Seasoned or Unseasoned decking

[bulla]

I am in the process of designing and building a deck. My question is directed to the decking itself. Should the first preference be to used seasoned decking (merbau or equivalent) or unseasoned decking?

Looking forward to your assistance on this issue.:)

[stevoh741]

if you use unseasoned it needs to be butted up so that the shrinkage will create the gaps - in spotty/ironbark, the shrinkage is around 6% for memory. If you dont know what your doing seasoned will be easier for you. If you do go the unseasoned route then you need to make sure it comes from the same lot, cut at the same time and area, lay it at the same time etc to try to ensure shrinkage rates are similar across the deck. Also if some is exposed and some is not it will shrink at different rates. I use a bit of unseasoned (140x32 h'wood) but I usually give it a couple of months to season after laying before putting a roof over it.