Cedar vs. Pressure-Treated vs. White Oak vs. Ipe: Real Outdoor Furniture Costs
Cedar vs. Pressure-Treated vs. White Oak vs. Ipe: Real Outdoor Furniture Costs - A step into the workshop.
Stop Wasting Wood
Generate clear cut diagrams instantly with our new Cutlist Optimizer. Plan your cuts to make your next build easier.
Cedar vs. Pressure-Treated vs. White Oak vs. Ipe: What Outdoor Furniture Actually Costs You
You can build an outdoor chair out of almost anything. The question is what it costs you the second time.
I've also watched people drop serious money on ipe for a bench and complain when they have to move it. Neither camp is wrong. They just didn't price the whole decision before they bought lumber.
So let's price it. Not just the board foot. The seat, the weight, the rot resistance, and how often you're going to be out there with a brush.
The Four Contenders, Straight Up
Here's what each wood actually is, before we talk money.
Western red cedar is the softest of the bunch. The Wood Database lists average dried weight at 23.0 lbs/ft³ and Janka hardness at just 350 lbf. It's rated durable to very durable for decay, but only mixed for insect resistance. It dents and scratches very easily, and it sands unevenly because the earlywood and latewood are so different in density. It also contains plicatic acid, which the Wood Database links to an elevated rate of allergic reaction, particularly occupational asthma. I'd wear a respirator when I machine a pile of it.
Pressure-treated is most commonly Southern Yellow Pine in North America. Per a single-author technical write-up from woodworkscience.com, untreated SYP runs a Janka of about 690 lbf, treated runs about 740–780 lbf. KDAT (kiln-dried after treatment) drops to roughly 15–19%. It's not food-safe and not for cutting boards or edible-plant planters. Treat it as a structural workhorse, not a finish-grade material.
White oak sits in the middle. Wood Database: 47.0 lbs/ft³, Janka 1,350 lbf, rated very durable, used in boatbuilding and tight cooperage. The catch is dimensional stability. White oak has high shrinkage and "mediocre dimensional stability, especially in flat sawn boards." It can also react with iron, particularly when wet, and cause staining and discoloration. That's not a dealbreaker outdoors. It just means you spec stainless or hot-dipped fasteners and you mean it.
Ipe is the heavyweight. Wood Database lists 65.5 lbs/ft³ and Janka 3,490 lbf; Bell Forest's overview lists 69 lbs/ft³ and 3,510 lbf. Call it "about 65–69 lbs/ft³" and "roughly 3,490–3,510 lbf" and be honest that two reputable sources disagree slightly. It's rated very durable with excellent insect resistance, but it's susceptible to marine borers. It's hard on tools, tough to glue, and the lapachol in it produces "pronounced irritant responses on skin." Wear the gear.
The Grit: What You Pay Per Board Foot
Bell Forest Products is the only price source I could verify here, and their prices are surfaced hardwood lumber, not decking-grade stock. That distinction matters. Don't run these numbers against a box-store deck board and expect them to match.
Under 10 board feet, here's what Bell Forest lists:
| Wood | <10 bf | 10–99 bf | 100–499 bf |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 Ipe | $17.50/bf | $15.75/bf | $13.15/bf |
| 4/4 White oak (Sel & Btr, S2S) | $9.50/bf | $8.55/bf | $7.15/bf |
| 8/4 White oak | $13.50/bf | $12.15/bf | $10.15/bf |
| 4/4 Quarter sawn white oak | $11.50/bf | $10.35/bf | $8.65/bf |
| 4/4 Aromatic red cedar | $6.00/bf | $5.40/bf | $4.50/bf |
Two things to flag. That cedar price is aromatic red cedar, which is eastern red cedar, not western red cedar. The brief doesn't have a verified western red cedar board-foot price, so I'm not going to invent one. And pressure-treated doesn't have a verified board-foot price at all in this research. Home Depot's pages wouldn't load. So the honest answer on treated is that I can't put a verified number to it here.
Ipe at roughly 2x white oak and 3x aromatic cedar is the headline. That's not a rounding difference. That's a different budget category.
Cost Per Seat: Build It Yourself Honest
No source I could find publishes a cost-per-seat for outdoor furniture. So here's the only honest way to do it: pick a chair plan, count the board feet, add your waste, multiply by the tier price.
A simple Adirondack-style chair typically runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 12 board feet depending on the plan and how wide your boards are. That's my own shop experience, not a sourced figure. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. You need to do your own count for the design you're building, and you need to allow waste. My rule of thumb in the shop is 20% over for hardwood projects, more if the boards are cupped or the grain is interlocked. That's a working number, not a measured one.
Run that at 10 bf per seat with 20% waste:
- Aromatic cedar at $6.00/bf: about $72 in lumber per chair at the small-quantity tier.
- White oak at $9.50/bf: about $114 per chair.
- Ipe at $17.50/bf: about $210 per chair.
Those are my numbers built on Bell Forest prices plus a labeled assumption. They are not sourced cost-per-seat figures. But the ratios hold: ipe runs roughly 2x white oak and roughly 3x aromatic cedar per seat.
Now add fasteners, finish, and your Saturday. Cedar needs more careful fastener selection because iron-based fasteners can stain and discolor it, especially with moisture. White oak needs stainless or hot-dipped because of the iron reaction. Pressure-treated demands hot-dipped galvanized or stainless, and per woodworkscience.com you should brush field cuts with copper naphthenate. Ipe blunts cutters fast and cuts slow.
Weight: The Cost Nobody Prices In
Weight isn't on the receipt but it's on your back every time you move the chair to mow under it.
Per cubic foot, at the same moisture content, Wood Database figures give you cedar 23.0 lb, white oak 47.0 lb, and ipe 65.5 lb. Ipe is roughly 2.8x cedar and roughly 1.4x white oak per unit volume. That's arithmetic from the density figures, nothing more.
In furniture terms, a cedar chair can be moved by one person. A white oak chair is a two-person job or a stubborn one-person job. An ipe chair you set where you want it and you leave it there.
Pressure-treated gets its own weight problem. A wet treated 2×4 can weigh about 70% more than a dry untreated one, per woodworkscience.com. If you build from wet stock, you're fighting warp and checking. KDAT at roughly 15–19% MC is what you want for anything that has to hold a shape.
Rot and Re-Finish: The Real Cost of Ownership
Rot resistance, first, because that's the simple part.
- Ipe: very durable, excellent insect resistance, but it's susceptible to marine borers.
- White oak: very durable. Boats and barrels prove the point.
- Western red cedar: durable to very durable for decay, mixed on insects.
- Pressure-treated: the woodworkscience.com author claims a UC4A ground-contact post can last 40 years or more, while a sun-exposed deck board may show checking in 15–20 years. That's one woodworker's estimate, not a tested figure, and I'd treat it that way.
Finish intervals are harder, and I'm going to be straight with you: I could not verify a re-coat interval for any of these four woods. No manufacturer recommendation, no FPL data, nothing that loaded in the research. The Wood Handbook chapter index confirms Chapter 15 "Finishing of Wood" exists, with sections on exterior finish performance and finish failure, but the PDF itself wouldn't open here and no figures came out of it. So anything I tell you about "every X years" would be made up. I'm not going to do that.
What I can tell you, from the sources that did load:
- Ipe is difficult to glue, and lapachol deposits can interfere with polishing or finishing. Bell Forest notes many users leave it unfinished for a natural silver-gray patina. That's a real option, and it eliminates re-coat labor entirely.
- White oak glues, stains, and finishes well. That's from Wood Database.
- Cedar glues and finishes well, but iron-based fasteners can stain and discolor it, especially with moisture.
- Pressure-treated: per woodworkscience.com, wait until fully dry before finishing, avoid film-forming finishes like polyurethane which will peel, and use penetrating oil-based stains or exterior-grade acrylics labeled for treated wood.
That last one is the biggest hidden cost of cheap lumber. A finish that peels is worse than no finish, because now you're sanding.
The Verdict
Here's how I'd frame the whole decision, given what we can actually verify.
Cedar is the right material if you're building something light and movable, you accept the softness, and you'll keep up with it. Just don't pretend it's a permanent fixture. It'll dent, it'll scratch, and it isn't going to survive a kid's soccer game. If you're using cheap materials, you've already lost.
White oak is the honest middle. Bell Forest lists 4/4 Select at $9.50/bf in small quantities and drops to $7.15 at the 100–499 tier. It's very durable, it finishes well, and it's about half of what ipe costs at similar quantities. The dimensional stability issue is real, especially flatsawn, and the iron-staining issue means you spec stainless and you mean it. But it's my default for outdoor furniture in a wet climate unless the client is paying for something else.
Pressure-treated is the right tool for the job when the job is a fence post, a planter box for non-edibles, or a structural platform under something nicer. Per woodworkscience.com, it's not food-safe and shouldn't be used for edible-plant beds. It's heavy when wet, it checks, and its real lifetime in full sun is shorter than its reputation suggests if you're relying on one blogger's estimate. Use it where it belongs and don't pretend it's furniture-grade.
Ipe is the material you choose when labor and lifespan are the real budget, not the lumber. At $17.50/bf at the small tier, dropping to $13.15/bf at 100–499 bf, it costs roughly double white oak. It is endangered on the IUCN Red List, it was listed in CITES Appendix II in 2024, and the lapachol is a genuine health consideration in the shop. It's exceptional wood. It's also heavy, hard on tools, and a poor choice if you need to move the furniture.
My call for a wet, sunny climate: white oak for most outdoor furniture, cedar for light movable pieces, pressure-treated only where it belongs, and ipe only when you're building something that never moves and you can afford the fasteners, the blades, and the respirator.
Before you buy, do the board-foot count for your actual plan, add your waste, and price the whole seat. Then decide whether the premium is worth it. The wood will last either way. The finish and the fasteners are what you'll actually live with.