Wooden terrace - Which type of wood to choose, or WPC decking?

You have to like the gray then. Tastes differ.

I would accept the gray, but if oiling helps, I would find the intense wood tone more beautiful. Have you been able to maintain the wood tone with care, or did it still turn gray?

Our terrace is not finished yet. When the terrace is oiled, the oil must contain color pigments. Of course, there are different colors. But it is best to get advice from a specialist dealer. They usually have a selection on site to look at live, which I personally find better than photos in some catalogs or on the internet.

If you want peace... only Accoya will do. Essentially, it's in a league of its own. Although a bit expensive, there are no more worries.

Now the shipbuilder is coming again. So, teak is unbeatable, but unaffordable, and even the teak substitutes like kambala are definitely too expensive for terraces. The new fishing bridge at our harbor is getting larch; that will surely last 10 years without oil and without carbol. Rinsing with saltwater is extremely good for the wood, it kills fungi and lichens. The alternative WPC is expensive, durable, but we have unpleasant experiences with static electricity on the surface. You can manage it with aluminum profiles on every third plank that are electrically connected to each other and grounded on land. Whether this problem also occurs with terraces, I do not know. The idea of oiling the wood is not good. It quickly looks patchy, not exactly pretty. An exception would be a treatment with owatrol, which, however, makes the wood smooth. Owatrol is applied wet-on-wet to the wood until it no longer absorbs. The excess is left to dry on the surface or wiped off with paper towels. This makes the wood very water-repellent, but owatrol only lasts one year; next year same procedure as last year. The silver larch patina, if you clean the wood now and then with Netrol, not scrubbing hard please, only gently across the grain with a soft brush, is quite pretty. And as said, occasionally apply saltwater. All other types of wood are either too soft, spruce, pine... or not better than good larch from forests close to the Arctic Circle, where the tree grows slowly and therefore the wood has good hardness due to tight growth rings. That’s it. Karsten

Larch then. Sounds interesting. I have to ask a really stupid question: Why don't people paint the terrace with varnish? Like on boats? Is that not possible? Or can't you walk on it?

Of course, you could go for that, although it would be very slippery when wet, but the paint would hold up. The question is, who is going to pay for it! Do you know how they manage to get those beautifully closed paint surfaces on luxury yachts? Sanding up to 300 grit. Around 10 coats of paint, the first three with fifty-fifty thinner, the others then one to three thinner to paint. Always sanding between coats with very fine paper. These paints are also not cheap. For example, Schooner from International. Frequently walked deck areas on ships have usually been made with teak strips until today. Untreated. It is the only wood I know that withstands the stresses from UV, water, salt, and shoes over decades. But since teak is hardly legally available anymore due to climate protection and forest conservation, and the import from Myanmar is currently impossible into the EU, this covering is becoming extinct and is increasingly being replaced by vinyl imitations.