Hello,
Thinking of redoing my Deck with possibly TREX, or just pressure treated wood.
a. Are there different quality levels (and/or Brands) for the usual pressure treated wood you see e.g., at HD ?
b. What type of pressure treated wood would I want to specify: Pine, or...? Live in New England.
c. Any thoughts on TREX ? Others to consider ?
d. How much more, approx., to go with TREX, or its competitors, vs the pressure treated wood approach ?
Thanks, Bob
Ipe is getting trendy. I have one friend who installed it and is happy so far, but he's only had it about a year.
I'm not quite ready to go with a plastic deck, although I have a BIL who just put TREX on a pretty large elevated deck this summer, and it doesn't look too bad. It looks a bit less fake than the older stuff.
Near as I can tell, it's a composite wood product. That's enough for me to avoid it like the plague:
Don't know about Trex but I've got TimberTech.
10 years old now and unchanged from the day of install. All I do is pressure wash with water once a year.Yeah, the article says don't pressure wash. Must be a Trex issue.
Love it.
There are numerous companies that treat wood. The species they treat depends on what is available AFAIK. In the south, it is southern yellow pine.
Regardless of what species, #2 common is what's available off the shelf at home improvement stores. Whether they will order #1 common I know not. Probably be a minimum order of quite a bit. I suppose one could get clear if one were persistent, would be expensive.
The other variation is how much chemical has been placed in the wood. It
*does* vary depending upon use (burial, contact, etc). What is on the shelf will be what has the least. Worst and least is what you get at HD/Lowes/et al.If you buy enough, you can specify whatever you want. Generally, you take what is offered. Someone mentioned ipe; if you want a long lasting solution, that's it.
If there's anything to avoid like the plague, it would be ehow.com
We had Trex on a finger-dock in Florida, about 10 years when I left it. Full sun all day, good as the day it was put down. If you figure the cost of Trex vs wood, be sure to add cost of painting the crap (wood) every few years :o)
I have had Trex for 5 years and very happy with it.
Silly rabbit. Trex are for Keds.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
Definitely a WIDE variance in quality of both the wood and the treatment.
Southern Yellow Pine is pretty decent. Non treated Cedar is better - again if you can get good stuff
I used TREX on my front poarch, SYP on my reas deck, and Western Red Cedar on the deck I just did for an old friend.
Just over double the cost of PT, half again the price of Cedar - and that was for the Trex Transcend. I wouldn't use the standard Trex, myself - mostly due to mold and moss issues at my location. The Transcend is great stuff!. I was lucky enough to get mostly pretty decent cedar for the latest deck job - and I'd say cedar is the nicer of the three to work with - I had natural cedar on my front porch for twenty-some years - the Trex should outlast it and is definitely lower maintenance. The last deck replacement the old cedar was 42 years old and had been stained quite a few times.
The Transcend is MUCH better than the old plain TREX - both are made of wood sawdust and recycled poly bags - but the Transcend has a plastic finish.
I made the mistake of making spacers with it. I thought it was continuous in mixture. The spacers are breaking in two.
I got polystyrene decking. It will stain with oils, including suntan lotion, but those marks seem to gradually go away. It also makes static electricity, but overall I'm happy after 6 years.
Greg
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