Decking Materials
 

Has anyone ever used Trex? We are building a deck on the lake house and this stuff is 3x's the price of wood. What price have you paid? Please Help

You should be able to get it a little cheaper than that but not much. Trex and some of the other brands are the way to go IMHO. If you have kids or like to walk around bare foot you will love it, it won't splinter. If your not planning on keeping the place than just do it in wood, because you won't get your $ back out of it. They have a lot of colors to chose from also and all you ever have to do is clean it. I'm saving now to be able to redo my dock in Trex because I spen too much time pulling splinters out of my kids feet and my dock is in good shape. Where do you live? A good friend of mine owns a deck comp. maybe I can hook you up.

Just make sure if you us Trex and do it yourself you space it right. It ain't like wood it need's more room to swell up and stuff. I have seen some HH's do it and it push it self right off the house.

Thanks for your reply. I live in Oklahoma. The house was just completed this year. I think regular wood would kill the value of the property. Plus you have knots and splinters and ect.

Thanks

Well to far to help you. I dont think you get any more value for wood or Trex just if you have a deck or not. What you get out of it is comfort and less work.

Trex is the first generation decking material. The problem with it is that it has wood fiber in it which means it will accept moisture. Therefore it can mildew, move quite a bit and also stain to the point that it can not be removed. If you are in a warm climate, Trex will accutally get too hot to walk as well as it will deflect between joist with the heat. This causes most applications to go to 12" on center spacing which adds to the overall cost of the deck. One of the second generation decking materials is GEO Deck. www.geodeck.com It does not have any wood in it at all so it won't stain, mildew, etc. Also, it is hollow so it won't get so hot and can easily span the 16" on center spacing for the deck joist. It is also a little more appealing to the eye and has a matching rail system. Either way, make sure you check out some of the new stuff out there. I don't think you would be happy with Trex if you saw some other options. Good Luck. Oh yeah, GEO has a 20 year warrentee and Trex is only 10.

I wouldn't use Trex for many of the reasons that Fountain CS has stated and more. I've personally seen it come apart after just a few years of use. Sure it's warrantied but who do you think is going to pay for the labor to replace it? I would go with Epoch or Iron-wood. Ironwood being my #1 choice.

Thanks for the info. I can't find Iron Woods website

New Pressure treated pine
 

OK while we are on the subject, what's the deal on the new type of pressure treated pine? I got an estimate to re-deck my dock and the dock company says the chemical they use to treat this new stuff reacts with metal (nails & screws) and they don't know what the long term affects are. Anyone have any details on this?

Of course they reccomended using some brazilian hardwoord called IPE. That stuff is like $3 a sq foot more but guarneteed for 25 years. Makes for a pricey dock!

Here you go Iron Wood

Do not let them face nail it when installed.

Personally we used a plastic product called Trimax. It's made of recycled plastic and fiberglass. It's a light tan color. It was also a huge mistake, it get too hot in the sun to walk on bare foot. If I had to do it again I would use Ironwood. I would not use pine anything. I'm currently thinking about ripping off about 1200 sq ft of deck and replacing it with IronWood. I'll use the old deck material to re-deck the docks that are treated pine.

I was told that you use Triple Zinc Hardware for this new stuff. Apparently the new pressure treated wood has a chemical that causes rust. Triple zinc hardware is more $$$ also.

Why not use stainless?

I guess I've been living at the shore too long.:p

I don't know. Is stainless more expensive?

Probably. But it will last forever and if you're concerned about appearence you'll never have a rust stain that is caused by the fastner.

A few years ago I found a stainless ring shank nail that held almost as good as a screw. If you tried to pull the the decking material it would pull the head of the nail through the wood before it would bull the nail out. Best part was they loaded right into my air nailer.

we did the new plastic stuff called brock its real nice,
check it out.
white clean no rot no screws nails etc

white clean no rot no screws nails etc


What! no nails screws, ect

this is my gangway to the dock from deck i have no pics of the deck but u can get an idea there are metal rails that sre and then the top boards snap down its sweet..

One material I have not seen discussed here is called Timber Tec, I used it to deck my house. It is a tongue and groove type man made material. It is always cool to the feet and no screws show. I had the deck put down four years ago no problems yet.

Good Luck

OK screw it. Form it up get some re-bar and do it in concrete, and never have to worry about it again.:D

Another aspect of the Trex and like materials for decking is that there are special screws that should be used that will eliminate "mushrooming" of the material when the screw is installed. The screws also come color matched to the decking.

Paul

We use Trex, aluminum and PT on our customers catwalks...
My personal favorite is straight aluminum. Trex is second best.
Trex is more expensive..... Heavy too.

This 2x6" box channel is available in 24' lengths and is strong and light. We also use the 3.25x6" but it's more $$...