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Thread: Decks - composite vs treated

  1. #1
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    Default Decks

    Curious who's running a composite deck.. we're getting a pretty healthy tax return this year, and having moved to a house with no deck, seems like the easy way forward. Have ordered a couple composite samples just to check them out... I've seen both gawdy composite decks, to really nice ones, so not sure which way to go. Cost is obviously considerably more
    Last edited by Brent.ff; 05-16-2019 at 09:31 AM.

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    How about Cedar? I love that my family can crawl around on mine and it’s soft on the feet with no chance of slivers.
    Last edited by Darell_n; 04-02-2019 at 07:33 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Darell_n View Post
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    How about Cedar? I love that my family can crawl around on mine and it’s soft of the feet with no chance of slivers.
    Think i'd look at that as well. Cedar is very nice

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    Which way will the deck face? Composite gets pretty hot if its in the sun all day.

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    Southeast

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    I like composite best of all options, even cedar, but yeah it gets hot in direct sunshine. You'll want some big shade umbrellas or a shade canopy or something.

    One of the things I like best about composite is that you can do a border of a different shade to match the trim of your house. Can look really sharp.

    Cedar looks nice, but you have to be a bit zen about the appearance over time, or you'll end up spending a lot of effort to keep it looking new-ish.
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    I'm in a similar position. Time to rebuild our deck this year. Going to change the design and layout so complete removal and fresh start. We've been looking at composite due to the low maintenance and we face East so sun shouldn't heat the surface too bad. Any first hand experience with the various brands out there? I've been reading terrible reviews on Trex, looking at timbertech currently but open to suggestions and feedback.

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    When getting composite keep in mind the design and size of your deck. Different manufacturers have different max lengths.
    Timbertech will go up to a 20' grooveless board for your borders.

    Places like Lowes sell limited selection of Timbertech but if they happen to have the board you want and they have their blanket 15% or 20% off, you can save quite a bit over stores like Timbertown.
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    I was looking at Lowe's but only because I have a contractor card there and they run their 15% off contractor days about once every 4-6 weeks it seems.

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    We did brown pressure treated only because the good composite decking boards (there are lots of cheap ones) are like 4-5x as expensive.

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    Decide how long you're living at this house and that should be the decision driver.

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    Quote Originally Posted by 88CRX View Post
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    We did brown pressure treated only because the good composite decking boards (there are lots of cheap ones) are like 4-5x as expensive.
    Thats kinda where im at... not sure it's worth it unless planning on being in a place for 10ish years

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    Check out Dr Decks on Instagram though for some good composite decking inspiration.
    I can eat more hot wings than you.

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    I've read lots of composite horror stories with cracking, warping, etc. I don't know enough about it to know if it's limited to certain brands and/or climates though, but with Alberta's 70 degree celcius temperature swings it seems like it would take a beating regardless. Last time I looked into this we ended up going cedar for that reason, plus it looks amazing.

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    You really have 3 choices:

    - composite
    - PT wood untreated (will turn silver colour eventually)
    - PT wood treated (will require re-treatment every 3-5 years).

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    Quote Originally Posted by ExtraSlow View Post
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    Cedar looks nice, but you have to be a bit zen about the appearance over time, or you'll end up spending a lot of effort to keep it looking new-ish.
    Uhgh tell me about it. Trying to keep cedar looking nice when you have a lot of tree's is impossible. I need to completely strip and re-finish 50' of fence.

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    i have a friend that did his deck in a cheaper composite material. in just 2 or 3 years, the deck had discolored and the material shrunk and expanded with the temperature changes, leaving big gaps where the boards met. i thought it looked terrible.

    my house faces southwest so it gets a lot of sun in the evening. when we build our deck, its most likely going to be pressure treated or cedar.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tik-Tok View Post
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    Uhgh tell me about it. Trying to keep cedar looking nice when you have a lot of tree's is impossible. I need to completely strip and re-finish 50' of fence.
    Just go limp and let it weather. That's the way to do cedar.
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    Composite:

    It’s come a long way, but still $$$$$ and gets hot, slippery as well. Lots of colour choices

    Pressure treated:

    Cheaper, limited colour choice. Will personally be how we go with our new dock, due to sun exposure

    Cedar:

    It ain’t what it use to be. The last 10-20 years the quality of cedar has plummeted. All the docks i’ve seen redone in that time period already look worse than our much over due 30yr old dock. Also the worst to keep looking “new” unless like mentioned you just leave it natural and let it grey out. Also stupid money for he short life of current cedar. It’s almost on par with composite

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    My parents have had Trex for a number of years now (more than 5, less than 10, cant remember exactly though), and it's been really good. Quite durable, and not as hot as I expected. Zero signs of expansion/shrinking. It basically looks like it did the day they installed it.

    We did pressure treated for our deck, only because we don't intend to be in this house for longer than another ~5 years.

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