Thanks for all the feed back on Paulope. Any one hear of another tropical hardwood called RED BALOU? I may have the spelling wrong.Here’s the deal.
The Paulope people are telling me not to use EB TY with the 5/4×5 1/2″ Paulope boards. They say the boards may not dry uniformly and the perfect, uniform board gap (3/32”)that the EB TY gives you may not happen. They say they have had some problems with this. I would never worry about this, but I have to agree some customers are picky about gaps( do you really need all those lines in my deck?). They also tell me to use adhesive.
The solution I am told is to use a different product called RED BALOU. Apparently the advantages are that it’s not quite as hard, heavy or dense as paulope. It still has a 20 year life and it is kiln dried and therefor more uniform , solving the gap problem. What about swelling? The supplier also says he likes the richness of the color over the darkness of the paulope. The Balou is also about a buck a foot cheaper.
By the way, paulope is available kiln dried just not in the lengths I need in time.
Replies
tedvan
The adhesive is to eliminate voids in the sub-structure. Not for added strength. It helps both in water entry and squeaking. Using a plate joiner or router, everything is relative to the surface. All voids and material thickness changes are under the deck boards, which should be addressed, hence the construction adhesive. The surface remains smooth and level.