Pressure-treated wood has been around for nearly 70 years, yet most of us still know very little about this popular outdoor building material. To start, pressure-treated wood is softwood lumber, ...

It’s also a tasty snack, at least for fungi and insects such as termites. On a molecular level, wood is about three-quarters polymerized sugars that are indigestible to humans and most other animals.

Aaron Pilch was on a quest for two pieces of wood. It took him three weeks to find them. The do-it-yourselfer recently needed the 2-inch-by-12-inch-by-12-foot planks of pressure-treated pine to make ...