Many homeowners feel that the premium cost of composite decks is definitely worth it if these burdensome tasks can be eliminated or much reduced. So, the question remains: Are composite decks actually lower maintenance than wood decks? The maintenance chores that irk most deck owners, and the ones they want to get rid of, are periodic deep cleaning, sealing, and staining. All composite manufacturers now recommend a periodic maintenance schedule, specific procedures, and even products by brand name for cleaning and maintaining their composite materials. Mold, mildew, and dirt attack every deck - plastic, metal, wood, or composite – with evenhanded tenacity, and have to be taken care of at regular intervals. Every decking material needs at least a periodic washing. Composite manufacturers now admit that there are no "maintenance-free" decking materials of any kind. Routine cleaning and maintenance are required for both wood and composite decks. Home Depot, for example, claims that Trex Enhance "never needs staining", although Trex itself makes no such claim. Retailers and deck contractors, however, are often much more effusive. The term "weatherable", translated means "if you don't seal and stain it, it will turn gray and ugly over time", something Certainteed is not likely to come right out and say (hence the mysterious "weatherable"). Certainteed, for example, allows only that its EverNew ® 20 decking offers "weatherable low-maintenance design…". The most they will venture is that their composite decks require "less maintenance" than wood decks. None now claims composite decks to be maintenance-free. It never needs to be sanded, scraped, refinished, or stained…"Ĭomposite decking companies themselves are much more circumspect. "he appeal of composite decking is that it's virtually maintenance-free. As late as July 2012 the online edition of Popular Mechanics reported that Yet, even after claims of "maintenance free" and "lifetime deck" have been thoroughly debunked by research and experience, we still see them widely repeated, even by those who should know better. The result has been a lot of failures and several major composite decking companies going bankrupt or quitting the business, some after massive recalls of defective and dangerous composite decking products and wholesale defaults on their warranties. And, no manufacturer tests its material for 25 years before putting it on the market. Scientists can approximate how a particular chemical stew of plastic, filler, and additives will react to prolonged exposure to the elements over time but without actual long-term exposure tests, they never know for sure. Unlike wood – with which we have worked for about a million years and the characteristics of which we know very well – composites are a new and imperfectly understood material. Keep in mind that all composite decking materials, includingĬomposites, are still largely experimental. In fact, since 2004, seven major wood-plastic composite manufacturers have faced class-action lawsuits related to a host of material problems, including fading and color changes, slippery surfaces, shrinkage, swelling, deterioration, and massive mold buildup and several have been driven out of business by wholesale failures of their composite decking products. Now that a little time has passed and some research has been done, these expansive claims are just not holding up. The manufacturers relied on predictions about how the material should behave but failed to do long-term research to substantiate the truth of the claims. (Well, maybe just a little.) They were fostered by composite manufacturers in the heady early years of the product when claims of "maintenance free" and "lifetime decks" were tossed about freely. So, how did these myths come to be? Are the composite manufacturers just lying to us? Properly maintained wood decks last about 20-30 years, well-maintained composite decks about the same.
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