Greetings all!

My wife and I are about to put some decks on our house, and after much
research, we had pretty much enthusiastically decided to use ipe for
the deck boards. However, our builder just told us about something
called Tigerdeck (also known as goncalo alves) which appears to be
very similar to ipe, and yet our builder can get Tigerdeck for about
20% less than ipe.

Now we are wondering how Tigerdeck compares with Ipe -- any pros or
cons we should know about? Are they really just about the same
product? Does anyone in this newsgroup have any experience with
Tigerdeck that they would care to share? Does anyone in this
newsgroup have any experience with the use of this material as deck
boards?

Thanks!

Chuck

"Dolchas" wrote in message
m...
Greetings all!

My wife and I are about to put some decks on our house, and after much
research, we had pretty much enthusiastically decided to use ipe for
the deck boards. However, our builder just told us about something
called Tigerdeck (also known as goncalo alves) which appears to be
very similar to ipe, and yet our builder can get Tigerdeck for about
20% less than ipe.

Now we are wondering how Tigerdeck compares with Ipe -- any pros or
cons we should know about? Are they really just about the same
product? Does anyone in this newsgroup have any experience with
Tigerdeck that they would care to share? Does anyone in this
newsgroup have any experience with the use of this material as deck
boards?

Thanks!

Chuck

This may or not be pertinent but goncalo alves is a known as a strong
allergic sensitizer. In other words some people have an allergic reaction
(which I've heard compared to poison ivy) from contact with the wood. This
might matter if a sensitive person walked barefoot on the deck. If you do a
google search for "goncalo alves allergy" you will come up with plenty of
reference material.
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com