I'm was thinking about using some composite decking, but after reading this guys opinion, I'm not to sure it I want to waste my money. Anybody have any experience with composite decks that are more than 3 years old. I live in the Portland Oregon area, so it would be exposed to a lot of rain.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:yHPbnLiKPM4J:
Mine's at 5 years. Pressure wash it once a year because it's under a bunch of tulip poplars. I use water only. Still looks like new.
Same here. I used "LongLife" brand.
What brand do you have?
Timbertech.
Concrete doesn't decay. Why not do something radical and design a outdoor stone and concrete leisure area that's totally differnet from all the cookie cutter decks around you? That way you can be sipping juleps while your neighbors are obsessing about their pressure washers and deck stains? HTH
Joe
You've missed all the threads over the years about trying to keep a concrete patio/driveway/sidewalk looking reasonably clean and new?
IMHO deck obsessors outnumber driveway/patio obsessors by a large margin. FWIW, my nifty patio gets hosed off every few years (in the midwest here) and looks just great after nearly 20 years. Most of the threads in this NG relating to concrete cleaning problems are the result of easily avoided owner disasters and sometimes sloppy contractor mistakes. So there!
We had a dark pink or light red "tinted"** cement patio for 8 years until we moved, and we never did anything to it and it always looked fine. **I don't know how they made it.
I must admit I've wondered why I need a deck, and so far the only reason is that otherwise it would be 3 steps down. The patio above was level with the screened in porch which was level with the den inside.
On the side of the previous house was a pillared porch with a roof, that we screened in, that was level with the dining room, but one step up from the ground for the outside entrance to the porch.
Why not put three steps down at the door instead of at the far side of the deck (and use a patio instead of a deck)? I guess because it would look like the cheap rowhouses I drive by frequently, who have a couple steps down and just a slab of cement 2x3 feet, then a yard, with no trees. It would look cheap to have a step down, or 3, right from the house. A screened in porch would make such a transition not look cheap. In theory I should only care about what it is, and not what it looks like, that it "looks cheap", and I think usually I do, and if so, this is for some reason an exception.
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