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New Decking - Hard wood or soft wood?

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  • 21-11-2004 9:55pm
    #1
    elsie737
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭


    I am finishing off a recent extension to the house and am looking at sticking some decking out the back of the house. It'll be about 3m by about 9m long with about 6m if handrails/spindles. Anyway the builder has said that he can do it using some softwood type decking which is better than the hard wood type as he has seen that cracking in previous projects. Others have said that the hardwood version is the only way to go as the softwood decking is useless.
    Anyone out there with experience of hard or soft wood types for decking and where is the best place to get it?
    Thanks


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    #2
    samo
    Registered Users Posts: 2,156 ✭✭✭samo


    Hi, I've got hardwood decking in my garden, its an exotic hardwood called bankerai and got it from bearfoot marketing in Parkwest industrial estate. It was fitted by boyfriend as he is a carpenter and he did his homework by all accounts before choosing it so can certainly get any info you may want. The softwood from what i do know although tough retains water a lot more which I think long term affects the lifesopan of it. Cedarwood is meant to be the best but stuff we got is 'MEANT' to be more durable again but then it depends do you want a lifespan of say 10 years or 20 years!

    The softwood type is much cheaper and does the job grand as relatives have it and 2 years on looks grand and hasnt been given that much TLC to be honest by them and you can get tanalised with a type of stain to mimic cedarwood.

    It really depends on your budget and what kind of lifespan you want the project to have i guess, sorry i'm not a huge help but like I say boyfriend is the expert and he's not into boards I'm afraid!!


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    #3
    beolight
    Registered Users Posts: 624 ✭✭✭beolight


    hardwood definetely

    your builder obviously doesnt fancy the extra work involved with hardwood.

    i just pulled a softwood deck that was part of house when i bought it 3 years ago and even though the wood was tannalised and i put protective sealer on it after a year this wood was drenched right throughout and it a lot of it came apart when pulling it up

    the chippie putting down the new hardwood deck reckoned it took him an extra day to do the job simply because it was hardwood but he was well impressed with it and also looks a hundred times better than a softwood deck.

    my advise pay the extra 5/10 euros per sq metre its well worth it. check out mulveys in ranelagh they are distributors for a range of cedar decking products


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