1.25," green, white oak for decking?

Hello everyone, I am a new member and I have a question; how well would 1.25," green, white oak work for decking? I have an old deck I am going to demo, I want to replace it with a new structure. I would like to build a 16' X 28' covered deck. The house is a stick frame, but I would like to build the covered deck as a timber frame. I had planned on extending the existing roof line out 16' off the gable end, to cover the new deck. I would then cover the entire structure with a new metal roof. The bents would span the 28' width. There is a sawmill about 3 miles from my house, it is owned by a friend, so I can get a good deal on the lumber. I am wondering how green white oak would work for decking? I am concerned about shrinkage, but I know you have quite a lot of shrinkage using 5/4 treated lumber. Anyone have any thoughts on this, or a advice? Thanks!

I think it could work, but it would certainly be better if the boards were at least a little bit dry. They're going to shrink quite a bit, so there's no way that you'll have consistent gaps. You might consider nailing it too, as it could snap screws as the boards shrink.

And use heartwood only, no sapwood.

Thanks for the reply timberwrestler. Why would you use only heartwood? Is it because it is more rot resistant? Does the fact that the deck will be covered make any difference? I like your about idea about using nails as opposed to screws. I have heard that green lumber will shrink very little over the length, but most of the shrinkage will occur across the width, do you think that is accurate? Sorry for the barrage of questions, Thanks again for your reply.

Yup, the sapwood (of any species) is not rot resistant. I don't think the covering will matter too much, as it's still going to go from green to dry. Yup, that's right on the shrinkage. You should be able to calculate how much cross grain shrinkage there will be.

Maybe hot dipped galvanized spiral shank nails? I have a 50 lb box that I'll probably never use...

The problem with the shrinkage is that depending on how the planks are cut from the log (quarter-sawn would be ideal as they would be nearly consistent) they will shrink by different amounts (and deform differently but this is not the major problem). As a consequence the gaps that are left once dry will be of different sizes even if they were consistent when originally laid.

That would be the end of the world, when you have different sized gaps in your deck. The solution is get some of that wood/plastic composite stuff and then all will be good.

Sarcasm aside, if it's for yourself and you know what to expect then it's all good. If it's for a client and there's a risk that they'll phone to complain after a year and demand that you re-lay their deck then that's different. We faced the same situation with siding (green larch) and made the aesthetic decision that we wanted the even spacing of dried timber (and since that was well out of our budget we ended up with douglas fir tongue and groove boards).