Mark18PLL
Established Member
Hi, I am replacing my decking and undecided which wood to use, i thought about Siberian larch or red cedar. What are the thoughts or is their anything else to consider apart from composite?
Thanks
M
Thanks
M
Thanks for the replies, i will have a look at that. We also want to clad a retaining wall with 2x1 strips, can you get Balau for this or would one of the other two look ok if mixing together?
Cheers
I used that for our decking. It is made about 25 km from us so we got it straight from the mill.The other product to look at for the wall cladding is Thermowood
Where did you buy the yellow balau from?
Thanks mark
I used that for our decking. It is made about 25 km from us so we got it straight from the mill.
The advantage of Thermowood (for me at least) was that it is long-lasting without needing any finish to be applied (and re-applied, and re-applied ad nauseum). At a previous house we had a decking that needed to be re-treated every year ideally, every 2 years as a minimum, but I don't know if that was down to our climate. Anyway, our Thermowood decking has had no treatment at all, ever, and I like that.
There are 3 downsides that I am aware of:
First, the colour. It starts off a lovely warm brown colour but if you want it to stay that way you would have to treat it with varnish or something. I haven't done that so it has faded to a grey colour. I knew that would happen and I don't mind it but I think few would claim it is an attractive colour and I imagine it could turn some people off the product.
Second, there is a significant loss of strength compared to untreated wood.This did not matter for our decking but keep it in mind for anything structural.
Third, the heat treatment seems to rip the guts out of the wood. Again, not important for our decking but it is the opposite of close-grained and I think would be horrible for joinery work.
I've done two decks with yellow Balau and have been very pleased with both.
Whatever you choose I very much recommend that you buy decking with a ribbed surface.
While a smooth surface looks nice, it becomes lethally slippery in the winter months due to green algae and other such unwelcome deposits.
Obviously, water freezes in the cold and this does no favours in the winter months on smooth decking either.
Everybody has their preferences but the ribbed don’t look pleasing to my eye and as long as you give the deck a clean in late Autumn then there is no issue with algae.
We used a sustainable hardwood called ipe. It's super, very tough; not ribbed so it needs spreading to clear algae to reduce winter slippiness
Hmm that's a bit worrying. We aim to use only sustainable.
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