The contractor I hired is using these PT Douglas Fir joists. They look old. he says they are structurally sound just discolored. I took a screwdriver and poked the joist and it did not sink in at all. very hard. he said he is going to cut off the split ends. I am concerned as to why the wood looks burnt.
Can someone look at the images and let me know if they look ok?
I took a screwdriver and poked the joist and it did not sink in at all. very hard.
That's your key right there. There's nothing wrong with the wood, it just doesn't look very pretty.
If it were bright and blond and "new" looking, well, it wouldn't be pressure treated. Pressure treating will make the wood dark like that. Those look a little darker than what I'm used to seeing but they look just fine.
I'm sure your contractor will cut a 1/2" or so off the ends of most boards to square them up, and will probably cut enough off the ends to get rid of the bit of split that's formed (and is a natural occurrence when wood dries), but otherwise, you're just fine.
Far more important is that the boards are reasonably straight and not warped. It's possible your contractor might find a board or two that is too warped to use, and he should set these aside, but some amount of bow and twist is acceptable. Usually they get returned to the store for a refund if they're too far gone.
Once the wood has been outside for a year or so as part of the deck, it will begin to weather to a much lighter grey color.
The other answers addressed the appearance of the wood with great accuracy so I'm not going to beat that dead horse.
Are you getting a good deal on the deck? These boards could have been purchased pre-covid for less than 25% of today's prices so if you were quoted for materials using current prices then the contractor is pocketing the difference. Heck, for all we know these boards were abandoned somewhere and the contractor took it upon themselves to "find" them.
However, labor prices have also skyrocketed so if material costs weren't disclosed upfront then the contractor could easily pad some numbers if you're asking for a cost breakdown retroactively.
If pressure-treated wood lasts about 40 years as a deck then these boards may have lived through 3, 5, or more of those years already. Is that something you're willing to pay full price for?
After having a second look at your question, the workmanship is a bit concerning.
Additional issues have been identified after I created the picture so here is the full list below containing my observations and those of the comments section:
I highly advise getting this thing independently inspected.
To answer your specific question, “are these okay?”, yes.
They may have been sitting outside for a while, but there aren’t going to be any structural issues. Once built, you won’t really be able to see much of them, so the aesthetic issue will go away as well.
That's just how aged Douglas fir looks like: it gets really dark after a while. But that's a good thing, the oxidized layer protects the inner structure.
I built a DIY table with Douglas fir 2 years ago:
After 2 complete years outside, it now looks like:
Granted, it doesn't look very good, but it's now protected and the structure will look just the same in 5 or 10 years.
The wood shrunk a bit, and sadly, there's now enough space for forks to fall down.
Which means it's better to use Douglas fir for building a structure once it's already weathered.
