Teak wood for outdoor furniture: What makes it best in your garden?

Many people choose teak wood for outdoor furniture in their garden. There are many reasons to come up with.

Teak wood is an incredibly durable wood and is the perfect natural material to make high-quality furniture. With a lifespan of almost 75 years and more, teak is durable, functional, and stylish.

This is why teak is the ultimate choice of material for outdoor furniture.

Why choose teak wood for outdoor furniture, and What are the reasons?

Without the need for frequent staining or protection, teak won’t splinter, meaning you can enjoy your beautiful teak furniture without putting in hours of work.

Due to the fine properties of the wood, it is not surprising that more and more people are opting for teak in the garden. Below is the reason why teakwood is best for the outdoor.

Teak wood is weather-resistant

Teak has been known for centuries for its excellent resistance to all weather influences. The material is naturally somewhat water-repellent.

• There is a lot of oil, resin, and lime between the veins, ensuring that teak wood dries out much less quickly than other types of wood.
• Whether the sun is shining, raining, or strong wind, the teak will not wear out. This contributes to the long life of teak garden furniture, with exceptions, of course.
• In principle, you could leave teak outside all year round, in all weathers. Of course, it is advisable to bring your garden furniture inside when it is very humid.
• This way, you prevent the removal of green deposits from your garden furniture from becoming part of the spring cleaning.

Teak is highly versatile

Because it is a natural product, the wood itself has a warm appearance. Combine this with other natural materials and light colors to create a rustic look.

Do you prefer an industrial look? You can ensure this by supplementing your wooden garden furniture with stainless steel or aluminum. Teak is, therefore, not tied to 1 style and therefore suits everyone!

Teak brings you into a tropical atmosphere

Do you want to feel like you’re on vacation every time you walk into the garden? Teak garden furniture can help with this. The wood comes from South-East Asia and is therefore widely used there.

Go for a teak lounge set and provide some palms or other tropical plants in the garden. This way, you can imagine yourself in a tropical atmosphere in your house!

Easy maintenance

Because teak is very strong and can durable, it requires little maintenance. It is, however, advisable to occasionally run a bit of soapy water over the furniture.

This cleans the wood nicely without discoloring. You can also use a finisher to maintain teak furniture, and It is very simple. It only needs to be done once a year.

Sustainable Teak garden furniture

reason to choose teak for garden furniture is that the wood is sustainable. Good quality teak wood is made from used wood from traditional houses in Java.

It is therefore recycled wood for which no additional trees have been felled. In addition, teak also lasts a very long time because it is so strong. You do not buy this furniture for a short period, but a more extended period.

The durability of teak wood for outdoor

Teak wood is a durable material that is one of the best types of wood suitable for garden furniture. And if you maintain it well, you will enjoy your teak garden set, garden table, or garden chairs for years.

What makes teak wood so durable? That is because teak wood possesses natural oily substances, and it also makes the wood feel a bit greasy.

Teak wood is very durable and feels “soft,” Unlike most other types of wood, it hardly gives off splinters.

The Qualities of teak wood for outdoor furniture

There is a lot of quality difference between teak garden furniture. This often has to do with which piece of wood from the teak tree has been applied.

Not all teak outdoor furniture is made from the highest quality wood.

The heartwood of the teak tree is best suited for making teak garden furniture. This heartwood is rock hard. Garden furniture made of this heartwood lasts a very long time.

In addition, there is also a lot of use of sapwood. Sapwood is the softer wood that is located between the bark and the heartwood of the teak tree.

Because sapwood is softer than the core part of the tree trunk, it breaks down faster when it rains and outdoors. When sapwood is incorporated into garden furniture, the life years of your furniture go down.

Sapwood is used because it is more readily available, and it is cheaper than good-quality teak.

Garden furniture that will remain outside all year round must be made of a good piece of teak from the core. This is less important for a piece of furniture that can always remain under a veranda or canopy.

What makes price differences in teak outdoor furniture that sell online?

When you compare the prices of new teak furniture online, you often see a huge price difference even though the furniture looks the same in the photos.

How is this possible? This is mainly since many factories produce almost the same design of furniture but in very different qualities.

For example, factory X uses wood that has been dried accurately, and factory Y does not take it so closely with the drying process.

There are also significant differences in the finish of the wood, or there are knots or weak spots in places that are important for strength.

Another essential aspect that has a lot of influence on the price is the well-being of the workers in factories.

These quality differences are often invisible in photos. To be sure that you buy furniture in the quality you want, it is best to view and try out the garden furniture in real life.

What makes the price of teak wood furniture expensive?

Teak is hardwood and is not cheap, and teak wood can be quite pricey given the popularity of this material.

Since a teak tree usually takes about eighty to ninety years before it is fully grown for timber extraction, it takes many years to restore all the fallen trees.

It is therefore essential that the wood that is used is produced sustainably. Due to excessive and illegal logging for decades, teak has become scarce and is one of the most expensive types of wood.

Is it possible to buy cheap teak wood furniture of good quality?

However, is it possible to find cheaper teak with good quality, and where can you get the most affordable teak garden furniture?

Yes, that is possible; you can search online which manufacturers in the US imported teak furniture directly from Asia. Usually, that will allow them to maintain competitive prices.

The teak wood from Asia comes from forests that the State Forestry Management of Indonesia sustainably manages. Indonesia has many factories that produce teak furniture.

There are factories where people want to produce as cheaply as possible, often at the expense of the well-being of the employees.

Caution: A lower price usually indicates a lower grade of wood, which will compromise and ultimately disappoint the integrity of the product.

Value for money: buying teak garden furniture

It is therefore essential to consider the price-quality ratio when purchasing the cheapest teak garden furniture.

Otherwise, cheap can become expensive. After all, you don’t want your new teak garden furniture to be damaged and affected by fungus or wood rot after just one season.

However, the difference between the various teak grades is sometimes difficult to see as chemical treatment is sometimes used to darken the cheap teak, making it more like grade-A teak.

Therefore, it is best to always buy from reliable stores and suppliers to be sure that you are purchasing a high-quality product, even if it is low-priced.

What to pay attention to when purchasing teak garden furniture

• No handmade furniture but machine manufacture
• The better brands ensure well-dried wood, which means there is less chance of cracks
• Reliable origin. FSC or otherwise sustainably certified
• Good quality teak, few knots, nice honey color
• Feel the oiliness of the teak and the weight of the chair
• Thickness and width of the slats
• Good and sturdy parts
• Finishing the product

Teak wood treatment and maintenance for outdoor

Teak garden furniture provides a beautiful appearance. Moreover, it is a strong material and requires little maintenance.

Teak is a greasy wood and naturally repels water, perfect for our humid climate. If you leave your teak furniture outside, it will have an aged appearance over the years.

If you want to clean your teak garden set, it is best to do this with plenty of water. The set must be wet through and through so that the pores of the wood open up.

You can brush firmly in the longitudinal direction of the wood grain with a firm brush and a lukewarm soda solution so that you take the dirt as best as possible and cause as few visible scratches as possible.

How to store and protect teak garden furniture?

Do not entirely cover the teak! Correct covering and storage are important for preserving teak garden furniture, and it should never be covered with a furniture cover! learn how to protect garden furniture in winter.

When the wood is placed in a completely closed room, the humidity must be good.

The wood must be able to breathe. Moisture can accumulate under the protective cover, which could cause moisture spots.

• The wood can suffocate If there is not enough air, which can cause mold or black deposits. This deposit is difficult to remove afterward and causes the rotting process of wood to start.
• Storing teak furniture under a cover causes more damage to the wood than if the teak furniture was left outside all year round.
• You can choose to protect your teak garden furniture from dirt by covering it with a protective cover.

Please note: Teak wood is more susceptible to damp spots and mold when soaked; a tip is to ventilate well by (partly) temporarily removing the cover so that your teak garden set can air.

Choosing a quality cover where the material is already breathable or has ventilation openings is also important.

Advantages of teak for garden furniture

• With teak wood, a furniture manufacturer can go in all directions.

• Teak wood is a material that can be used creatively; this is one of the reasons why many garden furniture is made of teak.

• Teak is a strong product, which in turn results in a long life. Logically, many people appreciate that too.

•  Teak also looks beautiful, which guarantees that you have lovely garden furniture with teak wood.

• Moreover, you can perfectly place the furniture in a natural garden and a modern garden.

• Teak wood is weather resistant.

• Teak dries quickly after a heavy rain shower.

• Teak also remains relatively cool in the sun compared to other materials and therefore feels natural and pleasant.

Disadvantages of teak for garden furniture

• Teak garden furniture is quite heavy, so it is not easy to lift and move the garden furniture, especially if you buy a solid teak wood table.

• Another drawback is that you might need specific resources to protect the products.

• In general, teak wood has a long life. However, if something is wrong, you need special help with this. That means an extra investment.

The manufacture of teak garden furniture,

The so-called pin-hole construction is usually used with wooden dowels. With these pin-hole connections, the wood must be sufficiently dry before the furniture is made.

Various metal fasteners are also widely used, so which method is better? There is no clear answer to this, but it mainly depends on the quality of the dowels or the metal fasteners.

There are several metal fasteners in the garden furniture; brass or stainless steel serves excellently as a fastening material.

Of course, we sometimes come across furniture with bolts that are not stainless, or on the contrary, are mounted with stainless steel bolts, but of such a moderate quality that this hardly has any added value.

There is also a lot of quality difference in wooden dowels.

With the cheaper teak furniture, we see that very soft dowels are often used. A connection with dowels is only suitable if they are made of high-quality teak.

Better use hardwood or softwood for outdoor furniture?

The terms hardwood and softwood initially give the impression that they have to do with the hardness or structure of the wood, but in fact, it has nothing to do with that.

Hardwoods are not necessarily hard, and softwoods are not soft either.

The terms hardwood and softwood initially refer to the seeds of the trees, the way the trees reproduce through the seeds.

Two common types of softwoods for garden furniture are pine and spruce.

Softwood is usually a lot cheaper to use. However, it is also often less durable than hardwood.

Since teak is scarce wood, you see more and more other hardwoods in addition to teak wood, such as eucalyptus, Merbau, acacia, or oak, and birch have a comparable hardness and durability but a different appearance.

Teak for Outdoor Furniture That Should (And Shouldn’t) Be Present in garden

When having teakwoods as the main wooden materials, guest tables often come with long rectangular designs with strong, sturdy, thick, and curvy legs.

This happens because guest tables with teakwood materials are meant to hold more than two or three trays of hospitality items, such as complete tea or coffee sets.

Another thing that is also important to know is that guest tables with teakwood materials often use older woods, so the strong, sturdy images will strengthen.

The same long rectangular design can also be applied to the dining tables.

The difference is that if you want to accentuate the earthiness and closeness to nature and add lots of plants in your house’s outdoor rooms, you can opt for some wood slabs and make different shapes, such as circular shapes, out of the wooden materials.

The outdoor rooms can contain other furniture and amenities on some occasions.

Due to teakwood materials’ strong, sturdy, and earthy nature, it is not uncommon to have large-sized wardrobes with more than one door as teak outdoor furniture.

Even thin-bordered but high-tiered outdoor bookshelves can be made of teakwood and still become attractive additions to your house’s outdoor settings.

The only types of furniture where teakwoods can’t be applied are the chairs. Just as metal or steel chairs on outdoor rooms, these chairs will make it as if your outdoor settings are too old-styled.

Teak wood alternatives for outdoor furniture

Other types of wood that you can choose

• Acacia
• Eucalyptus
• afrormosia
• bamboo
• mahogany
• cedar
• sandalwood
• pinewood
• sheesham wood
• maple wood

Other materials that are good for outdoor furniture

In addition to garden furniture made of teak, garden furniture is also made of aluminum and wicker. Each material has its advantages and appearance. You can read more about the other materials for garden furniture in the corresponding article.

• Aluminum
• Wicker
• Plastic
• Aluminum
• stainless steel
• Polywood
• Textilene
• Granite
• Rope