Composite Decking

[jetlag100]

Used composite up the lake house...it gets dumped on every time the metal roof lets go...LOL ..One year the roof had ice, it slid, it broke through the deck...that was an unusually hard winter...looks great...it's 10 years old... cleans up beautifully...use deck wash on it..no issues...wish I had it at my city house..$$$$$$$$$$$

[winni83]

When we built our house 4 years ago we used Azek for the decks. Very pleased with the way they look. We do use a snow shovel with a plastic blade on the decks.

[DickR]

On our new house, built 2010-11, we used Fiberon imitation IPE composite decking. It still looks new, and it's a good match to the house siding. It has a fairly tough shell over the core material and seems to stand up well to abuse, including snow shoveling with a plastic shovel. I suspect PT would suffer more abuse over time than the composite does, being a wood product. Plus, the PT would tend to present potential splinters to bare feet over time, whereas the composite will not. Long-term maintenance tilts in favor of composite. Bear in mind that labor to install either type of decking likely will be more than the material itself, so a lesser uptick for better material won't be as big a deal.

If you do go composite, as others have noted, make sure the joist spacing is close enough for the material, particularly if the decking is attached at 45 degrees, which may call for 12" OC joist spacing. Also, if composite decking is used, and it has grooves on the edges for the use of hidden fasteners, then lateral bracing of the framing will be required, since the use of those fasteners does not provide racking resistance.

[Slickcraft]

Thanks for all of the good replies and I suspect some more yet to come.

Right now we are sticking with the composite plan, likely a light grey color. That is the color of the stain we have on the old PT decking and have been happy with that color. The bid that we have is the Trex Transcend line, will talk to the contractor about other options. The size of the deck does lead to pretty high material costs.

The 25 year old PT decking would have been in much better shape if the original owner had sealed or stained it. Rather it went 10 years untouched except for mother nature resulting in lots of surface cracks and splinters.

As an aside I must have messed up on my advanced search prior to posting. Got zero past results meaning that I must have accidentally clicked on the wrong forum on the sidebar.

[Woody38]

Our house in Massachusetts is 25 years old with the original pine decking. The original owner had the house built and the contractor did the usual by cutting corners. The deck is stained and had minimal care by the owner. Interesting that we painted the house two years ago and I assumed the deck was included. When they finished I was told they would stain the deck for $800.
My fault, but this is the first time I had a house painted and they did not do the deck. This deck is sort of beat up but presentable. I got out the sander and did some sanding on the worst spots and lightly elsewhere. My real issue is that stain today is not oil. Didn't soak in so good and did not shed water like the oil. I am applying a second coat.
If I were to replace this deck I would use mahogany or teak. AND proper maintainance

[SAB1]

What Ishoot said. Two of my friends are quality builders and will use nothing but azek. To manyissues with trex that they have to go back and fix.

[VitaBene]

We just replaced our Douglas Fir deck with Azek. We bought it at Winnipesaukee Lumber- they were great to deal with.

Our joists were already 12"OC. We did picture frame ours to cover the edges.

[Busy Livin']

Recommend the Camo Hidden Fastener System for whatever decking material you use. We did our deck last year with Azek from Winni Lumber and secured it with the Camo system...came out great. Easy to use and practically invisible.

[SIKSUKR]

When I had put new siding on my house I used Azek for all the trim, facia and crown molding on my windows. Love that stuff. Azek came more recommended than Trex. FWIW

Just an fyi. I have seen on both materials what appears like mold spots. It does come off with scrubbing.

[secondcurve]

Originally Posted by SIKSUKR

When I had put new siding on my house I used Azek for all the trim, facia and crown molding on my windows. Love that stuff. Azek came more recommended than Trex. FWIW

Just an fyi. I have seen on both materials what appears like mold spots. It does come off with scrubbing.

The composite decking does get dirty on occasion. The solution is easy.......just use a power washer and everything looks brand new. I spend 2-3 hours with a power washer on my composite deck and it looks like New after I'm finished. Definitely go with good quality composite.....you will not be disappointed.

[CaptT820]

Couldn't agree with Easy Livin' any more. The Camo deck system is wayyy cheaper than hidden fasteners and goes in much faster. I built a 1350 sq. ft. full wrap around farmers porch on our last house using Camo and Evergrain decking by Tamko. The decking worked great and the system to put it in worked great. I cannot stress enough, as others have, that the joist spacing is absolutely critical depending on the product. I currently have mahogany at our house and I would replace it (if it wasn't so expensive) with composite.

[BroadHopper]

Probably the oldest and preferred by top builders and architects.

[Diver Vince]

Let's make this simple..Use Azek. Can't be beat. Our deck now 4 years old and looks great!

[ApS]

We've got a PT dock that's 37 years old.

After casual and intermittent treatments with Thompson's Sealer, it's only recently that some deterioration has appeared. I'm dabbing the trouble spots with an epoxy w/filler, rather than taking the trouble to replace a few boards.

Originally Posted by Diver Vince

Let's make this simple..Use Azek. Can't be beat. Our deck now 4 years old and looks great!

Azek showed no complaints on Complaintsboard. Other brands didn't fare so well...

.

[Leoskeys]

We are having our lakefront deck redone, and are planning on Azek. We have dozens of samples in hand. Looks to be three options/levels of Azek - Vintage(most expensive), Arbor, and Harvest(least expensive). Does anyone have experience with this type of decking when wet? Any specific opinions on the three options?. The most expensive seems to have the best “grain” and traction. We may also use the same to redo our docks decking. Obviouslly Azek comes well recommended by this forum, but is it much more slippery than pressure treated, and anyone have personal experience with the three levels and the look, feel.

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by Leoskeys

We are having our lakefront deck redone, and are planning on Azek. We have dozens of samples in hand. Looks to be three options/levels of Azek - Vintage(most expensive), Arbor, and Harvest(least expensive). Does anyone have experience with this type of decking when wet? Any specific opinions on the three options?. The most expensive seems to have the best “grain” and traction. We may also use the same to redo our docks decking. Obviouslly Azek comes well recommended by this forum, but is it much more slippery than pressure treated, and anyone have personal experience with the three levels and the look, feel.

You won’t go wrong with Azek decking. It’s been around for a long time and is a proven excellent product. I have Azek at my home in Gilford and do not find it any more slippery than wood.

I am not positive but believe their more expensive Vintage line of decking is also a fire rated product. Depending on your use and budget the fire rating may be well worth the difference in price.

Darker colors will absorb heat more than lighter colors and will also show more fade. Fading will stop after one season in the sun.

Edited to add: just found this on line. Impressive! https://azek.com/docs/default-docume...index_v8-final

Dan

[Barney Bear]

For most of the season, we put an outdoor carpet on our medium gray, wood grain pattern Trex decking to avoid human hot dogs. Our decking was installed about five years ago and looks as good as new. We also used Trex on our small deck at home. 🌭🌭

[tis]

We had Trex at first and it was very hot on the feet. We have Azek now and I love it. The wood fibers in the Trex also got moldy and it was almost impossible to clean. But I think Azek now has a totally wood free product like Azek.

[MeredithMan]

Originally Posted by Leoskeys

We are having our lakefront deck redone, and are planning on Azek. We have dozens of samples in hand. Looks to be three options/levels of Azek - Vintage(most expensive), Arbor, and Harvest(least expensive). Does anyone have experience with this type of decking when wet? Any specific opinions on the three options?. The most expensive seems to have the best “grain” and traction. We may also use the same to redo our docks decking. Obviouslly Azek comes well recommended by this forum, but is it much more slippery than pressure treated, and anyone have personal experience with the three levels and the look, feel.

We have Azek on our dock. It obviously gets very wet from waves, water from swimmers, etc. Unlike the Bon Jovi album, it is not slippery when wet, (anyone else from the 80's will get that one! ). The "planks" do have wood grain "texture" in them so that helps with the grip. Also, our dock is in direct sun all day and we've never found the decking to be very hot. It is a light gray in color, so that may be a factor.

[Pete C]

We are a deck design/build company, write for the decking industry and personally are an ocean person to lake convert(spouse induced). We specialize in both Trex & Azek/TT so can share some thoughts. The industry gets a lot of our data from Principia which do many comprehensive studies so you may want to check there for more information.

Whenever we design a project for the waterfront or pool environments (wet surfaces), we recommend the deepest woodgrain pattern which would be the Trex Transcend line. The cap is approx 3x thicker than others which allows the grain to be more pronounced thus giving a better grip. It's not that the others are bad or horribly slippery, it's just that Transcend has a deeper pattern. You really can not go wrong with either and the "good, better, best" are all good mostly having the same warranty.

As far as what's the difference between the "good, better, best"? Besides the colors(aesthetics), the caps durability increases as you go up the line. That is - the "best" has a harder shell/cap than the good or better thus less resistant to scratching. They will ALL scratch and scrape.

Lastly, studies confirm the darker colors will get hotter than the light colors (as much as double digit difference) so we generally encourage to go as light as you can when the project gets a lot of direct sunlight.

Again, as long as you stick with any of the top manufacturers, all are good choices.

[Biggd]

Azek is more slippery than wood, esp in winter when it's icy. I have two houses, one has Azek decking and the other has mahogany decking. The Azek is much more slippery, esp in winter.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by Pete C

The cap is approx 3x thicker than others which allows the grain to be more pronounced thus giving a better grip. It's not that the others are bad or horribly slippery, it's just that Transcend has a deeper pattern. You really can not go wrong with either and the "good, better, best" are all good mostly having the same warranty.

As far as what's the difference between the "good, better, best"? Besides the colors(aesthetics), the caps durability increases as you go up the line.

The above statement is somewhat misleading when you are adding Azek into the comparison.

Azek has no "cap", it is solid PVC, the same color all the way through. I have found the woodgrain pattern on my Azek dock to be plenty "grippy" when wet.

For my previous deck, we used TimerTech, which was a "capped" composite, for a non-lake house. I was happy with it overall, though I did notice a small amount of swelling at some of the cut ends after a few years of exposure, so not sure how it would work for a dock, but for deck purposes I was happy with it.

Having done Azek now, and having built PT and composite decks in the past, I don't think I would do anything other than Azek in the future.

[8gv]

Originally Posted by Pete C

We are a deck design/build company, write for the decking industry and personally are an ocean person to lake convert(spouse induced). We specialize in both Trex & Azek/TT so can share some thoughts. The industry gets a lot of our data from Principia which do many comprehensive studies so you may want to check there for more information.

Whenever we design a project for the waterfront or pool environments (wet surfaces), we recommend the deepest woodgrain pattern which would be the Trex Transcend line. The cap is approx 3x thicker than others which allows the grain to be more pronounced thus giving a better grip. It's not that the others are bad or horribly slippery, it's just that Transcend has a deeper pattern. You really can not go wrong with either and the "good, better, best" are all good mostly having the same warranty.

As far as what's the difference between the "good, better, best"? Besides the colors(aesthetics), the caps durability increases as you go up the line. That is - the "best" has a harder shell/cap than the good or better thus less resistant to scratching. They will ALL scratch and scrape.

Lastly, studies confirm the darker colors will get hotter than the light colors (as much as double digit difference) so we generally encourage to go as light as you can when the project gets a lot of direct sunlight.

Again, as long as you stick with any of the top manufacturers, all are good choices.

Did you mean to say “less resistant to scratching”?

It would seem that a harder cap would be more resistant.