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What is available in your area for treated decking? Here, pressure treated decking is fairly cheap and usually some form of fir. This stuff has several advantages for you: bug free, long lasting, relatively easy to work, and reasonably lightweight (heavier than cedar, but lighter than mahogany or teak).
Further, there are now plastic decking "planks" that look like real wood, don't weigh much, and are impervious to wind, water, bugs, etc.
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If you dont mind paying up, I would get sinker cypress...old growth stuff pulled from the river bottoms. There is a place in Micanopy Fl that will ship it to you, but cant recall the name of the lumber dealer. . If you use new growth cypress, make sure you remove all the sapwood as it will rot.
Contributor
One problem with any conifer that isn't quarter sawn is the heart side popping up. Since your shutters are hinged and used you need two good sides. I would use a cheap hardwood and rely on solvent based copper naphthalate and good paint.
Contributor
Malcolm, this product would meet all your needs but it's expensive....
https://www.accoya.com/
50-year structural warranty and 25 year warranty for direct freshwater contact. Browse their portfolio page. One of their principal markets is windows and doors, in fact.
Erik
Member
Malcolm,
Just for the reference: we ordered 100 some bf of 6/4 Spanish cedar a couple months ago and it was $5 and change/bf. We used it for sash reproductions/repair.
The mill shop that we ordered it through used some of the same material for a run of shutters and they were really nice.
When you do your build please share it here! The aforementioned mill shop had the slat mortises cut at another shop on a cnc.....I was really surprised as this shop is very experienced. But maybe that experience led them to the cnc at another shop?!
If you do go with Spanish cedar make sure you find out if it's plantation grown, I was told the plantation grown is full of pin knots.
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Erik this is super interesting, but I can't really parse all that sales info. Is it the wood or the chemical process that provides the longevity?Originally Posted by Erik Loza
"the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.” Confucius
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It's the chemical process that provides the longevity - the following may not be completely correct because I read it a few days ago and it's late but here goes. According to their web site, wood interacts with moisture via free hydroxyl (OH) groups, and the 'accoya' process reacts the wood with a benign chemical (they call it acetylation) that binds all those free OH groups. As a result the wood doesn't interact with moisture much any more, and is very stable and rot resistant. Acetic acid (aka vinegar) is the byproduct - no toxic metals or resins are used.
Contributor
My initial thought were either cedar or doug fir. With me leaning towards the cedar for rot resistance. But when mentioning the impactsfrom storms I reversed that to the Doug fir as my recommendation.
My experience from Northwest where I used cedar and doug fir extensively on my house (I had 70+ year old wooden gutters) was that cedar lasted very well but it is soft. For doors and shutters, I found doug fir much tougher on impact or other physical damage. I fear the cedar is just too soft; though I would enjoy working it more. Two good choices.
Shawn
"no trees were harmed in the creation of this message, however some electrons were temporarily inconvenienced."
"I resent having to use my brain to do your thinking"
Contributor
Doug fir is not going to be available quarter sawn or rift saw that thick . I would only use it "back to back" and the existing are not like that. It's true that even big companies like GP pay no attention to "bark side out" but I won't use fir any other way.
Contributor
I am surprised. I certainly could get 6/4 or larger rift or QS in the Northwest. I haven't tried in So Cal.
I built doors and other components from DF without needing to laminate.
Shawn
"no trees were harmed in the creation of this message, however some electrons were temporarily inconvenienced."
"I resent having to use my brain to do your thinking"
Contributor
Shawn, you live in California and fir grows there. Malcolm is near Gilligan's Island. I live in VA and the 12 /4 fir we used to use for thick doors had to be custom ordered by our local supplier then sent to another place to be dried before being brought here. I agree your choice is good if affordable. The fir was slab and rift. I would always mark the bark side as " must be installed this side to exterior or warranty is void" both sides of the shutters will be exposed to weather
Last edited by Mel Fulks; 01-08-2017 at 2:29 PM.
Contributor
POC or AYC if you can get it.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Contributor
Wait....you're in the land of Mahogany, just use that. I have doubts that you'd be able to get AYC, POC or Old Growth DF for less than you would be paying for good mahogany.
I pay $10/linear foot for 4/4 12" wide OG DF and I tend to think that is somewhat reasonable.
Plantation grown woods likely will not do well for this, as they'll be composed very highly of sapwood which will rot.
Last edited by Brian Holcombe; 01-08-2017 at 2:57 PM.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Contributor
IPE......Wouldn't consider anything else...
Contributor
Dave has it correctly. The generic term is "acetylated wood", Accoya happening to be the biggest manufacturer. Accoya sustainably harvests Monterey Pine from farms in New Zealand, sends to the Netherlands for acetylation, then offers it to the market. They are not very well known over here in the US but are HUGE in Europe. It's a multi-billion dollar company.
FYI that exterior wood is my business now. I'm dealing with architects and GC's all over the US and have seen pretty much every species of wood that got mentioned in this thread used as an exterior application. I won't tell anyone what to buy but IMO, if you want to only do it once, you need to look beyond natural woods and start looking at modified woods, such as Accoya. Since Cypress got mentioned here, I can tell you that we (Delta Millworks) have basically blacklisted it for exterior applications. Reason being that the only dimensionally stable Bald Cypress out there was the old growth stuff and it's practically impossible to obtain these days. Cypress "could" work OK in the South, where humidity and temps are fairly stable but I can tell you that there is no way I would spec Cypress in for any exterior application where finished dimensions were critical. Too much possibility for movement.
Someone else mentioned Ipe. Ipe is fine but won't out-perform Accoya for this application and also, you can screw and nail directly through Accoya, which you can't do with Ipe, so there is a labor savings there. If someone is set on Ipe, another modified wood you could look at is Kebony...
http://kebony.com/us/
A Norwegian company, they do their process ("furfurylation": Different process than Accoya's acetylation) to SYP and the result is a lot like a tropical hardwood: Darker, hard as a rock, and heavy. They're predominantly in the decking market though I suppose you could use them for windows or doors. Though Accoya would do the same thing there, but cheaper and easier to work with.
The only quirks with Accoya are that you have to use oil-based finishes. Since the cell walls are closed and don't absorb water. Also, only stainless screws or nails. The acetic acid will attack galvanized metal and stain the wood. Anyhow, if you're interested, I believe there's an Accoya dealer in Miami. Good luck in your search.
Erik
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