Thank you for you time and inquiry. To stop the furniture from scathing and moving on the deck I would suggest using Rubber Furniture Pads. These protective pads can be placed under the legs of your patio furniture. They can also be found online.

This should do the trick for you. You will want to stay away from the felt ones as the felt will not hold up in an exterior application. But the Rubber or even vinyl ones will work just fine. I hope this helps please let me know if there is anything else that I can do for you.

We always tell people to use pet safe ice melt as it is a little less abrasive than rock salt.

One of our mills is located in Buffalo NY and our Ipe Decking has been installed on countless jobs in the north east region that deals with snow and ice in the winter and hot sunny days in the summer. You will not find another decking product that is stronger and more durable than Ipe. Our 1″ x 6″ material can span 16″ joists and our 5/4″ x 6″ material can span 24″ joists with zero deflection this will give your deck more strength for things like snow load, your joist spacing however will need to follow the building code for your area. As far as shoveling the snow off your deck Ipe is one of the hardest woods in the world so you can shovel away and not worry about scratching and damaging the decking.