By Katherine Salant
Homeowners are gravitating to the great outdoors, but only as far as their decks extend, and most want all the luxuries of their living rooms at hand. Deck railing posts now sport all-weather speakers that can be hooked up to the music system inside as well as outlets for cable TV and a high speed data port for the laptop.
The desire to be closer to nature has not been joined by a desire for natural materials, however. Wood has a rustic cachet, but it requires maintenance. Without the annual power washing and sealing, wood can check, crack, twist and warp, and splinters are always a hazard.
Fortunately for the maintenance averse, non-wood decking alternatives abound. Homeowners can choose among numerous brands of recycled plastic, virgin vinyl and composite. A mixture of recycled sawdust and plastic, composite comes the closest to mimicking real wood.
Trex, a composite decking product, was one of the first non-wood alternatives to be widely marketed. It is now so well known that many consumers use the term "Trex" to refer to any composite decking product. But the competition is not far behind, and within the next year or so, two other composite decking products will also be widely available. US Plastics, the manufacturer of SmartDeck has partnered up with Georgia Pacific, one of the largest manufacturers of wood building products in the country. Boardwalk is manufactured by CertainTeed, the largest manufacturer of vinyl building products in the US.
Trex is made with sawdust and recycled grocery bags and pallet wrap, SmartDeck with sawdust and recycled milk jugs and grocery bags, and Boardwalk with sawdust and vinyl building product scrap. Much as the manufacturers emphasize their differences, the consensus of installers all over the country who have used them is that they are very similar.
The only major difference that most buyers will notice are the colors offered. When installed, Boardwalk is gray-brown but weathers to a light gray. SmartDeck starts as brown and weathers to a different tone of light gray. Trex now sells four colors. "Natural" weathers to a "driftwood gray," the "Winchester Grey" to a darker, "battleship gray." "Woodland" is dark brown and colorfast, and "Madeira" has a medium reddish brown color that weathers slightly.
The dimensions of the different brands of decking boards vary slightly, but the installers said each is easy to work with. They did note, however, that the composite materials behave differently than wood. For example, with all three of these products, the material tends to form a slightly raised "mushroom" or 'dimple" around nails or screws. The installers advice on this point was to "whack it" with a hammer and the material would flatten out. In some areas with seasonal changes and a freeze/thaw cycle the dimples can come back, but a whack of the hammer will flatten them out again.
All three manufacturers offer a 10 year warranty, although Trex claims that its accelerated testing shows that its product can last as long as 30 years.
Even though the prices of these three products are similar, freight charges can affect the cost. The quotes given by installers around the country for the decking boards for a 12 by 20-foot deck ranged from a low of $720 to a high of $1,200, but they most often fell in the $950 to $1,000 range. By comparison, the cost of pressure treated wood for the same sized deck would range from about $300 to $400. However, when the cost to maintain the wood deck over time is added in, the wood is more expensive. The average cost, if the annual cleaning and sealing procedure is done professionally, runs about $1/square foot or $240 a year for a 12 by 20 deck. The cost to maintain the deck for five years will be $1,280, and the annual cleaning cost will run into the future, as long the deck is owned.
When the wood fibers of Trex get wet, they pop up, making the surface "grippy," a Florida installer observed. In fact, Trex, Boardwalk, and SmartDeck all meet the ADA requirements (Americans with Disabilities Act) for a slip resistant surface.
Another plus: The composite materials are flexible and the surface feels like its padded when you walk on it. Dean Collins of St. Petersburg, Fla., noted that walking back and forth along a 600-foot long Trex boardwalk 30 times a day (a distance of about 3.4 miles) for the two weeks his crew installed railings and lighthouse power station equipment, his lower back, legs and feet did not ache as they would have if he'd been walking on wood all day.
Although these composite products are often billed as no maintenance, the installers emphasized that they are "low maintenance." Because they are partially wood, they absorb grease. All three manufacturers advise owners to clean greasy food spills promptly and use a degreasing agent if necessary.
The composite materials may also get mold or mildew, which can appear as black spots or gray circles. Dennis Conway, a Chicago area installer who specializes in non-wood decking materials, cautioned that this doesn't happen with all decks, and it is more common if shade trees are present. Owners get understandably upset when the little black spots appear, but they can be removed by spraying with fresh bleach, he said. To avoid the problem altogether, he recommends washing the deck about once a month during the warmer months of the year.
In hot and humid climates such as Florida's, mildew is always an issue, and owners need to wash the deck every two months all year long. Boardwalk claims be more mildew resistant than the competition because it is made with vinyl, but it acknowledges the mildew problem can occur in hot and humid climates.
Trex and SmartDeck also manufacture deck railings and posts. The SmartDeck system is hollow so that installing electric and phone wiring is easily done. The Trex system is solid. Channels must be routed out before the wiring can be installed, but installers said that this was not difficult.
Since railing systems do not generally take the same beating as the decking surface, many owners opt to have a wood railing because the non-wood railings can cost two to four times as much as wood ones, several installers said.
For owners who are not wedded to a wood look and detest even minimal maintenance, recycled plastic is a good bet. Carefree is made of recycled gallon milk jugs and detergent bottles, and won't mildew or stain. It is close in price to the composites; for a 12 by 20 size deck, the decking boards would cost about $1,000. Carefree is sold in six colors and two finish surfaces, plain and knurled. The latter, which is less slippery when wet, meets the ADA slip resistance requirements. The only maintenance required is a monthly hose down of the knurled surface to remove the dirt which collects there. The Carefree product line includes a railing system.
Virgin vinyl decking is another nearly no maintenance decking product. The grooves in the surface, which make the vinyl more slip resistant, can be dirt collectors and also need a monthly hose down. However, vinyl deck pieces are hollow, unlike the composite and the recycled plastic decking materials, which are solid. They sound and feel different than a solid deck piece when walked on; some of the two-piece vinyl decking products even squeak or squish. Before purchasing one, buyers are well advised to find an installed deck and test it out.
Vinyl decking tends to be some to a lot more expensive than the composites and recycled plastics. For a 12 by 20 sized deck, EverNew deck boards, which are also manufactured by CertainTeed, can cost $1,000 to $1,300. For the same sized deck, Kroy deck boards would cost $1,200 to $2,200. Both of these vinyl-decking manufacturers also sell railing systems which feature different railing and baluster styles.
Although cost and maintenance loom large in most buyers' minds, another consideration when selecting a decking product should be the temperature of the walking surface on a hot summer day. According to the installers, plastics, composites and vinyl are no worse than wood, which itself can feel warm in bare feet. But this is a subjective judgment. When the sun is high in the sky, buyers need to test the different surfaces in bare feet for themselves.
The color of the material should also be considered. White vinyl or plastic will always be the coolest color to walk on, but it shows the dirt the most and produces tremendous glare. The grays and tans show dirt less and are easier on the eyes, the installers said. Because dark plastic colors will heat up in the noonday sun, Carefree's Redwood is not sold in areas where this can be a potential problem. The darker Trex boards may also be hotter than the lighter ones.
Before purchasing any of these non-wood decking products, buyers should consult their local building department. Building codes standards for decking are based on all-wood construction; most building departments require documentation that the synthetic product is structurally adequate before they will issue a building permit. Some may be willing to evaluate a manufacturer's own testing reports, but most require a National Evaluation Service (NES) report or an evaluation service report from one of the national code bodies, BOCA, ICBO and SBBI. The procedure for obtaining an evaluation service report is lengthy and expensive. Of the non-wood products, only Trex and Carefree have the NES report. Boardwalk, SmartDeck, Kroy and EverNew are currently in the NES or BOCA evaluation service review process.
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