Anyone...anyone??? Bueller?

Jason

I suspect the effect you're looking for will be the governing factor, rather than the durability of the material. I say this because we have a covered deck on the north side of our house -- made from pressure treated hemlock 2x6 with 1/8" gaps, coated with semi-transparent Sikkens Cetol SRD, nearly 3 years old. It looks like new. The south side of the house has a partly covered veranda made from the same material and with the same coating on it. Some of the deck boards on the exposed parts have warped and twisted, pulled a few nails, and it needed to be refinished this past summer. But the covered areas are nearly as fresh as the covered deck on the north side.

A few qualifiers -- we don't have a dog, and aren't hard on our deck. We also don't get a lot of sun or extreme cold -- climate is like Seattle's.

Hey! Thanks for the reply!

If we *do* go with a T&G product, availability is limited to Doug Fir, Spruce, or Ipe for real wood, or one of the composites like Timbertech.

But as you alluded to, we in fact do have a dog, as well as two high-energy kids. The dog particularly would absolutely destroy either DFir or Spruce, now that I think of it.

More and more, it looks like it'll be *some* tropical hardwood, either in T&G or regular deck form.

The climate is a consideration here, too, but the worst it'd probably ever see is the occasional snow drift or sideways-blown rain - not much in the way of sun, being as it's on the north side of a two-story house. :)

Thanks again!
Jason