Should we use Cedar or Composite Decking Materials?

[bean29]

DH is replacing our Deck. It is about 12-12, with a set of stairs (4 ft) going down to the backyard. It will lead to a concrete patio on the lower yard.

Permit is approved, post holes should be inspected today. No matter what material you use for the decking and rail systems the structure underneath is green treated lumber.

When DH buys the decking, should we do Composite or Cedar?

My Mom says that we should do the composite decking. On-line I found a site that said composite decking sometimes stains, and you can not remove the stains and it fades and or gets a chalky look and that sometimes it fractures or breaks and needs to be replaced. If you need to replace a piece a few years out, it may not be available anymore. My Mom stains her green treated deck every few years. She did it two years ago and it needed to be redone last summer already...although she has not had it redone. She just feels that between the cost of the stain and the labor needed to do the upkeep it is well worth the extra cost upfront.  My Deck will be less than a third in size of what my Mom's is.

A carpenter I know also recommended composite decking. He said his cedar deck is about 20 years old and he re-stains it every 3 years. He said the composites are much better now than they were when he built his deck.

[milee]

Not sure where you live, but here on the coast of FL the sun and salt water is really tough on wood.  There is no debate here - composite lasts years longer and needs no maintenance.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

We have to paint the deck every 2-3 years.  Painted it last year and there are some areas that will need to be repainted this summer.

A lot of the newer houses around here have composite decks.  They look nice, and I'd give this some serious consideration if we needed to put in a new deck.

[ArchietheDragon]

Everyone is telling me to do composite when we redo our deck.

[The Captain]

We re-did the deck at our prior house in composite.  LOVED it!

Every spring I got out there with a mop and a bucket of soapy water.  About 2 hours clean up.  That's it.

No restaining- no splitting wood. We were there for 10 years and it still looked good when we sold the house.

IIRC it's about 3X the cost of wood, but so worth it IMHO.  It had a (I think) 30 year warranty.

[Bonny]

I hate the look. And yes I stain the deck here at the house every two years. I stain the cabin decks almost every year because of the big swings in temperature and the tree sap. I really don't mind it and I love the way it looks.

[Ryan]

I have a composite deck and it's been here since I've moved in (4 years ago).  If I had to do it over again, I would've done brick pavers since I'm on the ground floor, but I'd DEFINITELY do composite over cedar.  My fence is cedar and was put in around the same time as my deck and it looks horrible.  

[The Captain]

Apr 10, 2015 10:30:33 GMT -5 Bonny said:

I hate the look. And yes I stain the deck here at the house every two years. I stain the cabin decks almost every year because of the big swings in temperature and the tree sap. I really don't mind it and I love the way it looks.

Yes but you're not lazy, we are .

[bean29]

I am in Wisconsin. My Back yard is pretty sunny, so I don't think mold will be an issue. The current deck was considered temporary but was done in Cedar - it looks like crap, but we never stained it.

Captain, do you remember what brand your composite was?

[Tiny]

I don't have a deck (I live in the 1940's house wise). 

But, the friends and relatives who do have decks HATE having to paint/stain their decks every couple of years.   It's just another spring/summer chore in a long line of outdoor/yard chores.

My neighbor has a deck off the new addition they added to their house.  I'm pretty sure the deck is some sort of composite.   He powerwashes it every spring  and he's done.  It's atleast 8 or 9 years old and still looks great.  

If I had a deck - I'd probably go with whatever needed the least amount of yearly 'maintenance'.  

[CarolinaKat]

Apr 10, 2015 10:12:15 GMT -5 milee said:

Not sure where you live, but here on the coast of FL the sun and salt water is really tough on wood.  There is no debate here - composite lasts years longer and needs no maintenance.

LOL, this reminds me. The condo association stained our bowardwalk over the dunes a few years back. It was a pretty color..... It didn't even survive the entirety of tourist season. It's back to being old weathered wood.

[mroped]

There is this "newer" thing called TEX. Is a composite of sorts. A bit more expensive than your standard green lumber but much better. Can be bought in various colors and also can be painted. From what I hear from carpenters that I deal with on jobs, that is the way to go on decks/porches.

[gs11rmb]

We had our deck replaced in November and used composite.  It now comes in different colours and we chose one that looks like cedar rather than the very artificial grey - absolutely love the deck!

[gs11rmb]

Apr 10, 2015 12:18:08 GMT -5 mroped said:

There is this "newer" thing called TEX. Is a composite of sorts. A bit more expensive than your standard green lumber but much better. Can be bought in various colors and also can be painted. From what I hear from carpenters that I deal with on jobs, that is the way to go on decks/porches.

Do you mean TREX?

[The Captain]

Apr 10, 2015 11:11:31 GMT -5 bean29 said:

I am in Wisconsin. My Back yard is pretty sunny, so I don't think mold will be an issue. The current deck was considered temporary but was done in Cedar - it looks like crap, but we never stained it.

Captain, do you remember what brand your composite was?

Actually I do.  It was EON.  Just did some snooping online and it seems to not be well reviewed.  I find that curious because DH and I loved it.

One thing I just remembered.  DH and I grill and use our smoker a lot.  We had a hot ember fall from the starter chimney onto the deck and it instantly melted a nice plastic divet.  You don't have that on wood decks.

We ended up having to move the smoker to the cement patio, not the original plan but we made it work.

[mroped]

Apr 10, 2015 12:21:35 GMT -5 gs11rmb said:

Apr 10, 2015 12:18:08 GMT -5 mroped said:

There is this "newer" thing called TEX. Is a composite of sorts. A bit more expensive than your standard green lumber but much better. Can be bought in various colors and also can be painted. From what I hear from carpenters that I deal with on jobs, that is the way to go on decks/porches.

Do you mean TREX?

Yes, thank you!

[Sharon]

I had my front deck replaced with Trex 18 years ago and the back deck replaced 17 years ago.  They both still look great.  Every spring I scrub them with bleach water and we are good to go for the year.

[Tiny]

Apr 10, 2015 10:12:15 GMT -5 milee said:

Not sure where you live, but here on the coast of FL the sun and salt water is really tough on wood.  There is no debate here - composite lasts years longer and needs no maintenance.

LOL! My rental Condo in the Sun (20 minutes (when it's not season) from the Coast in Florida) has cedar shakes? for 'roofing' - it's a mansard roof and some sort of wooden privacy fence around the 'patio'.   I've had the roofing power washed and re-stained and the fence power washed and re-stained since I purchased it 5 years ago.  I've been told I'll get 3 to 5 years out of the current powerwash/stain depending on the weather... I'm figuring the fence will need upkeep next year and then the roof a year or two later. 

I should have paid a bit more attention when I purhcased - there are some units in the sub division with roofing that looks like Cedar shakes? but is some sort of ashphalt composite or something.  It needs less maintenance.     Actually, I'm ok with the maintenance... but if I buy another property I'll pay more attention to that kind of detail.  

[Bonny]

Apr 10, 2015 11:08:53 GMT -5 The Captain said:

Apr 10, 2015 10:30:33 GMT -5 Bonny said:

I hate the look. And yes I stain the deck here at the house every two years. I stain the cabin decks almost every year because of the big swings in temperature and the tree sap. I really don't mind it and I love the way it looks.

Yes but you're not lazy, we are .

LOL, I'm plenty lazy. But I may be a little OCD about the deck staining.

Can you guys see these images? They just show up as little x s for me.

[greeniis10]

I have no idea what brand composite DH used, but our back deck that is made from the composite is slippery in the snow and ice!  You have to be really careful.  I don't know if anyone else has dealt with this.  It's a minor issue and it does last a lot longer than wood.

[The Captain]

Apr 10, 2015 13:41:43 GMT -5 greeniis10 said:

I have no idea what brand composite DH used, but our back deck that is made from the composite is slippery in the snow and ice!  You have to be really careful.  I don't know if anyone else has dealt with this.  It's a minor issue and it does last a lot longer than wood.

Umm yea.  You just reminded me this was a little issue.  We just got a few yards of that green turf/carpet runner stuff and put that down each winter so we had a path to the hot tub.

(Sob - I miss my hot tub)

[bean29]

I don't know how much we will need to use the deck in the winter, but I would like to go out the back occasionally. We will probably spend 8,000 between the deck and the concrete we pour. We will be doing a path from the side yard to the street (we live on the corner) and a ground level patio. The deck will have stairs down to the yard, and would envision using the stairs occasionally in the winter. We do have a door from the basement to the back yard...which will be much more usable in the winter once the path/patio are poured. I did shovel a path for part of this past winter, but it is hard to shovel on grass.

The newer composites are supposed to be more textured to fix the slippery when wet issues. I did look them up on Consumer Reports.

[Shooby]

composite

[Lizard Queen]

We decided to go with real wood. There wasn't that much more benefit for the additional price. It probably has a lot to do with your local conditions.

[tskeeter]

Apr 10, 2015 10:05:11 GMT -5 bean29 said:

DH is replacing our Deck. It is about 12-12, with a set of stairs (4 ft) going down to the backyard. It will lead to a concrete patio on the lower yard.

Permit is approved, post holes should be inspected today. No matter what material you use for the decking and rail systems the structure underneath is green treated lumber.

When DH buys the decking, should we do Composite or Cedar?

My Mom says that we should do the composite decking. On-line I found a site that said composite decking sometimes stains, and you can not remove the stains and it fades and or gets a chalky look and that sometimes it fractures or breaks and needs to be replaced. If you need to replace a piece a few years out, it may not be available anymore. My Mom stains her green treated deck every few years. She did it two years ago and it needed to be redone last summer already...although she has not had it redone. She just feels that between the cost of the stain and the labor needed to do the upkeep it is well worth the extra cost upfront.  My Deck will be less than a third in size of what my Mom's is.

A carpenter I know also recommended composite decking. He said his cedar deck is about 20 years old and he re-stains it every 3 years. He said the composites are much better now than they were when he built his deck.

Composite material is more expensive than cedar.  And the deck framing for some composite products must be on 12 inch center vs. the 16 inch center usually used for cedar.  So the decking is more expensive and the frame is more expensive.

But most people feel a need to seal/stain/paint cedar.  This creates an ongoing maintenace requirement that doesn't really exist with composite decks.

Issues with staining/weathering of materials, splitting, etc. apply equally to cedar and composite.  Repairs will stick out unless you "weather" the repair materials to minimize the differences in appearance.  (That's why I keep a small supply of fence rails and posts weathering and collecting dirt along side the house.  When I have to replace a rail or post, it half way matches the rest of the fence and under casual observation most people don't notice the repair.)

If I was bulding a deck, I'd seriously consider composite to reduce the maintenance hassles. 

[Robert not Bobby]

In my humble opinion. if you are in a cold climate, I would use composit.

Ceder is brilliant and age wells, but eventually has to be replaced, as all wood products do.

[Bonny]

I've seen composite products warp.

Because I do take care of our decks ours have lasted a long time. I finally replaced the floor boards of a small upper deck at the cabin. I believe it's original. That makes it 50 years old.

Part of our existing deck is pushing 30 years old. We've replaced one joist since we've owned the house (20 years).

The only other parts of the decks at the cabin that I've had to replace are some of the front support pieces because someone covered them with dirt as part of the remodel project 21 years agot. That would have happened regardless of what the decking material was wood or composite.

[Robert not Bobby]

I have to go for a few days...you know...People to see, things to to do and places to see.

But, I know more about floors than I should know.


t

[TheOtherMe]

This house is only 6 years old and the deck was not stained when I bought it.  I've had it stained once.  The guy didn't know what he was doing.  When I replace it, it will be a TREX composite deck.

[hoops902]

The question is whether you want to paint/stain the deck every few years.  I wouldn't, so I'd use composite.  You have a small deck though, so it's not unmanageable if you wanted to use real wood.