Eco-friendly Decking Boards

When you hear conversations about decks, you will probably have memories of a pleasant vacation day, when you have relaxed from works and have enjoyed the view – to the forest, the lake, the sea, or perhaps the city towers or the busy metropolitan avenue. In fact, it is not so important where the deck is located, it is important that it is of high quality, as natural and ecological as possible, which will be also sweeter, closer to the heart, more friendly to nature. Can all decking boards made of wood have such qualities? It is possible, if these decking boards are heat treated and all eco-friendly standards have been followed in their production process.

Eco-friendly decking boards

Eco-friendly can be not only materials such as decking boards that can be touched and feel. But eco-friendly can be as well the solution itself! And it can be even more important here. What do we mean? Did you know that thermowood has the same properties as Canadian Red Cedar, Merbau, European Oak, Ipe and others. (all of them belong to extremely high resistance classes 2 and 1). Firstly, imagine that when you decide to use thermowood, you also make the decision to conserve exotic and endangered species of slow and hard-growing wood. Secondly, by choosing thermowood (with the same physical characteristics as exotic species but at a lower price), you will be sure that these wooden decking boards will be durable and will not need to be replaced for 20-30 years. This will save some of the forest that would have to be cut down if the wood was of poor quality and needed to be regenerated fairly quickly.

Choosing the right wood

What else is there to know about thermowood? Heat treated wood is completely stable and does not shrink or expand, decompose or scratch like “live” wood. It has no resins and no sacks of sugar, so the wood is free of fungus, does not mildew or rot. This wood is unaffected by atmospheric and temperature changes, making it ideal for our volatile climate. Briefly, three different types of decking boards are currently the most popular on the market: heat-treated northern pine, heat-treated Canadian ash and wood plastic composite WPC (70% treated wood fiber and 30% recycled organic polypropylene).

Let’s say you decide to buy a thermowood and install a green wood decking. But most of us are worried that we are afraid of being cheated, because we do not know how to test the greening criterion. Our advice is to find out where the wood was cut. If it is cut from PEFC™ certified forest and has KOMO or etc… quality certification, you can be sure that it is the most genuine eco-friendly wood.

Invisible decking mounting system

The excellent spatial stability of thermowood encourages the use of an invisible mounting system for decking boards. The weather conditions and their effects indicate that these mounting systems are easy and simple to install, even in bad weather conditions.

Thanks to invisible fastening systems, the boards are evenly spaced and the result is neat and tidy. Compared to traditional mounting methods, half the bolts are used and the boards do not crack or crumble. After installation the decking boards should be treated with wood oil of pigment to protect them from the sun’s UV rays and airborne dirt.