I am in the process of building a villa on the north coast up in El Choco and the builder is recommending the use of a wood species that I am not familiar with called jequitiba. He is suggesting it in lieu of mahogony due to a lower cost as I asked him to quote me on using mahogony throughout the house for doors and cabinetry due to it's resistence to termites. He claims and I verified that jequitiba is also highly resistant to termites but it is suscepible to wood boring insects. My question is are wood boring insects an issue here,I have no idea. I have seen a villa,a very expensive villa that he built using jequitiba and it is beautiful cosmetically,just as nice as mahogony if you ask me but I don't want to use it if it is not going to stand up over time,I've seen what happens to other wood species here in respects to termites. Thank you in advance for any advise.
- Thread starter Tom0910
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Jequitiba wood
Jequitiba is fine, I have houses built over 10 years ago and have almost no problems with termites or carcoma. mahogany is almost impossible to get here anyways and most people that think they have it have either andiroba or jequitiba.. it's illegal to cut down caoba trees here and imported would be prohibitively expensive. The only time I've seen real caoba (mahogany) is in EXTREMELY high end furniture.. think 5-6000$ US for a couch set , 400-500mil pesos and maybe it's real caoba.
No matter which, they both should be treated.
Jequitiba will do the same job as mahogany.
I’d used a lot in projects that required nice looking woods.
Save a pretty buck and go with it.
If you have plenty of cash to burn, go with treated mahogany.
When we had our new kitchen cabinets made, he used andiroba wood. It's been almost 10 years, zero problems.
But Roble is not mahogany . Perhaps - Roble, a species in the roble group of Tabebuia (generally T. rosea),
Quote: This enchanted island, the kindness of Dominican people seduced him and, moreover, this country offers him a prodigious range of wood species: Mahogany, Grigri, Cabirma, Cedar, Guayacan, Roble, Acacia, Cigua... Because, again and again, the wood is his favorite material: natural element, alive, with innumerable and infinite possibilities. end quote. Obviously roble and mahogany are two different wood species.
Thank you. I have seen quite a few Kitchens made here with this and they are really nice looking , as well has rocking chairs. It seems insect resistant. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Catalpa+longissima
We have had a custom kitchen made from solid jequitiba wood and it's absolutely gorgeous. Really hard and durable and resistant to problems associated with soft wood. I had never heard of it before, but our guy told me it's much cheaper than mahogany or oak, but harder to work with.
Happy to introduce you the Evanista who made it. He is my wife's cousin. His shop is in between Santiago and La Vega, but it willing to travel.
Happy to introduce you the Evanista who made it. He is my wife's cousin. His shop is in between Santiago and La Vega, but it willing to travel.
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Can you share with us the approximate cost of the beautiful cabinetry work the man did?
I found some old photos of our andiroba kitchen cabinets, I think the carpenter said it’s Brazilian. Looks just like mahogany. The last photo is a mahogany closet he built for us from a tree on our property, matches the kitchen exactly.
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Very nice ! Looks solid and durable.
I am amazed at your closet door. Every closets I have seen here had some type of holes/openings for ventilation against mold/humidity...That s not an issue for you ?