IPE is the best bang for the buck ... we use it on the west coast in coastal applications... Great gorgeous wood..

IPE or Cumaru. I've got samples of both, Cumaru is fairly new thus less costly. Go to advantagelumber.com and they'll send you free samples, I would also suggest the 5/4 deckboard. We are using Cumaru.

Following. I'm in Portland, Oregon and having trouble making up my mind on decking.

We used Cumaru. We've only had the deck completed for about a month but so far we love it.

lakeerieamber, Do you have any pics? We're trying to decide on material for a screened porch. I love ipe, but price is high. Don't know anyone in Massachusetts who has used cumaru. Interested to learn more about it.

Can anyone who has used the Cumaru compare cost to cedar decking? Also what is the required upkeep? We were going to do a treck deck but cost is a deferent so currently Have budgeted cedar but upkeep is intense.

Karen, As a life long resident of Massachusetts (Cape Cod).... Cumaru will perform admirably. You will have no problem with it whatsoever.

Alison, price depends on what grade of wood you're considering. Premium Brazilian Cumaru will probably be a lot cheaper than Clear Grade Western Red Cedar.

In general we recommend 5/4x6 as the best dimension for Cumaru decking and siding. Here are some photos from a previous customer. Also if you go to our video gallery and watch "Solus Spotlight: FSC Cumaru Deck" you will see a lot more of the backyard. The Florida climate is actually a lot harder on wood than The Massachusetts climate. https://www.soluslumber.com/gallery-how-to-videos/

I live in Vancouver. OP said Oregon I thought. Similar wetter climate. What is the upkeep?

Sorry! Forgot to respond to that portion of your query. The answer is minimal depending on whether you want to maintain the natural color or let it weather to a silver/grey patina. This photo basically shows what it will look like depending on which path you choose. Neither will really affect the lifespan of the wood . If you let it go silver (cedar will change to the same silver so at this point it is about product longevity and cumaru will outlast cedar) then the answer is nothing. Generally just keeping it swept clean of dirt and debris. If you want to maintain the natural wood color then frequency of reapplication is dictated by how much sun it is exposed to. In south Florida once every year and a half or so. Oregon every 2 years ? Regardless, it's not hard to apply at all . Clean the surface, roll on the oil, wait a bit, and wipe off the excess. It's truly that simple. Again, if you go to our video gallery and watch the "How to Oil video you'll see how simple it is https://www.soluslumber.com/gallery-how-to-videos/

Easier to oil than stain cedar deck?

I can't imagine any easier or harder. Probably about the same.

And will add in Massachusetts our porches are Western Red Cedar weathered silver and haven't done anything to them in 20 years. Literally. and they look great.

Alison,,I have similar woods in my yard. They turn an ugly shade of gray if you don't put on a UV protectect. some people like this patina. I don't.

Penofin has a marine oil or you could use a spar varnish w/UV. it will need to be done yearly. and it has to have the UV protectant. that's what does the damage (or patina)

if you do nothing, this is what it will look like within a year or two.

or w/the UV oil/ top coat urethane.

and yes, it can be restored.

Beth H. - what decking material do you like and recommend? I'm at a point where I just want someone to tell me what to do :-)

haha. well have taking care of my redwood deck, and having to re-coat it once a year, we went w/the composite.

this is what we had, the redwood. got tired of it looking like hell so I stained it w/the blue decking stain. 5 years?! hah. 9 months was all I got out of it. Scraped it. put in the gray composite. (a good brand). stripped the bridge back to natural redwood and used a good spar urethane varnish to coat it. used some other redwood boards around the composite decking as a border. the other reason we replaced was a lot of the redwood got termite infested. not supposed to, but they did.

before. blue stain. redwood slat fence was coated w/UV varnish as well as the bridge

this decking has been in for over 2 years and still looks great. I love it.

Agree with Beth. Can't go wrong with Penofin either!

for this bridge, I used Epifanes in a gloss. this gets tons of sun and water so I wanted something heavy. gave it 3 coats. it's going on 3 years now and really needs to be done again.

Beth - Thank you so much!

I keep going back and forth between composite and not-composite. TimberTech seems to be a leading choice here in Portland. I found a finish I liked, but got concerned about it getting scratched or damaged; as capped wood composite the color doesn't go all the way through. I'll revisit composites.

that's the name! was trying to remember what we got. the lumber yard had this decking on clearance because they only had a small lot leftover. we got it almost half price. stuff is not cheap! it does get a little warm on bare feet, but it's not like we're out here barefoot in the summer! I'm just glad I don't have to stain it or worry about termites anymore.

I got the gray because we plan on painting the house a cream color and doing the overhang in black or a deep navy.

It's looks like such a beautiful place to hang out and relax. Nicely done.

I think the expense of TimberTech and the capped-composite scratch-concerns thing sent me down the real wood path, but I have to be realistic. I'm just not going to put porch maintenance on the top of the to-list. It needs to look nice all the time because I'm not just putting on the back porch, but the front porch as well.

Anyhoo. Thanks everyone and sorry about the thread hijack!

Morning Benje,

You said "It needs to look nice all the time". Here's an additional consideration and an argument for going with hardwoods.

No matter what material you choose and put down, the sun will fade and weather it. Period. There is no composite product on the market that won't fade over time. The best it's ever going to look is the day you install it and every day that passes after it will look worse and worse. Once it has faded, there is nothing you can ever do to bring the original color back. If you choose wood and 30 years from now you decide you want the natural color of the wood again, all you have to do is give it a light sanding, apply the oil, and it will look as it did when you first installed it 30 years before. Additionally with wood if it gets stained from something (hot dog grease, sunscreen, etc) being spilled on it.... a little sanding and it's fixed. That also can not be done with composite. Finally, when either have outlived their useful lives, and the wood we've discussed will last longer, the wood is 100% biodegradable and will break down organically in a landfill. Composite will be lingering for years.

Yes, we are biased towards wood, but we do also sell Deckorators Vault Decking. If you want a product that will last the longest, look the best, and is environmentally sustainable..... it's wood.

very good points Solus. I love natural wood. I really do. I don't even mind doing the work. But I live in a very rich termite habitat. I was told our city was actually built on termite mounds. great. I have a yearly termite inspection and touch ups around the house, just to keep them at bay. I was surprised that after only a few years, they got the redwood. maybe the ipe, african teak is different, but the cost was 3x as much. I just didn't want to have one other maintenance issue to worry about. hopefully this deck will be around for long time.

Yikes! We have a ton of termites and bugs here in south Florida as well and we have yet to see neither an Ipe nor Cumaru deck affected by them. Assuming your referring to Iroko not sure how well it would hold up. It's a very hard wood historically used in ship building, but we don't see much of it getting used as decking. If you don't go for one of these hardwoods then yes the yearly inspection and periodic treating of the perimeter with chemicals to keep them at bay will be required and usually does do the trick. In a previous thread we discussed Janka Hardness which essentially measure how hard a wood specie is relative to other species. In short, it measures the force required to push a steel ball into the wood to a depth of half the ball's diameter. Redwood has a janka hardness of 450. Ipe is about 3,680 and Cumaru 3,540. Ipe also has a class A fire rating, same as concrete, which is great for anyone living in forest fire prone areas like Southern California. Regardless, I hope there's not a termite out there that can manage to get through that or we're all in trouble!

Solus,,yes, I'm sure those other two would do great out here.

have you heard of Iroku? I believe it's on par w/Cumaru and Ipe,, not quite as expensive. We used that for the other orchid wall. Built it almost 10 years ago and it has held up beautifully. Hard as nails too.

this was when it was first done

and this pic was taken 2 years ago. I've only oiled it once. It doesn't get direct rays from the sun, so that has helped to keep it nice looking. It does get sprayed w/water daily, and doesn't seem to bother it.

We actually do a lot of work with the shipbuilding community where Iroko gets gets used the most, but don't regularly sell it outside of that community. Here's a project we did recently supplying all the frames for the rebuilding of the Ernestina Morrissey which is the Official Tall Ship for the State of Massachusetts. (Frames here were actually Southern Live Oak) You're absolutely right. Iroko comes from Africa and is very hard and performs very well in wet environments. It's Janka hardness is about 1,260. We actually just quoted 3,000 sq/ft of 5/4x4 Iroko Decking from one of our mills in Africa. Makes us incredibly nervous as it's not the most stable in that application which is why it doesn't get used all that often. Customer is deciding between that and 5/4x4 Garapa which has a Janka of about 1,650 and the colors are very similar (Garapa is actually less expensive).

That aside we LOVE your orchid wall. So glad it worked out so well for you. The size of the pieces you were using and with the location of the installation it's not surprising at all it's held up as well as it has.

Karen, these were taken as the main deck was finished last July. We have railings, steps, a patio, and a yard now. We oiled it last summer and are hoping to wait until summer of 2019 to oil it again. We shall see how it looks this summer!

SolusLumber,,,wow. those boards are incredible! I also have some African Teak I used in the yard and that has been thrashed by water and sun. It warped a bit as I have it as a path walkway. I can sand it and apply a new oil coat and it perks up. I just love utilizing wood around the house w/plants and such. I didn't know there was that much difference in the Janka rating. I'll have to make my next wall our of the ipe or cumaru. That stuff is so damn hard to cut w/the saw though!

Did you see my teak shelves I made for my bathroom? lol. as you can see, I'm a bit of a plant freak.

As you know, teak isn't cheap. at over $30 a BF, you better make sure you don't screw up while cutting!

raw,

a coat of penofin oil in the marine finish

and up and running in the shower!

following....

I had this dilemma over 3 years ago when I built my 600SQFT deck. I took many things into consideration and tried to figure out what was most important to me. I wanted something that was low maintenance, Very sturdy, and durable.

Hardwoods are beautiful but are super high maintenance. Look at beth oiling it every year. Screw that. Pass.

Composite is virtually no maintenance but it feels cheap cause its basically plastic with a treated MDF center. If your composite deck is getting battered by the sun all day, you can actually feel the heat it produces radiating into the house. Good luck walking on it bare feet. Its also very very flimsy. I pulled out a 16 foot piece holding it 5 feet from the ground and the middle sagged so far it touched the ground. Pass

Ceder was a very very close contender. A huge plus about ceder is that it acts as a natural repellent against bugs. Its also lasts the longest out of all of the other materials. The deck I was rebuilding was ceder and it was 40 years old and still could have been repaired but I wanted to change it. One big downfall about cedar for me is that its soft. I have a lot of furniture on my deck now and if it was cedar it would have beat to hell by now with dents and splinters. So pass

I ended up using treated pine. But not the cheap "deck" boards they sell. I went with full blown 2x6's. I could park a truck on my deck. lol I stained it with a semi-transparent "cedar" color by sherwin williams about 3 years ago and its still going strong. I used all stainless steel screws and hardware. I also put joist tar tape stuff on the joists. (forgot what it was called). So the joists are protected and no squeaking of the boards.

Second pic was right before last fall. I built the deck and shed 3 years ago. I built the deck, then built the shed, then stained the deck. I haven't touched it since then. Just put away tiki torches, furniture, ect. before winter. I think using a good stain is key. I'm in west Chicago suburbs so we have pretty harsh winters and pretty hot and humid summers.

Morning Beth,

Love the bathroom wall! Super cool! Just very cool and super interesting.(Japanese garden seat is an interesting twist) Next time we have a bathroom to redo you're getting the call for the design! Here's an outdoor shower that one of our customer's built using 5/4x6 FSC Cumaru Shorts and last photo is a door we built using genuine Burmese Teak. It's a lovely wood and I if I remember correctly we were around $24 bd/ft for 8/4. Teak can be very expensive depending on the sizes you're using and the old adage of "measure twice cut once" could be upped to 3/1 because mistakes are costly. Yes, as you well know, these woods are super hard, but don't require any special saws to cut them. Carbide tipped blades and a little bit of patience and it will go right through. It does not cut super quick and easy like a piece of PT.

Morning Tony!

Welcome to the conversation and so glad your happy with your PT deck. It looks fantastic! There are few lovelier places to be than outdoors in your neck of the woods during the summer (Go Badgers!) Few points of note.

Hardwoods require no more nor less maintenance than PT. Period. The choice is one about usable lifespan, pricing, aesthetics, and the environment.

Beth oils it because she chooses to oil it not because she has to. The "maintenance" is an aesthetic choice and that's all. We've known individuals in Wisconsin and Chicago and Buffalo who go years without oiling their Hardwood decks and the color doesn't fade. (We're sure we already posted it here in this thread, but just in case we didn't, to see how easy it is to Oil a deck go to our video gallery and watch our "How To Oil" video https://www.soluslumber.com/gallery-how-to-videos/ )The main factor is the amount of sunlight it is exposed to as opposed to snow and rain and cold. If you place your respective woods next to each other and wait 25 years one will still look great and the the other will need to be replaced. Ipe was used on the Coney Island boardwalk and was down for roughly 75 years untreated before it was replaced. Contractor who won the bid kept the reclaimed material, surface planed it, and resold it. We personally have a boardwalk in Massachusetts using 2x6 PT boards, it is 20 years old, hasn't been oiled with any preservative, had to flip the boards because they got too bad to walk on and now the second side is done and desperately needs to be replaced as their useful life is over. Our porches are 1x4 Cedar left totally untreated and they're still doing great.

Composite ( there are so many different kinds that now fall under that heading but too early in a Monday morning to open the can of worms on that discussion), but agree they do get hot to walk on and you raised a great point about the sagging. With composite we do not EVER receimmend a 24" OC center joist span for this very reason. 16"OC is the absolute minimum we recommend independent of what a manufacturer may say and we're not opposed to 12" OC depending on board size and what you plan to put in top of it.

Very smart move on the stainless steel screws (304-305ss will do the trick)

Joist tape is never a bad idea. It will help protect your joist from water sitting in them and rotting the wood. Some water will still get in around the screws and that's where the problems will start, but the tape will definitely help mitigate that.

@soluslumber, Thanks! I think I'll have minimal issues with the screws. Notice you don't see any on the top. I came up with a clever trick installing them. Since I used thicker 2x6's and not the thin "deck" boards. I had plenty of meat on the sides of the boards. I made a spacer out of an old heavy duty bed frame to space out the boards evenly using the spacer and clamps. Then I installed the deck like you would a hardwood floor. Starting from one end laying them one after another. I used very long SS screws and drove them into the side on an angle where they would come out the bottom at least half way, maybe more, under the board, into the joist. I got the idea when I was ripping out the 40 year old deck. But they used really long nails. When I was done there were a few really warped boards I installed so I had to drive a few screws from the other side but not much. Maybe 10 screws. Just stand on it to push it down and drive one home. The gap was just barley enough to do so. You do need to put 2 screw on the top but only at the ends, and thats it. The railing pretty much covers it. The installation was a little more time consuming but the results are awesome. No ugly screw heads and I didn't waste money on those dumb clips you can install. I hear those break off eventually anyway. Now people here are gonna start copying me lol.

Hey Tony, Sounds like a well built deck and apparently genius does strike twice occasionally! Your install method sounds EXACTLY like the Camo Fastener method which we also sell. https://www.soluslumber.com/shop/supplies/deck-fasteners/camo-fasteners/ Here's a video where you can see them doing exactly what it sounds like you're suggesting and they have a special tool that again, from the sounds of it, works like your bedframe. Side note, with PT you don't need to predrill the holes but with hardwoods you do. Here's a video showing Camo Fasteners being installed. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B2HqHGLCSqw

You mentioned hidden fastener clips breaking off..... we sell a ton of them and have yet to receive a single complaint about them breaking off. When choosing a hidden fastener it's important to select one that has a stainless steel plate built into the clip that the screw passes through. We recommend the Eb-Ty Clip for Ipe. https://www.soluslumber.com/shop/supplies/deck-fasteners/ebty-fasteners/ If you go to our video gallery under the "Deck Building" section there's a great video on installing hidden fasteners https://www.soluslumber.com/gallery-how-to-videos/ 

Tony,,nice deck.

SolusLumber,,,I'm in love w/that door and the shower! beautiful backyard space. that wood looks just like the Iroku I have. You did a great job on that one.

thanks for the compliment. I also incorporated a teak bench, but have since put in a makeup area in that space.