I buy all my Ipe from Ipe depot. They are great people to work with. They also have great ipe for a fair price alot of people lower their price by selling junk ipe.

Most of the time quality ipe comes from an outfit close to the sourse with very few people involved between you the seller and the container it came over on in the boat.

These guys only sell lumber,they are not the homedepo kinda store trying to be the middle man with granet,roofing, siding things like that.

A good ipe supplier has to be close to a port, have a Buyer go to S America to look at the logs, have many happy Wallets easy to find on a few deck sites like this one.

One Major player in this small group is East Teak Lumber With The George on the other end of 800 338 5636. John

quote" Most of the time quality ipe comes from an outfit close to the sourse with very few people involved between you the seller and the container it came over on in the boat.
These guys only sell lumber,they are not the homedepo kinda store trying to be the middle man with granet,roofing, siding things like that.

A good ipe supplier has to be close to a port, have a Buyer go to S America to look at the logs "quote

I agree with this completely.

I've been sourcing building materials for backyard improvements since the early 80's and can tell you for FACT that the specialty supply houses are the only places to purchase raw materials for construction projects.

The only thing DIY stores like Home Depot or Lowe's will do is sell you second rate materials at a higher price.

See ya,
Kelly

My referance to the box stores came from a quick look at the site pstreme posted, like total on line homecheepo.

Yo kelly, Im looking for a right hand shift ironhead sportie,, I know I know I cant help it!! those ol rides are what I want to get back on. John>> ol Mustang rider

BuildDirect.com said on the phone that thier Ipe is premium quality and guarantee that it is IPE. At $1.61/lineal ft it just seems too good to be true.

I never even looked at the link to the website.

PSTRME,
Make the purchase on a credit card not a debit card, if you have any problems with your purchase have the credit card company debit the sellers account your purchase amount until it's resolved.

The price is INDEED very attractive.

See ya,
Kelly

Kelly,

Good point regarding putting it on my credit card. I didn't think of that.

Thanks

Just a note from someone who is at the source. The prices of export lumber from Brazil vary little from one sawmill to another. Since the Brazilian currency is over valued at the moment the pressure on export pricing has raised the price of ipe and other wood. In addition ipe in particular is getting harder to come by. Not that it is scarce, but it is not as abundant as it once was in major lumber source centers. Therefore I think that there are only two options for lowering price, 1. selling lesser grade material, 2. reducing sale price and therefore margins. Of course one company may be a lot more efficient than another and have lower overhead. But, I personally do not think this should be much of a factor. The log price of ipe or other species is the determining factor on the end price of the product. We use cubic meters here instead of board feet. And, the normal yield on ipe logs converted into deck is 4 m3 of logs for 1 m3 of finished deck. As log prices have increased so have the price of export ipe deck.

The export price of ipe deck has increase about 33 percent in the past 4 years, in US dollars.

dk

quote" Of course one company may be a lot more efficient than another and have lower overhead "quote

I've never bought the "We have lower overhead and therefore sell for less close" from any suppliers.
Every supply business with a warehouse, product, and hands for pulling, delivering, and shipping has high overhead due to this.

Judging by the BuildDirect website I just viewed I'm more than certain that they're a brokerage house with little to no overhead. They take your order and then place that order with a vendor for drop shipping direct to the end user. This cuts overhead BIGTIME.

It's good for the buyer if the order came as purchased with no problems on quantity count or quality of the product. If you encounter a problem with either of these things it becomes doubly difficult to achieve resolution because your seller won't extend you the credit due until he's received it from his supplier. Many times you'll never see the credit because the shipper already made his count for the packing list and shipped you the product.
Whether you liked the product or not it was shipped and signed for by you when the delivery driver dropped off the shipment.
By utilizing your credit card your able to retain the funds from the seller until your satisfied.

I pay more for almost all the product I purchase annually just so I can have a local supply house to hold accountable. The only items I purchase through brokers are rebar, PVC plumbing pipe, electrical conduit, and THHN (wire).

I'm curious, how large of a deck are you planning to build and how much coin will you save by purchasing through Builddirect?

See Ya,
Kelly

Kelly,
My deck will be 1,100 sqft. Builddirect said that they guarantee that 95% of the lift would be premium grade. When asked if I needed to buy more than a half lift but not anough to buy another complete lift they said that after I purchase the minimum order which is a half lift, I could specify on how many boards extra that I would like to add to my order. The price increases for those extra boards to $1.73 instead of $1.61. sHe said that their guys hand pick the extra boards from an opened lift to add to my order which make me think that it is done onsight. They also stated that they are a wholesaler and they get the Ipe straight from the port in Florida.

To be honest that almost sounds to good to be true i agree with every thing that John had said with being close to the source my Ipe guys at IpeDepot.com tell me that the owner of the company makes frequent trips down to South America they also tell me that if the price seems to good to be true chances are it is and the material will always speak for its self and its true Advantage Trim and Lumber with my main sales man John always getting me the material I need and quickly (There in Buffalo NY and im In SOCAL 4 days) at a good price and an amazing product. So be carefull read this fourm there are companys (good companys) always getting praise

This is an intersting subject. I think that it may help if you consider the going export price for 1 x 6 ipe decking from Brazil. These prices are pretty much the same for everyone. Some companies have suppliers that charge a bit more and others a bit less. I would say it is safe to say that the price FOB Amazon ports is around 1,300 USD per cubic meter on an average (and this may even be on the low side today due to the undervaluation of the US dollar). If this were converted into linear feet for 1 x 6 4/4 material (.019 mm x .150 mm x .300 mm) it would run 1.11 USD per linear foot. Then you would have to add shipping cost (ocean freight), USA port costs, import borkerage costs, delivery to the destination warehouse cost and then handling, warehousing, and administration costs for the importer. If you add all these costs up I think you would find that the average pricing in the market provides the direct importer with enough margin to run his business and that their prices are pretty fair. Now, if the company you buy from is not a direct importer their costs would be greater. I have no basis to say if one company in the States is better or not. I would only venture to say that those which have a proven track record and can back up their material would be the best choice. What I can say as stated above is that the cost of the decking when it leaves Brazil is pretty much the same for everyone.

John,

It doesn't do any good to look at logs. What is important is that the importer works with someone who correctly grades the material they buy. Good logs give better yield for the sawmill, but that does not mean the buyer well get better deck boards. Along from the quality of the deck blanks the manufacturer uses is the quality of the milling to arrive at the finished product is key. And, then the proper grading done to make sure that only meeting the specs placed on the order are met.

dk

I am sorry I made an error in my calculation. The decking boards are really 5 1/2 inches wide, or milled to 140 mms in width (so that would be 019 mm x 140 mm x 300 mm or 3/4 in x 5 1/2 in x 12 in. making 1 linear foot). This means that one linear board foot would come out to 1.03 per linear foot instead of the price I mentioned above.

High Don!! good to see ya Man!! Thanks for keeping me straight on that.Good info as usuall. J

I can't really comment on BuildDirect, but I can say that on my order of ~1500 sq. feet of 1x6 Ipe (plus misc. pieces for benches, fascia, etc.), that George at East Teak was willing to exchange AT NO COST every single piece of wood that was damaged by the shippers or that had milling defects (not too many, maybe 25 boards between the two).. with no pictures, no hassle, and no attitude. It actually took us 3 shipments to get everything all worked out ... but I could not be happier with after sales support (before sales support was also awesome).

I can't think of anything worse than paying all that money for the Ipe and then having it show up damaged and be stuck with it.

My 2 cents ...
Birgit

Birgit,

Thanks for the reply.

I think this statement really sums up your purchasing experience;
quote" with no pictures, no hassle, and no attitude. It actually took us 3 shipments to get everything all worked out .. "quote.

This sums up the biggest differences between dealing with a corporate broker and dealing with an independent businessman.

Note, I'm not knocking BuyDirect.com.
Rather, in my earlier reply I was pointing out my perception of them solely based on what I viewed on their website.

See ya,
Kelly