My project for this spring is a deck. I want to do a composite deck. In my reasearch I have found too many options. I am looking for suggestions on what type of material I should go with. I have heard about color fade, mold, ect.. pros and con of each. I am looking to you guys who have experience with this stuff. What is your recommendation????
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I think you will find that IPE is the choice of most of the fellas here but thats real wood.
Timber Tech has a good product and is rated stronger than most of the others.
I heard some great things about Weatherbest.
Trex and Fiberon have the best looking products but suffer from some fading flaws.
Eon expands too much and tends to be slick!
Veranda is garbage.
I like to mix em up! The last job i did I used white wrapped composite Elk balusters,Trex rail and Timber Tech posts. Ill be posting pics soon of that one.
I like the Trapease screws for install unless you want hidden fastners.
definately hidden fasteners, I hated the mushroom effect of topside screws going through that stuff. I attached a copy of my latest one, partial wrap around of a partially sunk above ground pool. Floating foundation and we put a spa on one corner in a gazebo.
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every court needs a jester
I took a pinch bar to my PT 5/4 decking and re-installed "correct deck" with the grooves in the side for hidden fasteners. Its time consuming to fasten but well worth it.
Why not tell us what brands are readily available in your area and what brands you are considering based on look, price, etc. Then people here will tell you what they know about the specific brands. Another consideration is if you want to do a composite railing system, what components are available.
I can recommend 1 or 2, but what use will it be if they don't sell that brand around where you live?
All: BTW - whatever happed to Pro-Deck?
I want to try and dissuade you from using a composite decking. I was on a project where while still working there, we scratched the surface and the scratches revealed lighter color under the face. Another thing since composite is plastic, I read that it gets really hot. If you are living in California, I don't think I want to use composite decking in an open deck. Third, composite is plastic and non-biodegradadagle. Why they make composite decking, I really don't know. There have been known to have certain problems associated with composite decking and materials. I know for a fact that even though composite decking all look similar, they have all different compositions. Some have more sawdust that others. And there was some news about a brand that had mildew problems.
On the other hand, wood looks beautiful and energy efficient. Wood is a renewable energy and has the least amount of energy to produce it. Cedar and ipe are good choices. Wood is the real thing. With cedar, use a good grade cedar and solid stain it with a sprayer all sides. Use undermount hangers for good looks. I was on the western red cedar website and they had this intensive turorial on their wesbsite. I have the cd rom from the realcedar.org. Ipe is dense and is a lot harder than hard maple. You have to be prepared to make a lot of pilot hole and counter sink holes. But Ipe lasts a lot longer. PT wood is an excellent choice is terms of durability. After finishing I don' t think it will come in contact with human skin.
Not trying to change your mind or anything... but many composites use a certain percentage of recycled plastics. Just a minor point...
PT is a terrible choice if you're looking for any type of lengevity. 7 years & my deck of PT looks like crap and spinterting left & right. Did all the mainteance, cleaning, sealing, cleaning staining, cleaning, next will be demo.
Let me guess - Thompsons?
I can't remember right now, but I know it wasn't thompsons... let me think. I think the primary issue was poor quality wood for the pt.
Let me guess - Thompsons?
Man, that stuff is garbage.
I used penofin. But interesting yesterday I was researching a stain/protectant for decks and consumer reports showed penofin way down the list. Cabot's was on the top. Surprised me. I need to finish mine again and I am going to look further into this.......
I notice a lot of people talking about drilling pilot holes for IPE, but on the web sites they show special fasteners that fit into grooves on the sides of the planks. No reason to drill into the IPE, only into the joists. Unless I am missing something.Semper Fi
"To be young and a conservative, you have no heart"
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"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, 1985
You're right, the primary reason to predrill Ipe is if you are going to face screw it. If you are using Ebtys or some other hidden fastener, it will greatly reduce or eliminate the number of boards that need face screws.
I use mostlyt IPE` - rarely any composite so I cahn't say what6 is good and what is bad or poor - but what I can say is this -
I just got home from the JLCLive trade show and I was amazed at the great number of different brands of composite deckings available out there. It is a hot, competitive market right now and I will project that not all of these companies will survive the lengthy of the written warrantee.
So I would definitely be looking for a product that is marketed by a manufacturer that is well established and has a stable of other products with good history in the marketplace.
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Trex and Timber Tech fit the bill.
With the IPE do they charge a lot more for 12' lengths and up?
Good to have you back .How was the show Piffin?
Edited 3/25/2007 6:34 pm ET by AllTrade
Great, but I'll not comment too much now. Got to catch up on lots of mail, email, and phone messages.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin
Dammit now your making me mad!
I didnt have the pleasure of treking around the JLC show, I was tearing the porch off the front of my house today.
Per your recomendations, and dont think my lawyer wont use that fact, I was going to use Tendura T & G on the floor of the new porch. Now your telling us that you question the composite decking material and their warrenties! Say it aint so!
I have to keep this porch historic looking and Ipe isnt going to cut it. My reason for the Tendura was it actually looks like real wood(well sorta, but close enough to fool the historic folk), or at least the samples that they sent me do, another recomendation by you.
I thought about VGDF T & G painted but you and some other posters on BT have made comments that its not holding up like the old growth VGDF.
I like the idea of not having to paint the floor and by using Tendura I wouldnt. This floor will be covered by a roof, faces north so it doesnt get the really hot sun. Also I have a bit of a problem with mold/algea on this side of the house so the composite material would really be of some benifit.
Now that I've established that your responsible for my leaning towards Tendura and I may have to take some legal action towards you for "getting my hopes up", yea, thats a legal term, what do I do now?
There isnt any place locally that sells Tendura so I was going to drive to Minn or Wisc to get it but now I'm reconsidering.
My thinking on this porch was to use the Tendura for the floor and either cypress or cedar for the posts and exposed roof and trim details. Treated for the sub frame, another part that has me a little concerned because I dont trust that stuff.
This is an area that is completly out of my element and when I do start a thread on this, with pictures, you'll see that I made a big mistake 17 years ago when I built the porch. Poor choice of materials and a few other mistakes but now I intend to redo it and make it last the rest of my life, and that of my 6 year old son.
So, what say you?
Doug
I'd still use Tendura for that in a heartbeat. I never even thought about it in this thread. What was dancing in front of my eyes was the memory of all the fifty or so 5/4 x 6 grey, purple, brown, black and other colours of trex type products that everyone was shoving your way and demonstrating all over the place.The comparison I was making in my mind was that back in about '78 there were about 50 manufacturers of wood stoves in this country. That market got hot because of the "energy crisis" and soon there were close to 600 makers nationally.Shortly after I closed my store in '81 I read that the number had dwindled to about 60 after a warm winter and high intrrest rates sucking up capital.There is nothing wrong with wood stoves. Most everybody who installed one got some value out of it. But the market treated the manufacturers harshly.Same with composite decking. There is no way there is a large enough market for all of them to stay in business.Tendura is a unique product and has already been around for a few years so it already owns its own slice of this market protected by a moat, stone walls, and barbed wire with machine gun emplacements in bunkers.
Maybe not as secure as IPE` but close.Feel bettter now?
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Feel bettter now?
Well it depends, did you say it to make me feel better or cause it's true! :)
I'm probably going to use it cause I dont want to have to paint a porch floor and I dont know anything that will last - in terms of wood with a historic look.
Thanks
Doug
Let's put it this way - I've used it for my top clients and would not hesitate to tuse it agian for the same calibre of people.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
We've used Trex, Timbertek and Correctdeck. Correctdeck is manufactured in Vermont, so I don't know if its regional or not. Weatherbest is about the same composition as Correctdeck, but has a baffle type structure instead of being solid.
Correctdeck is by far the one that has impressed me the most. It has a larger amount of wood fiber, mostly hardwood, than the others we've worked with.
As for Trex, like I said we've used it twice. The last time we built a huge deck with the rail system and all and Trex was going to sign us up as certified builders, but then they just stopped following up with us. The supplier we worked with stopped carrying their product as well, stating they had shipping and communication issues with them as well.
Shortly after, Boise Cascade did their split and Trex is now carried at H.D. stores.
Trex drawbacks from our experience and customer comments:
1. Their product Q.C. is lousy. We always had to contend with boards that were of irregular shape, causing our work to look shoddy, oftentimes they would have large gouges, scrapes or stains that could not be blamed on the lumber yard as we would get the deliveries in the manufacturer's bundling.
2. The decking has a waxy feel to it that feels very artificial and also tends to make for a slippery surface.
3. The decking seems somewhat porous and absorbs a lot of stains quite easily. Also, the coloring will be irregular, causing irregularity in appearance, that is noticeable when pieces are laid out next to eachother. Finding matches or blends that don't make your work look like crap is a waste of time.
4. Trex has poor structural capacity and requires exceptional buildup underneath that stronger composites do not require.
5. The construction of all decking is of recycled materials, but some sifting through to weed out undesirable pieces should be part of their Q.C., but with Trex it isn't. More than once I'd cut a piece to find that my saw just ran through a nice shard of metal imbedded in the composite!
Timbertek just seemed flimsy and thin compared to others.
We used the under deck fastening system on the Correct Deck that is sold with it (can't remember their trade name for it) and found it time consuming -- allow yourself the extra time, but the customer loves the look.
I've found you can pretty much make the screw holes on Trex deck disappear as the mushroom top will sink down as the screw recedes, Trex is that soft.
Do consider that harder composites, or even working with a softer one in the colder months will require pre drilling prior to screwing down as well.
PT has a limited life and as for it being more environmentally sound than composite, I'd disagree as the energy to recycle post consumer products is recovered when they are put back into the user stream, especially if in basically more inert form such as composite decking.
PT on the other hand encourages the continued use of a natural resource; lumber, which is increasingly in short supply and high demand and wood degrades and thus the energy to fight the degradation process and finally the cost and energy to replace far out strips that of composite.