Composite Decking?
Superior to wood decks?
We were planning to use composite decking materials-until we spoke to someone at a home show…
Composite decking companies are spending large budgets on Deck Magazine advertisements and Home Improvement Shows touting the advantages of composite decking materials and composite building products and that is fantastic! I offer kudos to the media for enabling this trend towards composite decking and handrails. Think of all the garbage that will be recycled into composite decking materials.
Composite decking options were limited to spruce or pine not so long ago. Composite decking products are gaining market share and the offerings are diverse. It looks like wood, comes in an assortment of colors, the fasteners are hidden and the ads are slick and modern. Decks can now last forever. You will never have to paint or stain your deck again. Lifetime limited warranty and now the products are color fast as well.
I am trying to remain impartial. I am trying very hard to be unbiased. I am skeptical. It all sounds too perfect. Composite decking material may well be a long lasting product, however, promises made by corporations should be examined. Promises are carefully worded and when I read “Fade Resistant” or “20 year limited warranty”, questions enter my mind. I have thought long and hard on this subject. It is difficult to buck a trend armed with fabulous marketing and mass media poised to discover the next fabulous product. When everyone else is accepting something as truth, who am I to try to convince anyone that the world isn’t really flat.
You have seen vinyl products like fencing and posts used for those 3 rail fences you see everywhere. I drive by composite fences daily that have failed. I haven’t observed many composite decking projects, since they are normally shut up in yards, however the few I have seen have been less than impressive. Since vinyl lacks in structural strength–unless filled by meshed concrete, the horizontal rails tend to sag in the center. Without reinforcement vinyl is not a structural product, period. The second problem has to do with the effect of UV radiation on rigid vinyl products. It gets brittle, and when it is stressed it tends to break. The third trouble would be with the color fading, and the fourth would have to be that vinyl and composite decking tends to be soft and scratches under normal wear. Dogs have claws, women do wear high heels and damage does happen. After 5 years a vinyl composite decking will be worn–when that happens you can’t re-sand or stain it again. You are stuck with it
Plastic – Wood Resins have similar issues. Soft surfaces which wear and will not accept stain, and if the color fades from the sun, the shaded area will not and you have a 2 color deck–you have to live with it. There is no possibility of refinishing it. Composite decking materials companies often tell you to tighten up the joist spacing so that they don’t sag between the joists. This attests to a lack of structural strength. When composite decking products become structural, they will use them for the framing as well as the decking.
Most composites spec pressure treated materials for the frame–so how could it possibly last more than 20 years? A permanent deck obviously would contain no wood right? Some might not know that plastic has an expansion rate of 3%. Composite decking product expansion is not like wood. In a wood deck, shrinkage occurs when moisture is absorbed or dispelled from the timber. Plastic is temperature sensitive. Plastic composite deckingis always expanding and contracting, which means there will be voids and gaps you didn’t expect and fasteners often become loose. Now remember, the deck is framed with pressure treated which expands and contracts with changes in humidity or rainy season. The deck frame is expanding and contracting in the 1.5% range, and the plastic composite decking is expanding and contracting up to 3% and not at the same time. This alone could partially explain why quite often composite decking appears to sag between the joists.
Many composite decking materials will not be suitable for handrails unless reinforced. For years, ads show composite decking paired with cedar handrails. If a product is not rigid enough to use as a handrail, how would it be strong enough to walk on? As a professional deck builder I tend to build for twice as long as I expect it is required to last. I know that a deck will deteriorate in the elements; particularly in climates that have to endure numerous freeze thaw cycles or extreme moisture. When a brand new composite decking is only adequate to do the job when it is installed, I believe that this bodes poorly for future durability
I see the ads on TV and in magazines and it makes me want to run right out and spend the extra money on composite decking materials. Then I look at the 15 year old vinyl siding on my house and that snaps me back to reality. “Never replace your siding again! Maintenance Free… NO PAINT EVER AGAIN!” was the cry when vinyl was first introduced as a siding option. Back 25 years ago it was actually more expensive than aluminum siding and a lot more than wood.
Lets put this into proportion, siding hangs on the wall, has to resist moisture, UV, wind and the occasional ball thrown by children. Back in the future, vinyl siding can be had for 39$/square, 15 years ago–100$/square. Vinyl siding is now the budget product. I specked the stucco for the exterior of my father’s hotel up north, which covered up a badly deteriorating 9-year-old composite siding material.
I am often approached by composite decking companies who want us to purchase composite decking materials and help them market their products. I tell them all the same thing. Give me 5 names and numbers of happy customers more than 3 years old, within 2 hours of my location. I would be ecstatic to see a great composite decking material first hand—and I would visit and see these products for myself.
If I am impressed with the product, you will get a link on our website and my verbal recommendation to anyone I come into contact with on the subject. With a website that gets 15 million hits per month; you would expect them to be lining up to prove their products and reap the benefits of additional web-site traffic.
Now that I have ruffled composite decking industry feathers and they are upset anyhow, what bothers me is the lack of creativity. The product designers are attempting to emulate designs in wood for handrails and steps, which were created by carpenters and architects to work best with wood and it’s properties over hundreds of years.
Wouldn’t you like to build handrails with composite decking products that pass code and exceed engineering requirements? Stop treating it like wood and get creative. It’s not wood; working with it calls for different thinking. Use the differences to your advantage, or watch your competition do it and lose out.
So, that customer that ran into me at a home show. We built a pre-finished cedar deck for them with semi-transparent stain, which ended up having a problem with the stain due to an elderly dog which was dragging it’s hind claws rather badly, in combination with pool chemicals which resulted in the stain shedding from the surface within a couple of years. The deck is being refinished, and it will be beautiful once again, because it was wood. Had the deck been made of composite decking, they would have had to replace most of the composite decking to restore it.
Here is my offer in clear English to all composite decking products manufacturers. Give me 5 addresses of happy clients more than 3 years old, I will visit a couple at random so that I can see for myself how well your products age. If I am impressed, I will give you a link from GardenStructure.com and Winterburngroup.on.ca, both of which are Google #6 rank of importance, for 2 years, free of charge. A word of caution however, photos and my review of the products will be published on line…as an appendix to this article.
My opinion at this time; composite decking products are going to be fabulous. They are not there yet. It is still early in the cycle of development for composite decking, and yes, there will come a day when composite decking is truly superior to wood in nearly every way and I certainly hope it is soon. I would prefer to save as many trees as possible.
Be Critical. If you are considering composite decking go and see completed projects more than 3 years old that your chosen contractor has installed personally. Judge for yourself. When you ask the contractor this question you might be surprised at the answer. We haven’t been doing it that long, or the manufacturer hasn’t been in business that long is often the case. Like I said… still the early days.
I really am skeptical by nature about anything new, and since I come from a long line of ludites I do come by it naturally. I apologize now for the ruffled feathers this article may cause, however, if I am wrong please feel free to let me know. I am in the wood working business and have decided based on my limited research and deductions that I won’t be offering composites for my clients until I have been impressed. I only know what I have seen, and what I have seen has not been favorable towards composite decking materialss.
For now I am sticking with cedar.
Yours Very Truly,
Lawrence Winterburn CEO Garden Structure.com
