East teak lumber. 800 338 5636. Ask for George. Good material,great service, major good Folks. J

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!

Both of my local suppliers are low on 5/4x6 ipe, but Fernando @ Austin Wholesale Decking has plenty of 1x6 ipe. The demand for ipe is driving up prices & there are availabilty issues with some suppliers. You can reach Fernando @ 512-834-1200

Al