Cumaru Decking Boards Review
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- čas přidán 3. 02. 2016
- I have been asked questions from around the country about the Cumaru decking boards I have and here are a few pictures of how the Cumaru boards looked after I had sanded and oiled them back in May of 2013 and how they look today as of January 2016. While the richness of the wood had faded due to time, the boards still look VERY, VERY nice but since I like how the boards look after being oiled, this spring I plan on lightly sanding the deck and applying a fresh coat of the Ipe Oil once again.
Overall I sold on using Cumaru for a deck surface. - Auta a dopravní prostředky
Fantastic video for real life review. Thanks so much!
Thank you for the useful photos and information. I am in Michigan, can't decided between replacing my Cedar decks with Cedar again, Cumaru, or Composite. The weather here is brutal, I welcome your opnion and sugguestions.
Here's my opinion and suggestions. I would look around locally for others that have put in the types of materials you are thinking of using on your deck. If you see one with an older Cumaru or Composite material, see how it looks to you. Ideally it would be nice to get additional input from the home owner but who knows if you can get that sometimes. How my Cumaru is on my deck will not perform the same in your situation but I will say, here in saint louis if I ever do another deck, it will be covered with Cumaru.
I noticed you had looked at another video labeled "Is Ipe worth the Hype" and I watched it and it hit home with what I have experienced BUT like anything else to me the Cumaru was nothing I had EVER worked with and it is a hard material, requires special handling and tooling but going though what I did, I'm happy with my choice.Could I have done things better and I have to say yes. Next time I will order more material to compensate for unusable material sent by the wood supplier. I will also drill and add dowels to boards going on a right angle to others to where later the top surfaced will be more even to each other. I will next time be more particular on my lumber choices of the pressure treated boards from Lowes.
If you can look at all of the other video's I have on my deck under user name stlnovas . There are so many things I think one needs to be aware of and these might answer future questions you might have.On a side note I was at a customer's house the other day and they had a composite deck floor and on an end cut, the outside of the board was not thick at all and just seemed cheap,I know on my deck if I have to sand it I can and not affect the "fake" graining on composite decking boards.
Jim
Would love to see the deck today and any updates. Thanks for sharing your experience. All the best
Browse through my other video's. Here's one from last month when I sanded and oiled it again. czcams.com/video/XQQeJurYsgc/video.html
What wood did you use for the newel posts and railings? Looks beautiful!!
The posts and railings are pressure treated wood from Lowes. I also used stainless steel screws. Here is an album from earlier this year when I refinished the posts, railings, and balusters: www.flickr.com/photos/121766713@N04/albums/72157669147834596
Thanks for the compliments.
+StlNovas looks great! A ton of work i'm sure. That Cumaru looks fantastic!! I saw Ipe at my lumber yard and had no idea what it was. I have since researched it and this is how i found Cumaru. I like how the Cumaru ages over time vs the Ipe. How is the wear and tear characteristics of your Cumaru? Takes a beating and stays tough?
I learned a lot doing my deck as well as it taking more time than I thought it would but I think I did good. Is everything like I wanted, no, but what little issues I have had I can address or live with.
To tell you the truth I don't know how I came across the information about the Ipe and Cumaru but I've looked at a lot of decks that have used other materials and I'm so glad I chose what I did.
If you look around at some of my other youtube video's you might get a better feel of using Cumaru as well as my experiences with it. I'm still upset with the supplier of the Cumaru but it's behind me.
I recently got asked about any cupping on my deck and it's minimal and of no concern to me. I knew after I chose the Cumaru it would take work to keep it looking super nice and I don't mind sanding it and re-oiling it every so often. Doing so makes it look how I want it to look.
I did have a learning curve with the Cumaru as it needed to be sanded before it even got put down to remove milling marks on it which I thought were unacceptable, took a lot more force to bend than a regular wood material, and while I could have gotten away with wider joist spacings, I went with 12" or less but the results of walking across the deck has a very solid feeling underfoot. Some decks I've walked across feel like you are walking on a trampoline with a bunch of spring in the boards.
Anyway, I'm sold on using Cumaru again on any future decks I build and I think it should be used more often but it's not a common material and while it does cost more initially and requires work on it now and then, I have a feeling i will outlast a cheaper built one.
Keep in mind too that even though you might use Cumaru or Ipe for the deck floor, also build a solid and long lasting structure underneath it. When I was doing mine luckily I let the joists dry and they shrank but I was able to fix that issue so the Cumaru had a perfectly flat surface to be on as well as adding Vycor flashing to the topside of the joists to where it helps protect my joists from rotting out quickly.
Jim
Any cupping?
I don't know how flat I had the boards after I initially belt sanded them getting defects out, ( I was sold grade A from Advantage Lumber but didn't get that at all) but I have to think I had them fairly flat as I had to work from 50 grit up to about a 120 grit. I do think now, a few years later that there is some cupping but very little and while I cannot feel any cupping walking across it, you can see in this picture there must be some cupping as the water is staying more in the middle while it dries.
c2.staticflickr.com/2/1608/26679815485_881d88b437_b.jpg
Right now I'm finishing up staining the balusters and rails and if I think about it. I'll put a straight edge across some and get a measurement.
If mine are cupping then I doubt if it's from not being secured well to the joists and beams as all of the joists are 12" or less on centers and I attached the decking wherever it laid on a joist and didn't skip a one. From what I had read with the 5/4 material I could have run 24" joist spacings and had it setup for 16" but then talked to another person and they said 12" would only require a few more joists and make for an even more solid feeling walking surface.
Jim
+StlNovas Thanks for the response. There are a lot of conflicting statements out there. I'm wondering how much of a difference the 1x6 would behave vs the 5/4x6.
Out of curiosity, do you have links to these statements ?
Anyway, you got me to look as to how much cupping I actually had and I'm very happy to say it is less than I thought.
Here's some still pictures I just took a little while ago (June 7, 2016) of my Cumaru deck boards located in Saint Louis Missouri:
www.flickr.com/photos/121766713@N04/albums/72157668603775570
Here's my opinion. Whatever cupping I have on my field boards is VERY minimal as seen in the pictures. There are some differences between the edges of one board to the next BUT it is less than the thickness of a penny. Looking back at the pictures some boards do have cupping BUT it's less than the thickness of a penny BUT on some of my edge perimeter boards I can barely slide a penny under the middle of my straight edge. My opinion for this is these edge boards have NO fasteners towards the edge where they overhang the outside structure of the deck. On the field boards the joist spacing is 12"or less and I have the Ipe hidden fasteners on all of the joints.
Since the boards had surface flaws in them I had sanded them with a belt sander using 50 grit, then 80, and then 120 so now the one board I measured is actually 15/16" thick. The boards I bought were 5/4 x 6 which means they should be 1" thick and if they were, I sanded off 1/16" off of the face to remove flaws and milling marks.
Since I used 5/4 material which is actually 1" thick, I cannot say what thinner 3/4" thick boards would do. I will say that if less fasteners are used spaced further apart with wider joist spacing, the more possible cupping an installation might have. I just have only worked with the 5/4 material BUT if I had to do it again, I would still belly up to the bar and buy this thickness and not take a chance on the thinner material BUT who knows, it might work out just fine for others.
Jim
+StlNovas www.mcilvain.com/plus-sized-decking/
This is one that stands out the most...most article say that it's a fairly stable wood. This article says otherwise. I suppose I'll jump in the pool and get 5/4x6 and save myself from any potential heartache down the road.