Does creosote (or it substitute) stop wood expansion?

[zaax]

The workshop door is expanding (its treated with wood preserver) but it still expanding would creosote it stop this, or does it need a varnish?

[John Rumm]

No guarantee even varnish will do it... wood changes size with humidity, just one of those things you need to design around and/or live with.

[Brian Gaff]

Most wood expands and contracts. I've never found anything that stops it for doors outside. Brian

[Cash]

As wood is a 'living' material, irrespective of what you decorate it with it will 'move' with the weather.

The solution is to ease the door until it works properly in all weathers and then redecorate the planed edges [1] - BTW what type of door is it (e.g. framed ledged and braced, ledged and braced etc).

[1] If you have only decorated one side of the door, then try decorating the other side as only painting one of an external door can make it do some weird things.

This is not an April fools day solution, that was advice that worked from an AKZO Nobel paint rep many years ago who we called in when we were having problems with new house front and rear doors (flush or panelled and or glazed) 'bending' [2] because we were contracted to only paint the exterior face of the door and leaving the internal painting to the householders (who very often didn't).

When we carried out an experiment of painting both sides of doors on some 25 properties (giving the householders a choice of colours for the internal dec's) - the problem literally vanished overnight.

[2] This was after we first called out the door manufacturers rep who suggested this after examining the doors and found that only those painted one side were 'bending'.

Cash