A Comparison of Organic Wood Finishes to Synthetic Wood Finishes on the Moisture Resistance of Untreated and Treated Lumber

The purpose of this study was to identify how effective natural wood finishes were at controlling moisture content to externally exposed wood compared to a standard epoxy sealer. It was hypothesized that due to the hydrophobic nature of the natural oils, that they would outperform the commonly used epoxy sealer, as this would repel water coming into contact with the wood. Identical pieces of wood were covered with tung oil, linseed oil, epoxy sealer, or no finish at all, and subsequently put halfway into the ground for 28 days after having their initial moisture content measured. After these 28 days had elapsed, they were removed from the ground and subsequently had their moisture content measured again. A two-way ANOVA followed by a post hoc Tukey test was run on the data in IBM SPSS Statistical Analysis, which showed that the tung oil, linseed oil, epoxy sealer, and untreated wood performed the best in descending order. These results were statistically significant as all had a p value <0.02. It was then concluded that tung oil and linseed oil could be viable natural alternatives to epoxy sealers for outdoor construction utilizing wood.