In Korea, preservative treated wood is required to have a stamp on the surface which contains information such as wood species, use categories, and the company that treated the wood. Such stamping is necessary to safely and appropriately use the treated wood. Since majority of treated wood is being used outdoor environment, the treated wood must have efficacy against wood decay fungi or termite. In order to obtain information regarding the life span of the treated wood (ie, how long does the treated wood can be used safely), resistance on decay and termite attack was evaluated by the indoor and outdoor field tests. In this paper, the outdoor field test results of ACQ-2, CuAZ-2, MCQ, and CuHDO-3 treated woods were reported, which were installed in 2012 and have been monitored for decay resistance. The tests were conducted at 6 different field test sites in Korea, Wood samples treated with various retention levels have been evaluated annually according to the AWPA standards. It was found that the wood treated with lower retentions than the Korean standard were decomposed. However, the wood with higher retentions were still sound to this day. Therefore, it was concluded that the preservative treated wood manufactured following the standard retentions can be used safely for a certain period of time. It is also expected that continuous evaluation and monitoring of the wood in the test sites would enable us to estimate the longevity of treated wood with various retentions.

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