chad_m, The humidity comes from the snowy cars coming in and melting off day after day, night after night. It's one of the issues besides operating cost of a tight, heated garage. The humidity plus road salt equals bad news for your vehicles. I have the tubes in the floor and have not yet hooked up the heat source for mine and this is one of the concerns I have. There are some humidifiers that work at lower temps, but some just keep a window cracked. This'll make the green police shudder of course. So you have the cost to heat it, then dehumidify it. In my case gas is free so the heat angle doesn't bother me one bit, but I don't want to rust out my cars so I'll probably bite the bullet on humidification. My garage has a future apartment above it so keeping the garage at 50 degrees would help keep the apartment floor warm. I had a master bedroom and closet over an unheated garage at the last house and the floor temp difference was noticeable.

Crescent, Yes the house I did for GF is IPE. Like most natural products you will still have some work to keep the deeper brown look if you choose that. Ipe has been on Atl. City Boardwalk for 20 plus years if I am not mistaken. It has basically about a 50 year life if left untreated upwards of 100 if treated ( from what I have read) It is one of the hardest woods available. If left untreated you will see it "grey out to a grey patina " if you can imagine. Many prefer the treated look. I prefer the hidden fasteners if possible but some have concerns because they only get one screw per board / joist: vs 2 screws if face screwing it. Hidden just looks awesome. On smaller deck with samller spans you might be just fine. Many claim you should have good ventilation under to allow it to breath so to speak. If doing white trim and spindles. I would highly suggest using cellular pvc. You should be able to get it in 2x2 that you can cut to length. The rest of the posts and trim can be done with it also. Its very low if not no maintainence. We used it for whole house trim as well as columns and post trim on deck. Can be shaped, cut routhed just like wood. Just research gluing and connection methods. No paint required at all if you dont like. If treating Ipe you might investigate http://www.woodrich-brand.com/ http://www.abswood.com/ was great for pricing and service on the IPE Sandy...I do love the lyptus... Have investigated in the past but never had anyone use it yet. Good Luck

I recently enclosed what was a screened porch. It's raised two plus feet off of dirt floor that's indirectly exposed to the weather in Southeastern PA (cold winters/humid summers). I heard horror stories of other floors buckling due to temp differences below and above (the porch will be heated this winter) so we opted for a Mahogany "deck" floor due to its history in being used outdoors for wraparound porches etc. We put a moisture barrier down, "insulayment" , luan and the Mahogany. The plan was to stain and poly the floor but the stains seem difficult to apply evenly. The only thing that works where you can still see the grain is just poly over the top. Should I condition first? Should I just abort the mission and paint the floor??? We're looking for a darker (with Red tint color). Did I blow the call all together with the flooring vs wall to wall carpet? Thanks

We just added a screened-in porch off the back of our small house, which faces south. We added this as we were in the process of a remodel that opened up the back with lots of light... so I was pretty nervous about how it might feel with a roof limiting some of that light. Especially because we have only 8ft ceilings. It definitely reduces the bright sun but it still feels like we have plenty of light. The white roof and pillars help, as for the 3 skylights that are placed parallel with the doors. I would have loved a pergola both to preserve the light and because they’re charming, but in our area the bugs are too miserable to get much use out of an unscreened patio. This is the best before and after I can show - It’s definitely not gloomy but the bright spotlight of sun through each door is reduced.