Composite decking

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I’ve heard that decking with an outer protective plastic shell is better at resisting fading. Is that correct?
From my early research

Some boards are made from resin with colour impregnation - expensive but believed to be colour fast

Some boards are ‘capped’ with a thin plastic wrap - this can either be on all surfaces or some of them. These tend to be a wood/polymer mix to construct the boards

Some boards are made of the wood/polymer mix entirely with colour staining throughout. I believe these are likely to fade over time.

Some boards are made from extruded upvc.

I see three options

Spend as little as you can and end up with a lesser product you will most likely need to replace.

Spend just enough to get the quality that you are happy with and will last a long, long time.

Throw caution to the wind and buy the very best product you can.

The big call for me is the balance between spending enough to get the right product without spending excess money.
 
We are going to replace our existing wooden decking with solid WPC composite boards. As said, it's not cheap at around 40 Eur m2, but whilst the alternative siberian maumedis wood decking is a lot cheaper (21 Eur m2) it will need preservative and will not last as long.

Our present decking sits on 8 cm joists every 50 cms. Is using joists instead of the metal clips that I see in adverts and videos an acceptable way to fix composite boards? Underneath is a solid cement base. I was thinking of dividing a few boards lengthwise to use as joists. Presumably they can be easily drilled to fix to the base and to fix the boards? Maybe there's a better/cheaper solution for the joists? Wood doesn't last long here outside.

Your comments and opinions most welcome.
 
Thought I remembered a decking thread. ;)

How did it go?

I've spent the last few days, cleaning and sanding my wooden decking boards, they had been painted (25m2).
Last time was maybe 4 years ago with some super expensive paint from a local firm that should have lasted for "years and years".

Decking has been down for maybe 14 years and has been stained and painted many times over these years.
I've now decided after stripping the paint off the boards I'm just going to oil these and leave them natural oiled colour.
Have gallons and gallons of engine oil so I'm going to experiment with an area by thinning this with red diesel we use on the machines.

On Friday I spend ages (well maybe a couple of hours) sanding the ballustrade and then thought to myself I must be mad.
Think there is likely 3 days in sanding all this back to get it looking natural again.
Going to just replace the ballustrade with new stuff, less than a couple of hundred quid and I think it would take me less than half a day to fit.

Thought about composite but we don't really use it that much and if I change the ballustrade it should be good for another decade or so for very little cost.
 
Well ....

Did loads of research and planning.

We decided to wait until the lockdown period was over before making a final decision.

However, as a stop gap measure, I decided to pressure wash then use decking cleaner on the existing boards to give them a last hurrah until we got to the project start.

Needless to say, they have came back to life and I have a large tin of Cuprinol non-slip natural deckstain to be applied when I get the time. The replacement will wait.

As a side note, we realigned the funds and put them towards ordering new blinds for our conservatory (Thanks Paul ;) ) and also ordering a new shed.

Don’t start me on the research of new blinds or sheds :) :) :)
 
It's amazing how a good clean and scrub can bring the boards up, I thought mine were done but they have come up well, the wife now likes the natural colour look.

If I was doing decking again I would certainly do composite but I'll keep the old boards till they are done.

Apparently the new furniture has been "picked" so money can be spent on this. ;)
 
Yes, agree totally.

The only are of concern in the deck is where I had a large pot with an Acer sitting and the boards have rotted slightly underneath due to lack of drainage

I may patch repair or just live with it ....
 
......Have gallons and gallons of engine oil so I'm going to experiment with an area by thinning this with red diesel we use on the machines......

That’ll smell nice when you’re out there relaxing on a sunny day Pat. 😱

😁
 
Old engine oil works really well and gives a good colour but takes a couple of weeks to ‘dry’
Well worth the wait though imho.

At last, a believer. that is me sorted, now all the old engine oil I've been saving can be put to good use. :)

We rarely use the decking, maybe the odd time some folks are round for a drink and it's nice or me if the Virtual Pub is too busy and I sit out the back singing.

Happy to wait a while to let it dry.
 
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Just curious, is an oil change on decking done on a yearly basis or by miles walked? Or is it "sealed for life" :p

Twice yearly here.

The oil out the W211 before spring then the W212 before winter. ;)
 
Old engine oil works really well and gives a good colour but takes a couple of weeks to ‘dry’
Well worth the wait though imho.
Old engine oil, diluted slightly with diesel is great on fencing, not sure I'd use it on decking though. Old trick borrowed from our local council ;)
 
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Hope you don't mind me sticking this here as may be useful for some folks.

My new balustrade material arrived eventually today.
Lots of wood is difficult to get up here just now, been waiting on this for a while.

Done some experiments and trial fits and calculations on how best to fit all the separate spindles whilst keeping the gaps uniform for each rail section so the spindle gap is the same and that for the gap from the post.
I've come up with gaps from 88mm on one rail to 91.4mm so unlikely anyone will notice a couple are 4mm different to others.
Other half didn't want any big gaps in case any of the kids stick their heads through so I went with <100mm.

Trial fit of a new rail section.
20200818_202844.jpg


One thing I did decide and spoke to a joiner mate and another mate was to fit the base rail upside down to the recommended way.
We decided if it is fitted the correct way then it is just a water trap with the u channel even with all the infills.

20200818_202844(1).jpg

Also going to keep this 40~60mm or so off the boards to allow air to circulate and not trap water and make some nice little wooden stays for the rails from the spindle offcuts as I'm shortening all these by about 90mm.

I'm now looking at a sealant for the rails so that I keep these natural.
Some interesting stuff on Youtube with spirit, linseed oil and wax, might try something like this.
 
Must be new decking season Pat.
Just got a few new 6x3 bearers dropped off courtesy of my old work mates in the trade.
Just about to price up composite v 32mm wood.
I'd go composite for sure if my road tax, insurance, service and MOT didn't all come next month!
 
We built a fairly large deck last year, replacing our wooden one. Used a company called EnviroBuild.
Bought the solid decking and used their composite posts and 150/50 beams. Expensive, yes +75% on wood.
The decking is really nice and easy to work with, the posts and beams (manticore ?) is awful to use, blunts blades really quickly, cut it too fast, it melts, but on the bright side all guaranteed for 15years.
 
Must be new decking season Pat.
Just got a few new 6x3 bearers dropped off courtesy of my old work mates in the trade.
Just about to price up composite v 32mm wood.
I'd go composite for sure if my road tax, insurance, service and MOT didn't all come next month!

Decking and fencing season, we did a fence last week for one of the lads and have just had 70 bags of postcrete delivered for another fence we have to do, something like 40 metres long and a 6' one.

I'm half thinking now of pulling my boards up, 4.8M max, maybe 37 of them so likely less than £300 for new boards.
If I went composite I'd think I'd be closer to £2k which for me is just too much.

Need to go off and check the Obsessive Research thread. :)
 
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Well, nearly a year after my initial post, I am getting closer to a decision

Simple question for all

Do any of you have a composite deck using Trex Rocky Harbour or Trex Spiced Rum board colours ?

The good news is that I have made my initial layout plan for the boards (double picture frame) with boards at 45 degrees - eek !!!



66E5B5D4-2B91-430E-BA28-FBCB2560054C.jpeg
Just want to finalise my thoughts on colours as the samples I have are too small to get a decent idea over a larger area.
 
View attachment 111596
Well, nearly a year after my initial post, I am getting closer to a decision

Simple question for all

Do any of you have a composite deck using Trex Rocky Harbour or Trex Spiced Rum board colours ?

The good news is that I have made my initial layout plan for the boards (double picture frame) with boards at 45 degrees - eek !!!



View attachment 111599
Just want to finalise my thoughts on colours as the samples I have are too small to get a decent idea over a larger area.
We didn’t use the Trex range for ours, it was the “spiced rum” that caught my eye...

just ensure that the base supports all the ends and any smaller pieces, try to make the base so that the boards will cover the support beams too. Just lessons learned from doing ours.
 

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