Hello all-
I am currently shopping for a composite deck and I was interested to hear anyone’s experiences with trex and evergrain brand decking. these are the two that my favorite lumberyard carries. the deck will be about 900 sq. ft. and span the entire front of the aswell as wrap around both sides of the house and run another 20 feet on each side. thank you for any respones
This 654-sq.-ft. ADU combines vaulted ceilings, reclaimed materials, and efficient design, offering a flexible guest suite and home office above a new garage.
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Replies
here is a few pics of the house
Edited 3/15/2007 10:23 pm ET by cannon
Just finished a new 32 X 14 deck this fall with Evergrain. Last summer I finished redecking the dock with the same Evergrain (Redwood). It's a great product with a very realistic wood grain. I used a Makita impact gun to screw it down with those 2 1/2" non mushrooming screws. It is very solid over 16" centers. Have heard some problems with Trex, but can't confirm.
That's Kismet, I just finished a 26' x 13' deck today using the Trex Brasilia line for some folks.
I did a lot of research for them before they chose the Trex. As far as I can tell, everyone has a different opinion as to which is better or worse, so I told them that if that was the one that they liked the look of, they should probably go for it. But from what I've heard/read Trex has a tendency to weather, maybe more than others. My lumber rep told me that Trex is updating at least their Brasilia line in April to get better color control and less weathering, but they're doing that by cutting out most of their recycled content (matters more to some than others.)
As for my opinions working with it, this is the first time I've used composites.... I can see how it'll be nice for them in the long run, it sure was nice for me to not have to stain it after I finished.
It was almost as much work as building a deck out of Ipe. I ended up pre-drilling all the holes, as even with the composite screws it still had a tendency to mushroom up.
Drilling the posts for the carriage bolts was pretty brutal. It's a second story deck so hanging off a ladder trying to get enough leverage to drill through those dense posts was pretty hard, even with a new sharp auger bit.
Not much else I can tell you since I haven't used composites before this. Even though I personally am a wood-deck-liking kind of person, this one does look pretty good.
thanx for the response, i have seen trex's presentation of the brasilia on their website it looks very nice, the smoothness of it really reminded my of ipe deck. if my memory serves me you can either put the smooth side up or a rough side. if you did put the smooth side up were the customers happy with the skid resistance? i have a two year old and a nine-month old and even though they will both fall, slip, and collapse on whatever surface we put down its usually better to side with a safer surface.
It does kind of remind me of Ipe just a little bit....it's not trying to be too much like wood, but at the same time it doesn't look as plastic as some do.
The Brasilia is smooth on both sides, so smooth side is up. The clients love it. They have 3 young girls, from I think 5 - 11 or so, so they'll be running around out there all the time.
I was out on there early this morning when it was still a little frosty and it didn't seem too slippery to me. But there's no exterior stairs on this deck, it's accessed from inside: I think if there were stairs on there I probably would've stepped carefully on them until I felt sure I wasn't going to go sliding around on wet plastic. Even though it's smooth, it's got enough texture to feel ok. I think Ipe is a little bit more slippery when wet.
It definitely is softer than Ipe if you fell on it. It's probably comparable to falling on a cedar deck....got a little bit of give to it, and no splinters.
Again, don't know if I'd put it on my own house, but I can see some major pluses to it, especially for someone with young kids.
So I went to the lumber yard today and priced out each product aswell as got the salesman opinion of both products. After looking at the prices in detail I asked him to give me the price for ipe. They no longer carry ipe but instead have changed over to a product called cumaru basically the same thing as far as I can tell except a much lighter color in natural.
The price is 1.90 a bd. ft. which is very comparable to the trex and evergrain.
The yard and cumaru both strongly recommend ss fasteners, which i don't know if they are more expensive or not than color coded screws for trex?
pre drilling is a must and cutting is suppose to be a P.i.a, but that just requires more time and because it is my home a little more time doesn't cost me financially.
according to their brochure i can space my joist at 32" centers which will help the budget a little bit,(although I am not worried about the cost of a half dozen joists)
I really enjoy being surrounded by nature and having natural materials in my home, our house which we just remodeled is now full of exposed beams. For me it would kind of be a bummer to walk out of living room with a huge exposed beam onto a plastic deck. But the idea of less maintance can definately sway my position.
well now i am just rambling but any and comments and opinions on cumaru, ipe, trex, evergrain, and maintance of cumaru or ipe would greatly appreciated
Don't know Cumaru at all.Love Ipe, except for the less than stellar foresting issues pertaining to much of the South American harvesting (but that's another story)Appreciate the benefits of composite decks, but agree about the beauty of natural wood.If you go the Ipe route, 900 sq ft of pre-drilling is going to be an awful lot of fun. Make sure you've got at least a few extra drill bits, I invariably break at least one trying to go too fast. When you're drilling Ipe it's best to back the bit out and eject the wood chips once or twice during the drilling, or else it bogs down, and can create enough heat and pressure in the hole that it causes little explosions of smoke and wood chips when you pull out. Depending what the MC of the wood is, it smells kind of like wet tobacco when you're drilling and cutting.
Use good carbide tippped blades and you shouldn't have a problem cutting. It does take longer than other wood, and it's supposed to be pretty hard on the blades because of the silica in the wood, but I haven't burned through any blades yet cutting it. If you rout it, bring the speed down on the router, and take small small tiny small passes. I was routing out an Ipe countertop for an undermount sink and hit a small patch of reverse grain and it stopped the router dead and nearly jerked it out of my hands. Tore out a big chunk of wood too. Pretty hard on the nerves that day.I don't know about the 32" spacing on the joists. I know I tend to overbuild sometimes, but I'm really into sturdy decks, that don't have much bounce even if you've got a big party on them. No matter what decking is on there I'd stick to at least 24" o.c. (totally my own opinion)My buddy who used to renovate old homes back in North Carolina said that they used Ipe on a lot on decks over there and left them unfinished, as they'd grey out really nicely and match the older wood that was used before (heart pine? cypress? not sure...) When you get Ipe wet, it reverts to the beautiful natural color.Stainless steel fasteners are expensive, but if I buy them in a box of 1500 I get a better price still than buying the same amount of composite screws in smaller boxes. I use stainless steel screws always with Ipe because I think they look great with the wood.I don't know what my advice would be as to which decking to choose. It's entirely up to your level of preference (i.e., will you REALLY get out there and put some finish on every couple of years), and your family as well. Good luck!
I've worked with Trex and GeoDeck; haven't seen Evergrain.
Trex is very heavy and prone to sagging (joists must be 12" OC max), but easy to roundover cut edges. The stuff gets quite hot in the sun to the point of being uncomfortable for bare feet.
Thermal expansion is quite pronounced. I built a deck where I was cutting planks in bright sun and installing them in shade. I gang-cut the first two 11-foot pieces and installed them, then cut the next two and brought them back to install, but when I laid them in place they were 1/8" longer than the first ones. I re-cut them and screwed them down. When I got back with the next two, I noticed that ends of the second pair were not aligned with the first two; in fact they were now 1/8" shorter than the first pair.
When cutting notches around railing posts, I had to compensate for shrinkage so the gaps would not be too great after they cooled.
TrapEze deck screws did a nice job of pulling the displaced material down and minimizing mushrooming. Trim head screws show up even less. If your joists are PT, be sure to use stainless screws. If you have ever taken DeckMate screws (and probably other brands) back out you will notice that the coating is gone from the threads, which would render them prone to corrosion from the ACQ treatment of the wood.
I've done two projects with the evergrain - one small deck and one grade level "boardwalk" at my folks' house on the Jersey shore. I like the way it looks and it was very easy to use.
I would recommend that you consider 12" o.c. spacing since the 5/4 deck boards seem to have a little flex between 16's under my (220+) weight (although the manufacturer and others have said that 16 is ok) - maybe it's just me.
As previously recommended (unless you're using a hidden fastener system) use the "TrapEze" screws made for the composite decking - you will have no trouble with the mushrooming around the fastener heads and they have color matched screws for all the deck colors (or stainless steel if you're in a severe environment). I'm pretty anal retentive so I set a string line along each joist and pre-dotted screws locations with a sharpie a square's width in from each board edge just to get a consistent spacing. Then went to town with the screw gun. I wish I had had had my impact driver when I did the decks - had to let the cordless drills cool down a bit every now and then (while pre-marking other screws of course). Others have discussed jigs, etc. for setting fastener locations.
Good luck
I used the Lowes verion of the composite decking but I've also worked with Trex before. If water falls on the deck in cold weather it will freeze up on the composites and give you a sheet of ice. I used it for a wheelchair ramp off a covered deck and the first two feet of the ramp was slick as can be until it thawed at the edge of the covered deck.
I used Correct Deck on my home. 16" centers is fine with it. It had the grooves for their fastener system. It was wood grained. To me all composites look fake and it's not cheap. I think that if I had to do it over I might rethink using any of them. Hard to say. I hated the maintenance on my last decks. This house was designed to be nearly maintenance free.
A little off topic but what other features besides using a composite deck were put into the house to make it nearly maintaince free?
learner,
Use stone or bricks as siding, composites as trim. Use tile or slate as roofing, vinyl clad windows.. Fiberglas doors.
My prior home had wood windows, vertical cedar siding, large wooden decks, sky lights, and a large area of wooden flooring.
For my new house we went composite decks, cement siding, alum clad windows outside (wood still on the inside) large overhangs on all 4 sides, entry area tile with built in mats, tile in all hi traffic areas, no sky lites, All wood T&G was stained and poly prior to application, plastic trim was used throughout the exterior trim drips, shadows, corners, windows, ect. The garage got the same treatments.
While not completely maintenance free, it clearly should be longer lasting than any project I've worked on in 17 years. I manage property FT. I'm sick of calling painters every few years. I'm sick of roof leaks from sky lites. I'm tired of wood trim. My last house (Lindel Cedar) was a nightmare. Every time I turned around I was doing something other than what I wanted to be doing. Then again it showed because I'm anal. I hope that the extra money spent was worth it.
Hi RobWes,Sounds like some nice features.How large of an overhang is large?How does a built in mat work?By all wood tng do you mean floors? and what does poly have to do with them?Were you able to do anything that makes the fascia more resistant?Sounds like pretty premium stuff why did you go for aluminum over extruded fiberglass for the windows?Not sure what you mean by "exterior trim drips, shadows, corners". Does the exterior plastic trim look as good as the composite?The first house I lived in after I moved out of my parents place was brand new. Not knowing anything about house maintaince it comes as a pretty big shock the number of things that had to be done in the 12 years that I lived there. Learned a lot dealing with all the issues but really makes you appreciate maintaince thought out houses and features.Thanks for all the detail. When I get enough money together I'll eventually want a custom house which I am going to be designing from now till I've saved the money and appropriating all the great ideas from this community I can =). learner
Without writing a book....
Overhang is 2'. High snow loads prevented more.
The mat works very well. It's the same type used in commercial office applications. It's flush and does not get in the way of door swing. Ever.
T&G is the under side of the overhang. Stained and poly all sides prior to install.
Fascia is 90 degrees to the roof line. Not plumb. Prevents water from running down the face.
Windows, I hate the look of Anderson (from the inside) I have them in my primary house. I'm not trimming windows to look at the color strip against the glass I choose for my exterior cladding. It's OK if you like white and painted white trim.
Trim is shadow boards installed at the drip edge. Corners are just that, molded one piece. The trim is composite, Azak was used. Not happy with the expansion/contraction of the stock.
Maintenance.. I manage one families properties on the East Coast. High end. Been here for 17 years. Love my job and can get anything done in short order. Better yet I can do most of it myself if I want or have the time. Mostly sub it out as I don't have the time. Great subs, still no time.
Paying bills w/o dicking people around has the best results. If nothing else take that lesson to heart.
I'm very familiar with Trex but not with Evergrain.
Trex is prone to mildew, straight bleach will get it out, bit of a pain though. Trex looks great when it's down. Make sure that your whole decking order comes out of the same lift. You get different dye lots from lift to lift. It's sometimes easier to buy a whole lift and return what you don't use. I also learned that you don't want to get oil paint on it. Oil paint is bad.
Also, composites aren't like real wood. Leave a little room for expansion and contraction.
Dave
I did a trex deck this last spring. I liked the look of the brasilia but I have some exposed end grain and that looks very different in Brasilia, so I went with the accents stuff.
Definitely use the Trap-ease screws, and an impact driver. You will find that the trex is pretty hard on tools.
Here's a picture or two:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/archive/2006/10/30/new-front-deck.aspx
I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the factory cut ends of Trex are not square (by 1/8" in the last load I got), so expect to waste time cutting both ends of every plank.
Use coarse-toothed saws to avoid overheating - 10"x40T or 7 1/4"x24T will work well.