Timber Options for Pergola

Do you have a menards close by? No idea on price comparison, but worth a check.

When we built ours, they had three choices, although I'm not seeing the WRC anymore on their site:
AC2 pressure treated pine
AC2 pressure treated pine, prestained CedarTone color
Western Red Cedar

The WRC is really nice and really light, but cost for our 14x16 was like $1500 for the CedarTone pine and mid-$3k range for WRC, so we ended up going with the pine (pic here).


Also as mentioned, if you go with PT pine, try to plan and buy it close to when you are going to install it, and if possible, store the loose lumber out of direct sunlight. The wet PT boards may be straight when you buy them, but if left to dry for some time, there's a good chance they will warp. If you buy them and install while still partially wet, they typically hold their "straightness" as they dry out opposed to the loose lumber.


Last, as I was cost and material shopping around, this was the response from a pergola kit seller answering the question of PT pine vs. cedar:

As far as material, Cedar is an appearance grade lumber, it is rough sawn so it is kinda hairy. The nice thing is you can seal, stain or paint immediately. We do recommend repeating that process every two -three years.

Our Pine is a denser wood and is structural #1. It is very dark greenish when you receive it. It does need to be set up and installed for approximately 2-4 months to dry out at which time you can paint, stain or seal it at that time and repeat that process very 2-3 years as well.

You would not be making a poor choice if you chose Pine. It is a very nice wood. It is definitely not your Home Depot pine either, it's a #1 not a #2. It will last for years and years. I honestly prefer the pine in my opinion.

**footnote - his response on the pine is comparing what they offer, which is a higher grade #1 pine, vs the stuff you'd find at HD, which tops out at a #2. The lumber you see for our pergola is #2 PT pine from menards.

Vanner said:

I’ve found a couple options for cedar and pine (untreated).

The first is a guy who cuts up old telephone poles to dimension you ask for.

The second is untreated pine or northern white cedar. Again, cuts them into whatever you need.

Not against a white cedar or pine but staining every 2-3 yrs doesn’t excite me they would both be covered and out of rain and UV so I might get a little longer.

I’ll have to track down a source for PT Grade 1 Pine. Everything I see at HD is jack pine that cracks like crazy.

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Someone else may know more on this, but I believe the WRC dulls fairly quickly from it's redd'ish tone to grey'ish/silvery tone. As long as that color is okay, you won't be staining, but if not, you'll be in the same boat of restaining every few years like the white cedar and pine.

The OZCO hardware was a pretty heavy duty gauge of steel and fairly easily to work with. I really like the look of the black exposed hardware when installed. One complaint is that the cap for the screw covers (here) don't smoothly thread into the cap base and it's easy to disturb the black finish on that cap piece while screwing it in. My second issue was that the 45deg angle pieces for attaching the diagonal supports from the 6x6 post to the overhead rafters seemed to be bent just off of 45 deg in a varying amount for each one. If I cut the angled wood support to 45 degrees and hold up the 45 degree angle bracket against the post, there was quite a bit of wiggle room. Basically did trial and error of cutting the wood at 45, 46, 47, etc until it was snug between the angle bracket and post. Both were minor issues and I would likely buy this hardware again if building another pergola.