[Greenbuilding] Amapola for Decking

[Dan Antonioli]

Rob,

Don't remember how slippery polished granite is and if I've ever  
walked on it while wet. If you can slip and fall on it, then it's  
similar to the Amapola when wet.

Decking should never be that slippery! It's a condensed wood, but I  
don't know if it's categorized as a "hard" wood. Just know that it's  
oily when wet and slippery as hell when it's raining. Cedar, pine,  
redwood, fir, and composite decking don't come anywhere close to the  
slipperiness that the Amapola is, though I've seen some plastic  
composite decking material that seemed like it would get slippery  
when wet. All it takes is someone to fall on their ass and sue the  
company or distributor to take care of the matter. There's a reason  
why we have codes to prevent falling. Slippery-when-wet decking seems  
like a big mistake.

Dan Antonioli



On Jan 30, 2008, at 4:01 PM, Robert Tom wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:48:06 -0500, Dan Antonioli
> <dantonioli at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> immediately struck by how slippery it was. I wondered the wood took a
>> while to "air out" or some-such biochemical process where whatever it
>> is that was causing the deck to be slippery would fade.
>
>> I think we have a serious problem on our hands!
>
>
> I'm not familiar with the wood "Amapola" but I do know that polished
> granite is a lot slipperier when wet than say, concrete, and I suspect
> that there may be similarities to the Amapola situation, as to why.
>
> Is Amapola a very dense hardwood with a closed cell structure (say  
> like
> maple as compared to oak which is extremely porous)  ?
>
> Softwoods like cedar or pine readily soak up water and the surface  
> fibres
> swell up creating a somewhat textured surface that isn't as deadly
> slippery as say, polished granite which is relatively impervious.
>
> If it is a matter of the wood being so dense that water just sits  
> on the
> surface resulting hydroplaning of unsuspecting humans who walk  
> across it,
> perhaps increasing the slope to facilitate more rapid drainage after a
> rain would help ?
>
> For the present deck however (where changing the slope may not be  
> feasible
> at this point), I wonder if milling a grooved pattern in to the  
> face of
> the boards (or sandblasting the surface) would help ?
>
>
> -- 
> === * ===
> Rob Tom
> Kanata, Ontario, Canada
> < A r c h i L o g i c  at chaffY a h o o  dot  c a >
> manually winnow the chaff from my edress in your reply
>
>
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