DeckMasters installs around 90 decks a year 3/4 x6'' Ipe is used as decking on 80% of my projects fastened to joists 16'' on center with construstion adhesive and two 1 5/8''stainless steel square drive trim head screws per joist using more fasteners is not going to help secure the decking. This being said I am at a slight loss understanding why 3/4 ipe is too thin for decking. Could you enlighten me please Trouble?? John

Would love to see the photos, but when I click on it the only thing I get is a cat food commercial. I'm fairly new to this, what am I doing wrong? We are about to embark on a deck redo also and have looked extensively at Azek. I'm going to do the floor in Acacia color and the railing in Kona (because there is no railing in Acacia). To tie it together I'm going to have the second board in from the outside be in Kona and the Kona color railing will go on the outside board which will be the Acacia.....just trying to change it up a bit. Your comments are letting us know we are on the right track....especially about the ketchup and wine as we entertain outside a lot. Thanks for the informative post.

Deck guy finally came and met with us this morning. He sounds like he wants to fix the lower deck, but it isn't clear that he knows what to do. We've got him to see that he needs to raise the deck up off the ground, so there is some room for cross-ventilation. (As an aside, this deck gets full sun exposure, which is great for us but not so great for any wood sitting there).... We suggested, when he wasn't really coming up with anything, raising the deck up the equivalent of one step, and then adding that step back by the pool, and also pulling the deck back away from the pool. So there are still problems: 1. he says he doesn't want to go with face fasteners/IPE plug combination, because it won't let the wood move - but then he says he wants to fasten the IPE by running a bead of PL400 (some kind of glue??) and then just use a trim gun to kind of keep the wood in place while the glue is drying??? Somehow, I just don't get why this would be better than face fastening... 2. he did at one point mention something that sounded like John's floor vents - that he had used before somewhere else - which begs the question of why in the world he didn't put those vents in this framing that he had sitting right on the ground..... aaggghhhhhh 3. if we go with step down to the pool, then is there some kind of vent we can put in the facing that goes from the horizontal part of the step to the 'ground', to get ventilation that direction? sorry I don't know the technical terms for the parts of the step.... 4. since we are doing this over, we should get the ventilation right - have cross-ventilation, shouldn't we? we had to push him for that. and shouldn't we go with face fastening/IPE plugs rather than gluing??? 5. he wants to go with 1x4 instead of 1x6 boards, but I said that wouldn't decrease any cupping, but just make it harder to see any cupping... (we are talking about new wood as we can't reuse anything down there now.... zapped by the combination of no cross-ventilation, hot sun and EBTY clips not holding.... Comments are welcome. He's coming back to me on Wednesday with his proposal for what he wants to do.... I would like to know what we should tell him is okay and what is not.... Sure wish one of you guys were closer to Fairfield County, CT.... Then I could really find out exactly what we should do....

It's about .30 per LF for milling around here. You could get 1x4 or 1x6 ipe T&G too, call Fernando @ Austin Wholesale Decking, he can help you. 512-834-1200 Al