a couple of years back i installed 5/4 x 4 tongue and groove mahogany floor boards on my porch. i have noticed that under each wood column my boards are wet and spongy and rotting away. the plinthblocks are about 12″ square with weep holes appr. 4″ long and 1/4″ high on all 4 sides. i back primed all my boards and the porch is pitched. i did noticed when i installed the boards that some of them were a lot lighter than others. could it be just inferior mahogany? any help is greatly appreciated
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"could it be just inferior mahogany?"
A LOT of stuff gets sold with the name mahogany that really is not
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What Piffen said....... so true.
If you bought the true breed, then you paid very dearly. If you got anything else (Honduran Mahogany, for instance), it does not have the same decay-resistance.
I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone,
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone;
I can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone,
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here. (Phil Ochs)
$1.80 per ft. 5/4x 4 T&G near me. Is it the Honduran stuff?
Extremely likely that you got the cheap stuff.The real stuff that I've seen (which has been quite rare) was about 4 to 5 times that price, and there was very little of it available, IIRC. And I just checked with Hearne Hardwoods (one of the premier suppliers of the really hard-to-get stuff) and they don't have any at all.But they do have the Honduran stuff (a different species). And they have one lot of mahogany from Belize, which looks like it might be the good stuff. Unfortunately, the price is not posted.
I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone,
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone;
I can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone,
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here. (Phil Ochs)
I wouldn't have run the decking under a column. Ideally, the column runs through to the framing and the decking is cut around the post. Good chance the bottom of the column is getting punky as well, no? Any wood would have a tough time in this situation.