I'm in the process of stripping Penofin from my cedar deck. Not the same thing as Penofin for hardwood but this may help. Deck in PNW. Penofin applied 5 years ago. Zero maintainance. The deck started looking pretty bad after 4 years but last summer I didn't have time to refinish it. Now in year 5, it looks real bad--dark gray and mildewed. I thought there was no finish left but it turns out the Penofin grayed and mildewed and there is quite a lot of finish left. Perhaps if it was washed once a year with a mildewicide it would be looking better. But lets be realistic, it had zero maintainance before, no reason to believe the deck fairys are going to come by and wash my deck for me. So I would say that with maitainence one could get 4 to 5 years in the PNW out of Penofin. When its time to refinish your deck, Penofin strips very easily with sodium hydroxide. On the downside is the smell. Very bad on a hot sunny day. The deck was unusable for the rest of the summer after I refinished it! I could still detect faint wiffs of the odor the next summer a year after it was applied. For this reason, I will not be using Penofin again.

When we were planning our deck about a year and a half ago, the (only) local supplier of exotic tropical hardwood decking had started to see a real issue in getting ipe. His price had jumped something like 40%, and he was expecting it to go up further. Supposedly he could have gotten more, but not from the mills he preferred, so the quality would have been less (more irregular dimensions, possibly not as well cured, more issues due to the way the wood was cut from the raw logs, whatever). Ipe has gotten really popular, and supposedly the quality mills in Brazil hadn't kept up with the relatively sudden surge in demand. (Not sure what's happened since.) This guy had two major alternatives: tigerwood (?) not sure about the name, but really distinctive yellowy-orange color with bold stripes in it, which was pretty cheap and fairly wild-looking; or purpleheart, which is what we ultimately chose. The purpleheart was about 25-30% cheaper than ipe (at the time, $1.85/LF versus about $2.45, in bulk), even harder, supposedly more dimensionally stable, and, yes, Barney-purple when it first went down, rapidly (within a couple weeks) oxidizing to a rich, dark brown, then lighter brown if left untreated, then grey - versus ipe's medium brown, then lighter brown, then grey. There were downsides to the purpleheart versus the ipe. #1) There wasn't any dimensional lumber (i.e., 4x4s, as opposed to planks) available yet, nor any pre-milled handrails or other deck-specific finished lumber, just the planks. (This may have changed; this guy was expecting to be able to get pre-milled handrails in purpleheart within a year or so, which would be about now.) #2) It's a lot less well-known outside specialist wood-working circles, and although supposedly it's what the Atlantic City boardwalk is made from, not many deck builders have caught on to it yet, so there's a lot less info about it circulating out there for reference. #3) You've gotta not freak out when you first see it go down. I'm not kidding, it's REALLY purple at first. Within a few weeks, it's dark brown, but the initial look is really, really weird, and you wonder if you're going to have "that purple deck" reputation around town. I've got another thread out there looking for advice about how to refinish the deck, since the initial (tung oil) finish hasn't lasted - there are pics of the finished product in that thread if you're interested. ("Refinishing a purpleheart/ipe deck.") The replies also contain some good tips that I wish I'd had in the first place - particularly, the importance of putting in some vents to provide cross-ventilation beneath the deck. I'd go with the purpleheart again in a minute - I just wish I'd known how much the *labor* (as opposed to the material) cost was going to go up compared to a more traditional decking material, between the extreme hardness of the wood, the breakage of drill bits and saw blades, and the beefed-up fasteners required because the stuff is so crazy-hard. Our contractor - a good one, but not a deck specialist, much less an exotic hardwood deck specialist - was kind of making it up as he went along, aided by whatever professional-journal articles he could find, and no doubt he made some mistakes along the way, which came out of our pocket in the end. Be prepared. In the long run, I think it's worth it, not only because of the beauty compared to anything else, but because the wood will outlast all of us, and thus you won't be rebuilding it in 10-15 years. Supposedly. I mean, I did a ton of research, but this stuff is still pretty new to all of us, unless you happen to be from, say, Brazil. Good luck!

It's been 4 years now and our Portico deck still looks good. It appears that it gets slightly more porous as it ages, making it a little more difficult to power wash the winter's dirt off. It still beats staining though and there are no splinters. I also have noticed some spots of unknown origin, possibly tree sap, that appear. The pressure washer removes them, but they eventually return. Another poster reported the same problem and was very unhappy. I guess our expectations are a bit lower. We remain happy with the decision to go with portico. We used mahogany on the upper deck two years earlier and that, in spite of yearly applications of Australian Timber Oil, is weathering not much better than the original pressure treated pine. I find that spraying with Olympic Deck Cleaner with a garden sprayer, followed by pressure washing cleans it up rather easily. My neighbor built a deck with Ipe last summer, that was our alternate choice when we were making our selection. We decided against it because I had a sample board laying on the deck for several months and it was warping and splitting. I will see how their's holds up over the years to see if we made the right choice. I don't think the perfect deck material has been developed yet... I hope this helps.

thanks, folks. aidan and steve, twp100.com allows for online ordering via mfg sealants. and they've not kicked me out after i've given my address in felton. so, i am hoping i can get all the way through once i've made my decision. $55/2 gal., free shipping, no tax. and described that simply, you're right, that's what i want. i have been laboring under many misconceptions, and that was one of them. thank you. john, i assume you use a foam brush to get between boards? or does it flood that much and drip through? i've got the deck up but for the final three boards, and am returning all the remaining ipe to my supplier (big creek lumber, a local lumber yard who matched my quoted price from advantage lumber) for replacement boards (about 10% of the total of 1200ish LF). lots of mill marks, broken or poorly milled edges, bad staining, wormholes, and some big honkin' tearout. the rest is very pretty. once i get those final three on i was thinking of these steps: (1) clean with someone's ipe cleaner (any recommendations on good brands?) to get rid of the dirt, dust, etc., that's lurking in the ipe, (2) sand it down using 80 grit sandpaper to get rid of some mill marks and drill fuzz (around the countersinks), (3) rinse it really, really well and let it dry, then (4) put on the finish. does that sound about right? btw, i am a homeowner, not a professional, and have built this largely on my own (had help from a contractor friend to attach the ledger board, and various help from friends during the substructural construction process). it'll end up being about 500sf including stairs, and we'll be into it for less than $7K total including rails, and a shade arbor... thanks for your advice, and comments, folks! reading steve, john, and others' deck builds/advice has helped all along the way...i am hoping to put up a page to help others once i get this done; there are many little things you do in a deck build that you can only learn from doing it, or from one who has... best, bill