Smart Buyers Series - Part 1

Over the years, I have been asked many questions regarding outdoor living furniture. However, one question stands above the rest in its frequency. It has been asked by almost all my clients over the years and it is:

"Why is this furniture so expensive?"

With that in mind, let's talk about the reasons why high-end outdoor furniture seems to be so much more expensive than the furniture you can get at your big box retailers.

First and foremost, high-end outdoor living furniture manufacturers are selling the best quality obtainable by the public. In most cases, the quality of an outdoor furniture element is a direct corollary to the materials used in it's construction. Three of the most popular materials used in high-end outdoor furniture are; teak, aluminum and resin weave.

Let's take a closer look at these materials over the next three days, taking our time to understand them from start to finish so that we can shore up a clear picture as to why you're paying a premium for high-end outdoor furniture and why it, ultimately, pays you to do so.

We will begin this 3-part series with teak.

Teak

Second only to mahogany, teak is an extremely valuable type of lumber. It occurs naturally only in India, Myanmar, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Thailand and was introduced to Java and Indonesia about four to six hundred years ago.

Because of if it's strength and aesthetic qualities, teak wood is most often supplied for the luxury markets of furniture, ship building and decorative components.

Teak is a fine wood often used in boat-building and furniture making. Teak wood withstands weather, rot and insects, making it ideal for outdoor or patio furniture, as well as marine decking. Teak wood, also, has a naturally high oil content so it is not necessary to stain it. The high oil content contributes greatly to its endurance and weather resistance.

Every piece of teak furniture will look slightly different as teak comes in a wide range of grains or patterns. Unstained teak will have an olive-brown or yellow-brown color and eventually, especially if used outdoors, develop a beautiful silver patina.

Teak furniture is manufactured by several methods. It is important to understand the grades of wood, the processing of the wood, and how it is manufactured. Teak wood is graded by appearance, knots (and their location) and by the root source of the wood. There are three main grades in teak wood.

Grade A teak wood is produced from the center of the tree commonly known as the heart wood. A grade A piece of teak will be produced from a tree of 30 to 50 years of age. The wood's characteristics will include a close grain, a warm honey color and the wood will be oil rich and knot free. Other characteristics include; no streaks of white, no knots on the top side, very few knots on the bottom side or live knots (places where a branch grew from the tree) with some discoloration but no fill (ring-like in nature rather than a solid circle). Live knots have to be less than half an inch in diameter and present only once in every 3 to 4 linear feet. This grade of teak is chiefly used in machine made furniture since it is risky for the furniture manufacturer to allow their craftsmen to create teak items with it because of it's expense and the greater potential for less than perfect results from human intervention.

Grade B teak wood has a warm color with occasional streaks of black and some splotches and discoloration. This grade of teak has more allowance for knots per linear foot. It is also sometimes used in semi-machine made products. Semi machine made implies that personnel use electric saws to cut the wood but there is no concept of a jig and fixture to make all the slats the same size or make the process repeatable. A semi-machine made product does not afford the consumer the luxury of finding a replacement part since all parts are unique and made to fit a specific piece only. Semi-machine made also means that the tenons float in the mortise (the joint is not exact, and there are gaps). These gaps are usually filled with epoxy and generally the furniture comes completely assembled . Otherwise, the customer would be left to assemble the furniture themselves without the required knowledge of a craftsmen to properly mate the pieces together.

Grade C teak wood has a dark color in places mixed with a very white color in places. The white color is the young sapwood and the dark color is the older sapwood. There is an allowance for dead knots (where the knot was weak and has been gouged out and filled with epoxy or putty). These knots may be on the top side or the bottom side. Grade C teak wood is most often used in handcrafted outdoor teak furniture. It is less valuable than grade or A or B teak and thus is better suited to human intervention. This grade of wood is completely outsourced to the local village industry and follows no process for drying and manufacture. Like grade B teak, this grade also means that the tenons float in the mortise and are filled with epoxy and generally sold completely assembled.

In summary – Grade A teak wood will most likely be machine made. Grade B and C will most likely be semi machine made or handcrafted.


Kiln Drying

A teak tree has a moisture content of over 60 percent prior to felling. To create the best furniture, the moisture content has to be reduced to 8 to 10 percent. Depending on the pieces, it can take weeks or even months to properly reduce the moisture content to the correct level. Kiln drying not only enables the pieces to fit together correctly but also ensures the stability of the furniture over long periods of time and in all weather conditions. Teak that is not kiln dried can quickly warp and will show signs of splitting when left in the elements. Ultimately, non kiln dried teak will become unstable and eventually unusable.

Manufacturing

Machine made makes the parts precise and interoperable. This precision implies that if a part on your chair or table breaks, you can get a like replacement.

Semi-machine made furniture is a cheaper method of manufacture, more prone to error, and every piece is unique with little possibility of replacing parts exactly.

Handmade means everything in that piece of furniture was made without jigs and fixtures and that there is a wide variation between pieces with no chance of interoperability or finding replacement pieces. There is also an increased incidence and danger of warping in the teak itself (mainly in the legs).