white ants treated vs hardwood

[zongatron]

Hello,
I am building a vege patch.
i would prefer to use hardwood for the posts but i am unsure about white ants. Does anybody know the pros/ cons? It seems most people in my area use hardwood posts and not treated pine.
Thanks.

[Ekim]

In reference to the issue of termites, the following is probably over-kill relative to your question (the file is 1.6MB):
http://tinyurl.com/yvp2te

Scroll down to page 6 where you will find a table that lists a number of timbers which are "Highly Resistant" to termites and those that are "Resistant" (see the notes under the Table as to the definition of "highly resistant" compared to "resistant"). As a side note, I always thought that Jarrah was Australia's most resistant timber to termites, but the list shows Jarrah as simply "resistant".

As a general comment, H4 (and above) treated timbers are suitable for in-ground use. However, some 12 years ago I use H3 treated pine planks as a garden "wall". Prior to using the timber, I applied 3 coats of creosote (a 1 litre can will cost less than $10.00 - Bunnings, Mitre 10 etc.; allow each coat to soak in; follow the safety instructions; simply "paint" it on with an old disposal paint brush). There is no sign of termite damage. On the other hand, termites reduced some Karri (a West Australian hardwood) to sawdust.

In terms of costs, treated pine is much cheaper than hardwoods (you may wish to check this).

HTH

Mike

[Chumley]

Hi Zongatron,
I've been looking at this issue lately too as we want to put in a small series of retainer walls for our vegie patch. The only problem with treated pine is the stuff they treat it with - some sort of arsenic. Check out this website for some info: http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/greenline/i1295_384.html
You'll see that even the experts don't agree - I know we can't - I'm for it as I don't want to rebuild the retainer walls after 10 years and don't want to attract termites - she's against it due to the chemicals.
Hope it's useful.
Cheers,
Adam