[lostlogin]

The houses in the article have a lot of wood and decking.

New Zealand is savage on exposed timber. I have tried multiple products from expensive to cheap and have the same result on all.

A deck which gets rain and faces north west needs re-coating every 6 months to 1 year. The combination of heat, UV and water is just savage.

[goldcd]

Have you looked at modified woods like Accoya? (50 year guarantee above ground, 25 in water)

[lostlogin]

Thanks - I hadn’t.

I haven’t had any degrade to the stage where it needs replacement, I just have to keep maintaining.

I’ll look into it further, the product looks impressive.

[Mandatum]

The reason the stuff lasts so long is it's chemically gone from cellulose/wood fiber to acetate.

There's a lot of issues with using it aside from expense; anything touching it will be impacted by the acidity of the wood, so you'll want to use things like stainless steel.

It's a great wood, but it's not all roses. The other thing to keep in mind, the process behind it doesn't HAVE to be applied to New Zealand or Chilean radiata pine, they only use that wood as it's more marketable and people are more likely to stomach the costs.

Something to also keep in mind the wood is only treated on the outside. If you cut into it, for example the endgrain on every plank you buy - it'll need to be sealed just as regular radiata pina. When "perennial wood" was originally sold decades ago, people installed it expecting zero maintenance and then found their decking started to rot less than a decade later. Keeping that in mind, similar issues can arise if you sand the wood.

[goldcd]

It's good stuff - but not cheap.

For decking where you're going to have to clean it yearly anyway, I wouldn't bother (no real effort to just add on some maintenance) - and probably works out cheaper even with a few replacements over decades.

Where it shines is where it's a pain to replace and a nice bit of weathering is what you're after (say the eaves on a roof) - not too expensive to run a plank around the perimeter and no ladders/scaffolding/treatment required for the rest of your life.