Decking which wood

Best to wear an N respirator and protect your skin when the dust flies. Sealing: After cutting a board to length, seal the end grain with a water-based wax sealant, such as Anchorseal, to prevent checking and splits near the ends. However you choose to attach hardwood decking, you'll need plenty of elbow grease and stainless-steel fasteners. Here are our picks for each method. The serrated head countersinks into all but ipe and is painted to hide the shine.

Simple to install, low cost, and easy to back out when replacing a board. The bit bores a stepped hole: one for the screw and one to accept a glued wood plug of the same species. Attractive finish; slow, multistep install. It slips into a grooved edge and guides angled pilot holes and screws through the groove and into the joist on one side only.

Doubles as a spacer. The jig directs screws at a consistent angle through both edges of the board and into the joist.

Buries the screwheads out of sight. Fast install, clean look. A finishing nailer set at psi shoots nails through 1 boards set in polyurethane adhesive. As beautiful as hardwoods are, ultraviolet light soon fades their vibrant color. To preserve it, you'll need to apply a high-quality UV-inhibiting penetrating oil specifically formulated for this dense material.

Hardwoods don't easily absorb stains or oils, so treat your deck like a giant piece of furniture. Starting with a clean, dry surface, brush on the finish and wipe off the excess with a clean rag. Reapply it once a year or whenever the gray starts to return. And if you neglect your deck and it goes gray, don't fret: Even after many years in the sun, the natural look can be restored by cleaning with oxygen bleach and then oiling. To clean a deck without damaging the wood, you need only three things: a pump sprayer to apply a wood cleaner that contains oxygen bleach, a soft-bristled brush, and a garden hose.

Watch him wash a deck in the video. Don't allow leaves, dog hair, and detritus to accumulate between the boards and promote rot. At least once a year, clear off the deck and give it a good sweeping and a light scrubbing with soap and water. These can grow on any surface but are easily kept in check with regular cleaning, using oxygen bleach and a soft-bristled brush.

Rinse with a garden hose and water. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

Wood is the original and traditional material used for decks. The Atlantic City Boardwalk—the first oceanside wood boardwalk in the United States—was made of wood, and, according to some studies, wood continues to be the top choice for most residential homeowners' deck projects.

Hardwoods—all woods, really—should be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Many softer woods pine, fir, and spruce, for example are susceptible to rot. Over time, even cedar and redwood can rot unless well maintained.

Hardwood floors have a natural warmth and feel, and some types of woods mainly softwoods can be an inexpensive decking material. Also known as composite, wood alternatives, or synthetic decking, wood-polymer composite has quickly become the fastest-growing decking material for residential use in the past dozen years.

Composite decking in darker shades can get very hot when exposed to the sun, which might make walking on it barefoot slightly painful. Composite decking is an environmentally friendly lumber alternative that combines plastic and wood fiber. Less durable woods, like Southern pine and Western fir, are treated with preservatives.

This makes them more resistant to the elements, rot, and insects. Chromated copper arsenate CCA is a wood preservative containing chromium, copper, and arsenic. Starting in the s, CCA was used to make pressure-treated lumber. Since , the pressure-treated wood industry discontinued the use of CCA for residential use. Here are the iroko decking timbers that we have in stock, ready for distribution right now. Often hailed as Brazilian teak, cumaru is one of the hardest woods available, making it resistant to rot, insect infestation and algae.

Often referred to as a budget decking option, garapa is recognised as being significantly less tough than the likes of ipe. Starting out a golden yellow colour, garapa matures to an amber glow with silver hightlights over time. While it is less tough, it is as stable as the likes of ipe. These things, together with its similar rot and insect resistance means that it is a good budget option for anyone seeking a decking option that may have a shorter lifespan than some of the other solutions.

Both are often lumped into the same category, but there are some differences. Redwood has more of a reddish tint to it while cedar is slightly more on the yellow side, though both woods age to a silvery shade overtime. Redwood boards are often smoother and come in clear grade, meaning boards the come from the durable heartwood of the tree, have a very faint wood grain and no knots.

Redwood is roughly 23 percent stronger than cedar, but both will still perform very well for the average residential deck. Plus cedar is often a bit less expensive than redwood. Both redwood and cedar are higher maintenance wood decking options. Tropical hardwoods, like Ipe, Cumaru, Tigerwood and Massaranduba, are stunning and a real luxury for any homeowner. Many consider these species to be the best deck wood. However, there are a few important issues with tropical wood species you should know.

First off, tropical hardwoods are going to be expensive, perhaps even 3x or more expensive than other hardwoods or softwoods. Secondly, they can be hard to source, especially when searching for a company the manages tropical hardwood forests in a responsible and sustainable manner. Deforestation is a huge concern with this type of wood and typically overseas suppliers do not have the same FSC and similar certifications as North American suppliers.

This means that much of the supply could be from sources that wreak havoc on forests that will take hundreds of years to regrow, which is why tropical hardwood decks are not sought after by anyone who seeks products that respect our ecosystem and treat it with care.

Tropical hardwoods are super dense, which makes them more durable than pressure treated wood, cedar and redwood, however they still require care in the form of sealing and other surface treatments. Modified wood was a huge technological advancement when it first came out and since has proven its worth time and time again.