Serious question, has anyone seen panels warp this fast?

I put up a 6-foot cedar privacy fence for a client in Portland last spring and it looked PERFECT. Eight months later half the panels are cupping like crazy, I think the supplier stored their lumber wrong or something. You guys running into this with any specific wood grades lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

ryan3692mo ago

Looked PERFECT" yeah for about five minutes huh. Cedar from the wrong source will cup like crazy if it wasn't dried right before install. Supplier probably dumped green stock on you man.

hayden1442mo ago

Oh wow, that's actually a really good point about the green stock. But I wonder if part of the problem is also how the deck was built in the first place. I mean, if they used hidden fasteners on a deck that wide without allowing for any expansion gaps, the boards are gonna fight each other no matter how dry the cedar is. Maybe it's just me but I've seen people treat cedar like it's plastic and expect it to stay perfectly flat forever. That stuff moves with humidity like crazy, you gotta plan for it from day one.

benclark1mo ago

Buddy of mine built a deck with green cedar last summer and it looked amazing for like two weeks before half the boards started curling up at the ends. @ryan369 is right about the drying, he got his from a big box store and never checked the moisture content first.