Hi guys, thought I'd get your opinions. I've built many decks with different composites and also with sunwood (never ever use sunwood, it sucks). Each of the composities I've used in the past have been recalled or are involved in class action lawsuits. I'd prefer to use composite or vinyl or pvc before I resort to real wood to cut down on maintenance and for the joy of using dimensionally perfect materials. My problem is I can't seem to find a product that should stand the test of time. I know cedar is good for about 20 years with regular maintenance. I've never built a deck with cedar and am not opposed to it, just prefer to have something I can power wash without digging out the grain. We have lots of moss/mildew here in WA state and you have to be really careful if you power wash real wood or you destroy it... unless you go with heart woods but those are prohibitively expensive from what I've seen.
Does anyone know of a good composite or other material that has promise?
FFR MK3.1 7075 Delivered: 10/13/09, First start 2/28/11, gokart 10 minutes later
408w carbed, TKO 600, IRS (3.27 with Torsen), dual roll bars, halibrand replicas, SS side pipes, rivet on hood scoop, SAI mod
Satisfied customer of: Factory Five Racing, Mike Forte, Breeze Automotive, Whitby Motors, Herb's Door Panels, Cobra Heat, Stewart Transport, Wayne Presley (Very Cool Parts), North Racecars, and Finish Line
I just used Fiberon Horizons for the first time away from real wood. I did it in Ipe color with rosewood color borders. Quite happy with it. 20 year color guarantee.
Another vote for Ipe. It is extremely dense and I use a power washer on mine every year prior to oiling it. See here: Deck Cleaning Results
__________________
-Jeff
MKIII Delivered 4/05, Graduated 8/07, 351W, Carb, 3-link, 4x4's w/Gas-N Pipes, Disks, 15" Team III, T5Z, 3.55 Rear, Indigo Ink and Titanium by Ron Randall at Metal-Morphous
The Ipe is beautiful... just read up on it and I think I'm sold... 40 years without maintenance or 100 years with maintenance is perfect. And I can power wash it. Not a whole lot more expensive than composites.
Suggests 1x6 is about $2.85 per linear foot which is a bit more than the cost of composite. I could save substantially by using my bisquit jointer for the blind nailing rather than pay for the edge grooved material which is $3.59 per linear foot.
This might be doable if I can find some locally... not sure I want to order natural material being that I'll be a bit picky.
Ok, next question: Railing systems... what have you used? I like the TimberTech RadianceRail.
FFR MK3.1 7075 Delivered: 10/13/09, First start 2/28/11, gokart 10 minutes later
408w carbed, TKO 600, IRS (3.27 with Torsen), dual roll bars, halibrand replicas, SS side pipes, rivet on hood scoop, SAI mod
Satisfied customer of: Factory Five Racing, Mike Forte, Breeze Automotive, Whitby Motors, Herb's Door Panels, Cobra Heat, Stewart Transport, Wayne Presley (Very Cool Parts), North Racecars, and Finish Line
__________________
FFR 5353K,351/400hp,TKO 500, 3-link w/3.08 and Truetrac, Koni DA coilovers front and rear,APE hardtop,Forte front and VPM rear swaybars
FFR MK3.1 7075 Delivered: 10/13/09, First start 2/28/11, gokart 10 minutes later
408w carbed, TKO 600, IRS (3.27 with Torsen), dual roll bars, halibrand replicas, SS side pipes, rivet on hood scoop, SAI mod
Satisfied customer of: Factory Five Racing, Mike Forte, Breeze Automotive, Whitby Motors, Herb's Door Panels, Cobra Heat, Stewart Transport, Wayne Presley (Very Cool Parts), North Racecars, and Finish Line
I'm building 560 sq.ft. Ipe deck right now. Just received delivery of all the decking and railing materials from an online source that specializes in this material. Did quite a bit of comparison shopping before deciding to go this route. Queried a few different local places and ended up going with someone that specializes in this wood for both cost and quality reasons. No question in my mind that I have better quality lumber (at lower cost) than I could have gotten from local lumber yard. Not a single bad board in the lot. Also, a couple local places told me I could only get random length deck boards where as I wanted all 14' pieces (so will be no cutting or joints in deck).
I steered away from the hidden fastener clips for a few reasons...
expensive. In my case, would have added close to $500 to cost of deck vs. just trim head stainless screws (note that you must use stainless fasteners with ipe).
extremely difficult to replace individual board if necessary.
doesn't actually lock the decking down to the structure. My research (no first-hand experience) says that boards are more prone to cupping with these fasteners. Some of the hidden fastener clips I found recommend also gluing down the boards.
full length pre-grooved lumber can have edge cracked / broken off with ill placed high-heel. slot cut for each clip would eliminate this problem but would be way too much work.
Ended up with new Camo "hidden" deck fastening system ( CAMO | Hidden Deck Fastening System | Home ). Recommended to me by a local lumber yard that warned me against pre-grooved deck boards. Not perfectly hidden, but much less obvious than face screws. There's a special narrow gap version of the tool with 1/16" spacing (ipe should be gapped 1/16" based on my research), but very hard to find for some reason. Found it online somewhere...
Anyway, decking going down this coming weekend. When I get a chance, will post pictures and thoughts of the Camo fastening system.
I'm building 560 sq.ft. Ipe deck right now. Just received delivery of all the decking and railing materials from an online source that specializes in this material. Did quite a bit of comparison shopping before deciding to go this route. Queried a few different local places and ended up going with someone that specializes in this wood for both cost and quality reasons. No question in my mind that I have better quality lumber (at lower cost) than I could have gotten from local lumber yard. Not a single bad board in the lot. Also, a couple local places told me I could only get random length deck boards where as I wanted all 14' pieces (so will be no cutting or joints in deck).
I steered away from the hidden fastener clips for a few reasons...
expensive. In my case, would have added close to $500 to cost of deck vs. just trim head stainless screws (note that you must use stainless fasteners with ipe).
extremely difficult to replace individual board if necessary.
doesn't actually lock the decking down to the structure. My research (no first-hand experience) says that boards are more prone to cupping with these fasteners. Some of the hidden fastener clips I found recommend also gluing down the boards.
full length pre-grooved lumber can have edge cracked / broken off with ill placed high-heel. slot cut for each clip would eliminate this problem but would be way too much work.
Ended up with new Camo "hidden" deck fastening system ( CAMO | Hidden Deck Fastening System | Home ). Recommended to me by a local lumber yard that warned me against pre-grooved deck boards. Not perfectly hidden, but much less obvious than face screws. There's a special narrow gap version of the tool with 1/16" spacing (ipe should be gapped 1/16" based on my research), but very hard to find for some reason. Found it online somewhere...
Anyway, decking going down this coming weekend. When I get a chance, will post pictures and thoughts of the Camo fastening system.
I'd be very interested to hear how the Camo system worked on Ipe. I've used it for composite. I was unsure if it would split or otherwise be hard to use with Ipe.
FFR MK3.1 7075 Delivered: 10/13/09, First start 2/28/11, gokart 10 minutes later
408w carbed, TKO 600, IRS (3.27 with Torsen), dual roll bars, halibrand replicas, SS side pipes, rivet on hood scoop, SAI mod
Satisfied customer of: Factory Five Racing, Mike Forte, Breeze Automotive, Whitby Motors, Herb's Door Panels, Cobra Heat, Stewart Transport, Wayne Presley (Very Cool Parts), North Racecars, and Finish Line
Got a bit of decking installed this weekend. Camo system works great on Ipe. It's slow going, but screw holes are pretty much unnoticeable unless you're looking for them. Definitely need to pre-drill. I was confused at first as they call out 3/16" bit, which is slightly larger than size of screw head. Assumed that purpose of pre-drill was to drill all the way through the deck board. Not so. Bit depth is set to go only partly through deck board for sole purpose of countersinking head. Without the pre-drill, the stainless screws tend to break off before fully seated (don't ask me how I know). Screws still do the work of drilling the rest of the way through deck board. Really impressive how well the screws bore their way through the hardwood.
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