Creosote

[Slider]

Hi

What's the laws of using Creosote these days. A bloke at the top of our street has used it on his new fence. I thought it was banned years ago.

[Frank Erskine]

You're 'officially' banned from buying it retail, but there's nothing to stop you from using it, wherever it came from.

[The Natural Philosopher]

you are not even banned from buying it retail, its just that it only comes in big drums at e.g. agricultural type suppliers.

The theory being that mom and pop wont buy it and drink it without heeding the warnings. Or wash their BayBees in it.

[Andrew Mawson]

nothing

Wickes sell 'creosote substitute' in light and dark brown - £29.99 for

20 litres - it smells like creosote, looks like creosote but I am not yet able to judge if it behaves like creosote in the long term having just sprayed 40 litres on my barn siding.

Genuine creosote is still available from farm supplies lakes like SCATS - similar drum sizes and price to Wickes.

AWEM

[Phil L]

Genuine creosote was removed, but ceosote substitute (it's creosote, just without one or two of the more harmful chemicals) is still on general sale and is available almost everywhere....it smells like, looks like and burns the skin like normal creosote

[Norman Billingham]

Don't forget that when cancer researchers want to induce skin cancers in animals they do it by putting a drop of creosote on the skin then shining light on it. Once it's on the fence its reasonably OK but I'd treat it with very great respect as a liquid.

[Frank Erskine]

Just that it doesn't preserve wood like 'normal' creosote.

For lots of decades bodies like telephone, electricity and railway companies have seriously experimented with numerous methods of preserving poles and wooden sleepers.

Guess what the current 'favourite' is...

[Huge]

En route to Cadwell Park a few weeks ago, we passed a yard where hundreds of telepgraph poles were laid out to dry. The smell of creosote was enough to make our eyes water...