On just about every appointment I go on, we run into the discussion of the right wood to use. Pine, cedar, ipe, synthetic...fortunately, there are a lot of options out there today.
After having been in the industry for years now, I've worked with them all. They all seem to have their own strengths and weaknesses. Like a crazed scientist, I've been working on building the "perfect" wood for decks. It includes not only the material but the cut as well. This experimenting has led me to something I think will really take off...as an aesthetically pleasing and affordable material for homeowners and an easy material to work with for builders.
I'm calling it "Tailorwood". The material is #1DSS air dried pressure treated yellow pine or cedar, and, working with Norcross Building Supply, we've designed a cut that will make both applying it and drainage ideal. We recently built our first deck built solely with this Tailorwood and the results (particularly the response from the homeowner) has been great.
But I didn't mean for this post to be a commercial for this particular material. We also like (and will continue to promote) ipe, cedar, and pine. Ipe is a beautiful Brazilian hardwood that is incredibly strong and will transform over time from its original reddish-brown to an exquisite silver patina. Cedar is another popular wood, but like ipe, is generally more expensive. For less prominent areas where budget is a real concern, pine is just fine. It's still very durable. If you have a few projects as a homeowners, while it's nice to use the same material throughout, there's nothing that says you can't mix and match materials. I've worked with homeowners who have a very nice setup using a few different materials for different things.
