, and there was no running water at the site. She was handling this lumber all day, and unable to wash her hands promptly. They got the house built, but the baby was born with multiple birth defects. I don't know if the cause/effect relationship was ever proven in a court of law.

might be better to try lookin in the 'documents section', rather than the opinion section :) lots to read, but might find what you want

Bill

Franklin, the EPA will have documentation about the harm. I have never seen anything to indicate anyone has died from exposure to PT lumber, just lots of information, given to and from the USEPA, about the increased levels of arsenic in childrens organic after playing on the structures built from PT lumber.

Here are numerous articles from the Environmental Working Group website. Hopefully, one of them will answer your question.

Here is a link that might be useful: EWG

I found this just to describe to others what it really is:

The name itself is a euphemism. What pressure-treated wood is actually treated with is a mixture of pesticides called chromated copper arsenate. Pressure-treated lumber is made by placing a freshly milled board inside a vacuum chamber and sucking from its fibers all water and air. Then, under high pressure, copper, chromium, and arsenic are forced into the now empty cells. Pressure treatment is to wood what embalming is to humans.

-Todd

There was a news article many years ago about 2 decking contractors dying from sawdust.

Only 2 that I have heard about

Byron

If it ever could have been shown positively that someone died from exposure to CCA PT wood it would have been banned a long time ago. It took 20 years and numerous studies as it was.

I saw a TV story a few years ago about PT wood. A recently retired couple was building a giant deck on their home, and he started getting very sick. With a lot of tests, they discovered he was being poisoned to death by arsenic. The police arrested & charged his wife, assuming that she was giving him small doses of poison. It went on for a very long time before someone finally figured out it was the wood.

that must have been close to 20 years ago, CCA has been off the market a long time

The post that says CCA has been off the market for a long time is incorrect. The product was banned from future production in 2003. Retailers had an extension until May of 2004 to sell any remaining inventory. So today we may be reasonably comfortable the product is not being sold new. Yet, it is not that long ago one couldn't run into the material (buyer beware.) The replacement material is ACQ (Alkaline Copper Quaternary)treated lumber.

I think that by "reliable documentation" the original poster is referring to verifiable accounts from published sources, not "I heard about a case where..."

F Y'all's I, I suspect 'original poster' might be a bit of a troll.....

(same moniker has instigated several arguments here in the past - about other controversial gardening materials)

lumber yards in our area sold it last year. our deck--quite large, is made with it.hummm-perhaps i should print this off in case hubby gets sick (grins)

The new ACQ pressure treated lumber has not shown its ugly little head yet. Did you know the nails and screws that are used to fasten to the new lumber has to meet the guide lines of the ACQ lumber or they WILL DESOLVE! XXXXXXX manufactures a deck railing system made of composite material and they are one of many companies that make a product that are fastened to 4x4 ACQ pressure treated lumber and NOT include warnings. Extra screws were included in my $3000.00 railing kit, with no mention or warning that these were not intended to be used to secure the rails to the post. I called there 800 number to ask a simple question about there screws. The person at XXXXXXXXX told me they should be OK, That wasn't good enough for me so I asked for her supervisor. I was called back about an hour later an was told I should not use the package screws in contact with new ACQ treated lumber. When the manufacturer knows that there product will fail if this happens and not warn the buyer and or installers, they will deserve all the law suit they are creating. It's to bad that people will have to be injured or dye before this will be addressed. I am a contractor and I almost overlooked this. Be warned, this is a bad thing that is going on and no one seems to care.
Think back to the last time you steped out onto a balcony, how high were you up and what was the view you were looking at? Now imagine the hand rail has lost all of its integerty and gives way, nothing is holding it except you. How high up were you just now? Or was it your kids that were playing near that hand rail?
I wish I could do more to make people aware of this but I am not sure where to begain except to go back to all my clients and inspect all the project I have built in the last 3 years and make corrections. For some reason this dosn't seem like enough.
Even here we have a forum that protects company names from advertising and I can't even warn of the dangers by using there company name in the above story or I will sufer.

Kurt

>The post that says CCA has been off the market for a long time is incorrect. The product was banned from future production in 2003.

My Lumber yard stopped selling in in 2001, I had to wait until 2002 for ACQ to do a job that was on wet soil.

I lost big $$$ because of delay redoing dates etc.

Personally after having a couple weird encounters with CCA I have avoided it and its replacement.

The deck that I added to our home in the summer of 05 is made from western red cedar.

It cost more but it didn't give me those insane headaches I got while working with CCA, plus it looks far better!

So the new "safe" stuff DISSOLVES regular screws. Makes you wonder what's in the new stuff that hasn't been deemed unsafe.... yet.

I heard something about heat-treated wood, I guess its really expensive. It sounded as if no chemicals were involved, just specially heated wood that lasts as long (presumably) as pressure treated. That sounds like a safer bet, if it doesn't cost two arms and a leg.

Regardless, I got a deal on a stack of arsenic laden (old-school pressure treated) 6x6s that had been outside an Ace Hardware for several years. I made a flower bed out of some of them and will use some more for porch supports.

Peace.

A friends son got a splinter from pt lumber about 5 years ago. She thought nothing of it. The next day his hand and arm were red and hot so she took him to the E.R.

He had blood poisoning from the wood. The doctors said that the wood is "harmless" unless it gets into the skin.

Carey

>So the new "safe" stuff DISSOLVES regular screws. Makes you wonder what's in the new stuff that hasn't been deemed unsafe.... yet.

Thats from the copper, If you installing copper flashing, like around a chimney you have to use copper nails.

My son was 23 and worked in a lumber yard in Florida where of course it always rains! A lot of CCA lumber was left out side in the weather. He passed away of cancer with three other co-workers that also had different forms of cancer. That was just over 20 years ago. No oncologist would link the cancer with CCA lumber. No causation!!