Synthetic Decking material?

[Boomyal]

I need to build a new deck off the master BR. (aprox 14' x 24 ') My options are:

Painted douglas fir
Pressure treated Sunwood or equiv.
Real cedar 2 x 6's
Pattern stamped and colored concrete.

OR

one of the various brands of newer synthetic lumber.

I do favor the wood deck look. I just ripped out a painted doug fir deck, (didn't need to do too much ripping) so that is not an option.

Pressure treated decking wood is high maintanance and looks like **** after the first year.

Cedar is not much better. In this PNW I do not want to get into refinishing every couple of years.

Soooooooooo, if I hear good reports about the durability and long term appearance of the various synthetics, that's the way I would like to go.

I do know that you do not get the same spans from synth 2 x 6 as you do real wood but if it holds, structurally and appearance wise, I would gladly pay the premium over any wood products.

Any experience out there?

 

[eurolarva]

Re: Synthetic Decking material?

Two years ago the only composite our city allowed was trex. I really loved this stuff. Easy to install and cut and not hollow like some of the newer composites. I also used a thing called shadow track which allowed me to screw the deck planks from the bottom. The structure was built with treated pine. The most expensive part of the project is the hand rails. The cost was like 40 dollars a foot. Even on our small deck of 10' x 12 ' just the hand rails cost $1400 and were a real pain to assemble. We chose timber teck hand rails which were also composites. Upfront the cost is a lot but in the future the no washing and re water treating will make it all worth while.

 

[tommays]

Re: Synthetic Decking material?

Its sunny here and many of the High Tech materials burn your feet compared to wood :devil:

They also have there own matiance issues with mold and stain cleaning Do a google most of them are being sued over the matiance requirments of there matiance free products

Yours is not that big but mine is so long the thermal expansion became and issue over the 60' lenth so i redecked with 5/4 cedar

On a big repiar project like i did the price of NON WOOD railing and deck products became insane about 8000 dollars more

I did the nice plastic thing on my front fence the green stuff loves it and it requires washing at least 4 times a year so its pretty high matiance in real life


Tommays

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Synthetic Decking material?

Thanks guys. Colored and patterned concrete is sounding better and better.

Tommays, is that the cedar in your picture? Also, what is 5/4 cedar.

Any more comments?

 

[tommays]

Re: Synthetic Decking material?

Yes its cedar it gets a gray color and stays that way

The 5/4 is a standard deck board its 1-1/4 thick X 5-1/2

Another way they get you is that many of the composite boards shave off a 1/8 of and inch on both thickness and width

On 120 boards your talking real money


Tommays