Trailer flooring

andrave wrote: I've never had a problem with knots in my decking... you'll be hard pressed to find pressure treated 2x's without knots, especially if you got with 2x6 or 2x8 or even 2x10's. I did the price comparison at my home depot (lumber prices are different everywhere) and although 2x4's are the cheapest per board, it takes more to cover a trailer. I believe 2x6's and 2x8's were the cheapest per foot of deck covered, can't remember which I have on mine, i think they are 2x8's. If I was doing it again I think i'd go with as wide as I could unless it was prohibitively more expensive. I like the wide boards. Easier to slide a jack on and stuff.

Foxtrapper was right that knots are a bigger issue than warpage.

2x4's are NOT OK for a trailer deck, no matter how clean. It's a long conversation about modulus of elasticity and other gobbledy-gook that you don't want to hear about, but suffice it to say they are too skinny. They are also not cheaper. You can't count the cost per board, you have to count the cost per board foot (which is similar to square footage).

Yes, 2x's without knots are difficult to find at Home Depot. That's because they sell #2 construction grade material. The ratings are: Select, #1, #2, and #3. So, the material they carry is the 3rd ugliest out of 4 grades of lumber. Ideally, # 1 PT would be better.

But it doesn't matter. Fewer knots, smaller knots, tighter knots, as much straight grain as possible, and lack of other lumber defects are ALL important. So, yeah, you probably won't find 2x's without knots. Buy the best you can find, and worry more about knots than warpage.

The widest boards are not a good idea either. 2x12's are probably the widest most of the readers of this board will find at HD. They are more prone to splitting and cupping than their narrower counterparts. 2x6, 2x8, and perhaps 2x10 will work best.

andrave wrote: I agree that trex wouldn't be ideal...

No. It's not that is is not ideal, Trex is completely unacceptable for a landscape trailer that hauls a car. It's a failure waiting to happen.

Trex is rated for a maximum of 100 psf when it spans only 16". A 2500 lb car has 4 contact patches of about 32 square inches. That's over 2800 psf, if the trailer framing was on 16" centers. Trailer framing is more like 36" on center. COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

No hardwood. It rots, is brittle and can't handle the load, and is enormously expensive.

PT will not rust the trailer frame. Well, at least not before the road salt gets it, the weather gets it, or the boards rot away.

The recommendations about corrosion resistant fasteners have to do with the small size of the fasteners. A screw is pretty thin. Trailer framing is pretty thick.

However, yes, paint is certainly a good idea and can only help.

SVreX wrote: PT will not rust the trailer frame. Well, at least not before the road salt gets it,

Road salt? Sure glad I live down south.

Due to the amount of work that I need to do on the trailer and space it will take up, I'm going to have to delay fixing it for a month or so. I need to get a riding lawnmower project and a boat project out of the shop so I can have space to manipulate the trailer and do all the blasting/sanding to clean up the frame.

I'm going to make a quickie rotisserie to make it easier to get to all sides of the frame. The top paint is good, but since I'm doing all the work I think I'll weld on some more tiedowns on top. The area where the double axles is doesn't have a tie down one and it seems on just about every load I need to strap something down in that area. Once again a small project becomes a big one.

I looked at the construction and it appears that I can remove the rear angle capture very easy so I think I'll remove that, paint the rest of the frame, put new wood in and then weld the angle back in and touch up the frame.