Finishing Touch Hardwood Deck Designs

If you think that you want full length boards to avoid seams between the ends of your boards, you may want to consider some other options. Maybe it’s the rot on the ends of the boards you noticed when you took apart your old pressure treated (PT) deck that you’re trying to avoid on your new deck design. Premium hardwood ipe’, cumaru, garapa, jatoba, massaranduba and tigerwood decking is very hard and will NOT rot. Sealing the ends of the boards with wax emulsion during construction prevents end checking (cracking) too. So, seams between the ends of boards will not result in the rot that occurs on PT decks.

Getting past the concern about boards rotting on the ends allows for some interesting deck design and money saving opportunities. You can save money designing your deck allowing seams because fewer long boards 12’ and longer are milled and imported than shorter boards. By mixing your lengths with as little as one third of your lengths less than 12’, you can save up to 20% on the cost of your boards. I know that got your attention.

Borders and angled layouts are popular design features but other layouts can provide interesting deck designs leaving no seams without paying extra for long boards. This first design using different species of decking nicely breaks up a long deck that might otherwise look like a bowling alley. The 2^nd design also uses different species and shorter boards in the middle. The section in the middle can be moved to the border to accent a doorway too.

You can also make your decking look like plank flooring by easing the ends of your deck boards. This is done by quickly rounding over the top edge of the ends to match the already eased edges as you install them. This actually accents the end joints and makes them match the edges. Here are two photos of beautiful jobs done by Atlanta contractor using eased ends.

While cumaru rosa, tigerwood, massaranduba and garapa are very consistent in color from board to board, ipe’ boards have more variety. If you install full length boards with a lot of variety, you may cause a “striped” effect. This is easily broken up using eased edges with board joints. This is especially noticeable on smaller or T&G decks. A damaged edge on a board leads to the loss of the entire board on decks designed with full length boards while decks with planned seams can easily use them by cutting out the damaged section. The ends of the boards in the photo below have been eased to match the edges of the divider board. They go together much better than if the square end butted up to the eased edge.

Use seams to enhance the beauty of your deck, create interesting deck designs, utilize hardwoods more responsibly and SAVE MONEY when building your hardwood deck. All of the comments and suggestions here focus on the use of ipe’, cumaru, massaranduba, garapa and tigerwood decking and don’t apply to composite and PT decking.

This compilation of feedback from contractors and professional experience was provided by Brazilian Wood Depot.

Deck Board Thickness And Strength

The Ideal Deck Board Thickness depends on the hardness and bending strength of the material. Pressure treated (PT) pine and cypress, composite and redwood are readily available in 5/4 x 6” boards because this is the thickness needed for building strong decks with joists that are 16” apart – on center (O.C), an industry standard. Cedar is available in 5/4 x 6 and also 2 x 6 boards. Cedar is quite a bit softer than the others mentioned. So some folks want a thicker board. None of these boards are purchased in 1 x 6 dimensions as deck boards because they simply would not be firm enough to build a deck the doesn’t flex.

Brazilian Deck Boards, on the other hand, are most often sold in 1 x 6 dimensions. Brazilian deck boards are six to ten times harder than cedar and three to four times harder the PT and composite material. So, it is understandable that Brazilian ipe decking boards are much firmer than any other commonly available deck material even when they are 75% as thick as most other deck boards. Folks first comparing the attributes of Brazilian ipe decking boards to other materials available often price 5/4 x 6 lumber but this is not a good performance comparison. 1 x 6 Brazilian ipe decking boards are firmer, last longer and build a stronger deck than every other commonly used deck material. A lumber importer that is commonly asked about this comparison made this video, which clearly depicts the strength comparison between Brazilian ipe decking 5/4 and 4/4 thick boards.  His conclusion from this study is that the difference in deflection between a 1 x 6 deck board and a 5/4 x 6 board is only 1 mm or 1/24^th”. This is a 300 pound man standing on only ONE board. Because of the size of his footprint, this man would normally be standing on at least two boards. This minor deflection emphasizes the fact that 1 x 6 dimensions for Brazilian ipe decking boards is ample.

Joist Spans can be adjusted to add more strength and reduce flex on a deck. Adding a few extra joists to make the joist spans 12” rather than 16” adds quite a bit of strength and firmness to a deck – MUCH more than using 5/4 x 6 boards. Adding more joists also costs a lot less money than paying for thicker Brazilian ipe decking boards. Adding joists to make smaller joist spans does NOT make all decks firmer. Composite decking material manufactured with plastic and no wood fillers sags between the joists over time no matter how close the joist spans are. The sag is reduced but they still sag. Reducing joist spans for PT and cedar decks will improve the firmness of the deck but will not increase the life of the decking, which is the weaker attribute.

More comparisons at CompositeDecking.ME

Courtesy Brazilian Wood Depot