Write a review - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Tralene · 03-30-2006, 02:33 PM

Need a review of the countless composite decking products on the market .
Please compare your experience using brand X in comparison with yoyr exp with Y & Z

maj · 03-30-2006, 03:10 PM

I recommend Timbertech. I use the tongue & groove decking.

All there products are top quality. The T&G decking is nice because you screw it down through the tongue, then the groove of the next board covers the fastener

vinylguy · 03-30-2006, 04:14 PM

diamond decking my fav all vinyl 1 1/2" thick true 6" wide tounge and grooved really nice! diamond deck .com

RobertCDF · 03-30-2006, 04:22 PM

Here is my break down on the few I have used

TREX:

Pros: Well known. Been around for awhile.

Cons: Around here (7000' Elevation) FADES horribly. No HFS built in.

Weatherbest:

Pros: Well Known. Has good looks. Has post sleves.

Cons: "Grain" fades completely away in a few months. No HFS built in. Very prone to scratching. Very soft and flexes too much (when I have to hold a 20' board above my head to keep the ends off the ground its too soft)

Timbertech:
I have only used it once and only used the 5/4 boards. And had custom welded rails. So I cant speak for anything but the 5/4 portion.

Pros: Easy to work with. Plenty strong (5/4 board). Nice warranty. I really like thier fascia boards.

Cons: Scratches easily. No HFS built in on 5/4 boards. (dont really like the T&G setup.)

Correct Deck generation 1 (not CX) :

Pros: Very strong. Easy to use HFS. Good colors. Nice warranty.

Cons: STUPID railings. Pain in the a$$ to work with (just about everything need to be predrilled). Still fades (but not as much as others).

This is just a quick opinion of mine. Other parts of the country have other things they have to deal with. We dont have mold issues around here. But our UV rays are VERY hard on material.

bob the builder · 03-31-2006, 08:51 PM

I personally don't mind any of the composites Robert listed, Trex at the bottom of the list, yet the most recognised. I also will second everything he said. If you want a HFS then tounge and groove is nice no doubt. Never heard of Diamond decking??? Where I live Epoch by evergrain is quite popular. 25 cents a lineal ft. cheaper than C.D. So if customer doesn't want to pay for H.F.S. thats usually the route I go. Colors are almost identical and I like the compression molding on the Epoch better than the look of C.D. I don't like Trex, Epoch or C.D. handrail. It just looks dumb to me. So I use other products for that...

Bob

**Nathan** · 03-31-2006, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tralene

Need a review of the countless composite decking products on the market .
Please compare your experience using brand X in comparison with yoyr exp with Y & Z

I'm sorry, but is this for personal use or are you with some company that is trying publish articles or do market research?

Tralene · 04-01-2006, 10:30 AM

Justifable or not we as contractors ended up married to the performance of "these 'high end " products
Not in the legal sense however the refferals(or lack of refferals)
will to some degree be effected by a composite decking long run track record
With as many as 60 different products offered ,It would behoove contractors to know the "winners & the losers "

kenvest · 04-13-2006, 01:45 PM

currently building a deck using EON outdoor products. The product itself seems nice enough but the installation procedures have been poorly engineered and the product line isn't deep enough to really offer the customer a very nice finished product.

an example of this would be screws. the product being used is a redwood simulation which looks great and while i'm sure somebody somewhere may offer a screw that comes remotely close to matching the color and finish of the product, neither the manufacturer or anyone close to me knows who this may be. Whats the big deal you may ask? installing facia requires 1 screw every 18" in width and every 3 inches in height. In other words, its alot of screws and sense nothing is coming close to matching, we installed a dull black screw that doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look great either, especially considering this stuff cost almost $3 a running foot!

outside corners....the facia is simply supposed to butt up against one another and with a thickness of only 3/8", it looks like butt especially when you factor in the required gaps.....couldn't they offer a simple corner moulding to cover that up with...

the gaps are horrible. seems they could make some king of cover or flange some of the board ends to make an attempt at hiding the ugliness.

and why would they charge so much for the product and not even predrill any holes??? ok, lets let the installer hack some slots out in the field. maybe there's a good way to drill a slotted hole, but i haven't figured it out yet.

a 2 year old wrote the instruction manual by the way.

all in all, not an extremely impressive installation even though the product is very nice.

snapper21 · 04-13-2006, 03:03 PM

My wife works for Trex and I myself won't take advantage of her employee disc.. I do herringbone on the decks I've done and the one time I used Trex the widths were slightly off from one another and it threw the meetings of the two sides way off from one another so that they didn't sit flush with one another when they were both the identical angle. I also had problems getting it up on a deck 10' in the air because it was so weak that it would bend back down at me. Maybe I just love the look of wood. But I do use Siekens (sp) on them and offer maintenance services, and I've had good luck with them lasting as long as the HO doesn't power wash them.

bob the builder · 04-13-2006, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenvest

an example of this would be screws. the product being used is a redwood simulation which looks great and while i'm sure somebody somewhere may offer a screw that comes remotely close to matching the color and finish of the product, neither the manufacturer or anyone close to me knows who this may be.

Your right, I order my facia/cladding screws online.

outside corners....the facia is simply supposed to butt up against one another and with a thickness of only 3/8", it looks like butt especially when you factor in the required gaps.....couldn't they offer a simple corner moulding to cover that up with...

Not exactly sure what you are talking about. If you don't have a corner post to cover up the facia gap, you can use the facia itself as a corner. Because the facia is 12' long it shrinks more that a 3" that you could use as a corner cover up piece.

the gaps are horrible. seems they could make some king of cover or flange some of the board ends to make an attempt at hiding the ugliness.

The deck design needs to be catered to this point. Don't use long lengths of decking. There are many ways to hide it, but it needs to happen in the design phase.

and why would they charge so much for the product and not even predrill any holes??? ok, lets let the installer hack some slots out in the field. maybe there's a good way to drill a slotted hole, but i haven't figured it out yet.

So far what I came up with for slotting goes like this. I use something like my siding cut table and lay the cladding down just like a piece of siding I would cut. Then I use the fence as a guide for making the slots with a rotozip. Then I add to the rip fence and repeat. And then again.

a 2 year old wrote the instruction manual by the way.

all in all, not an extremely impressive installation even though the product is very nice.

I hate the product and still find myself with jobs where people like the look of it and I find myself adapting to it. I'm with you Ken, hopefully they will go out of business soon...

Bob

kenvest · 04-17-2006, 10:36 AM

glad to see i'm not the only one unhappy with this stuff!

for something so expensive, you would think a little more planning on their part could make the product much more attractive. i don't have a problem taking the time to install the product carefully because i've charged for it but to end up with all the gaps and tons of screws just doesn't look very finished to me.

a little refinement and i could probably live with stuff.

dproc · 04-23-2006, 12:50 AM

We use Correctdeck and Pro Cell

CD - Easy to install, strong. Does mildew and mold though. Fades also. Jury still out on the newer CD.

Pro Cell is awesome love the stuff. Have pieces sitting in yard from a yr ago and look new. Just a little more time to install and closer joist spans.

RobertCDF · 04-23-2006, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dproc

We use Correctdeck and Pro Cell

CD - Easy to install, strong. Does mildew and mold though. Fades also. Jury still out on the newer CD.

Pro Cell is awesome love the stuff. Have pieces sitting in yard from a yr ago and look new. Just a little more time to install and closer joist spans.

I looked at the procell product and correct me if I am wrong but they have 4 colors and they all look about the same to me. Most of my customers want something other than grey or white (or a subtle varriation of white or grey)

dproc · 04-25-2006, 04:46 PM

You are correct. They have Grey, Clay, Ivory and Brown. Clay and Ivory are very close. Most customers choose Grey or Brown.

Sider' Brian · 04-25-2006, 10:49 PM

Strata Decking is good stuff. Real wood feel? No! But really a nice product.

JCT · 05-14-2006, 11:55 PM

Kenvest,
Having sold/installed eon decking from 00 thru 04 I can tell you that plain and simple this stuff is just plain JUNK! We had far too many customer complaints that went unresolved. At first we were duped into thinking that improvements in the system would be forthcoming (such as pre-drilled cladding, bracketed handrails that allow for expansion and contraction, planking that does not creak, pop or snap when walked on or when temperature changes occur etc. etc. etc... )

Instead of what we felt were "required improvements" to the main components to extend some sense of confidence to its retailers/installers, in 2004, eon chose to add additional 'upgrade' railings styles and instead of redesigning the attachment "T" clip with a narrower spacing, they rolled-out a complete redesign of the deck plank that took almost half the density of wall thickness out of it. In a matter of several weeks, they "pulled" every single piece of stock from retailers in a "Buy-Back" campaign with discounted pricing for new stock.

I was totally disgusted after company officials informed that they were permanently discontinuing the thicker 1-1/2" planks. At the time, my company had several outstanding contracts yet to complete! Eon officals stated that the new plank would be "far less expensive and the closer spaced planking safer to walk on---" The new planks required 12" center spaced joists, additional "T" clips and sold for about 15% less than the old style. Worse, the new plank had all the same noise problems of the original version. Yeah, in 2005, they fiddled with a new "Winged T clip" that was supposed to eliminate noises once and for all but to mixed reviews---

To be more on target, Eon Outdoor Living Products was NOT present at the 2006 Deck Expo in Memphis, TN. (National Trade Show of Decking Material Manufacterers), I conclude they probably would have been "mugged" by the professional deck contractors dissatisfied with their product and their poor handling of customer complaints. Eon has chosen to promote their product via BIG-BOX stores directly to unscrupulous homeowners who know nothing of the myriad of problems associated with the product.