Teak or aluminium? How to choose an outdoor furniture frame
Both materials last decades outdoors. They fail differently, weigh differently and age differently — and the right answer depends far more on your site than on your taste.
Teak or aluminium? How to choose an outdoor furniture frame
Choose teak when you want furniture that weathers and warms over time, and weight is not a problem — it silvers to grey in about nine months and lasts 25 years. Choose powder-coated aluminium for balconies, coastal sites or anywhere pieces move often: it is 65% lighter, cannot rust, and looks identical in year ten.
They both last. That is not the question.
A properly specified teak frame and a properly specified marine-grade aluminium frame will both still be standing in twenty years. The decision is not about durability — it is about weight, movement, and what you want the furniture to look like after five summers.
Weight is the practical difference
Teak is dense: 655 kg/m³. A Corbett armchair in teak weighs 22 kg; the same chair in aluminium weighs 8 kg. On a terrace where the furniture stays put, that weight is an asset — it does not move in wind. On a balcony that has to be cleared before every monsoon, it is a genuine burden.
Ageing is the aesthetic difference
Teak changes. Left alone, ultraviolet light breaks down lignin in the top 0.1 mm of the surface and the honey colour becomes a silver-grey patina over roughly nine months. Some clients wait for that deliberately; others seal annually to hold the original tone. Aluminium does not change at all — a chalk-white frame in year ten looks exactly as it did on delivery.
Coastal sites tilt the answer
Salt air is hard on everything, but aluminium has no iron in it and therefore cannot rust. Our powder coat is rated to 1,000 hours of salt spray, roughly three times what a garden-centre finish carries. Within two kilometres of the sea, aluminium is usually the right frame.
The short version
Terrace, garden, permanent installation, and you like the idea of the furniture ageing: teak. Balcony, coastal, hospitality, frequent movement, or you want it to look identical for a decade: aluminium.