stopper15

I had the carpenter come inspect the warping and cracks in my decking and he said something interesting. With Chengai wood, they cannot use the wood close to the bark nor too close to the centre because they can cause cracking problems. So he suspected with the rising cost of wood the suppliers cut the strips closer to the outide or the inside of the tree trunk (to maximise their profit). He said you cannot see until the problems appear. How true this is I don't know. But he did offer to replace the cracked areas. The slight warping of the strips he can do nothing about. He says its the nature of outdoor wood - that they all warp to some degree.

I spent $800 to cover my balcony in Chengai Wood decking. Despite being treated and varnished, in less than 6 weeks the wood is cracking, splitting and warping ! In one place the crack is 4 inches and the other its 2 inches. There are also smaller 1'-2' cracks at the joins. The carpenter did advise me to use short wood strips across the balcony width but I think thats ugly so I asked for longer wood strips to span the length of the balcony. He has replaced the 4' cracked area but I feel like asking for my money back ! Has anyone else had such problems ?