New Trex deck

[Frank]

Workers just left, finishing deck in the rain. Photo taken through sliding door:

Contractor still needs to clean up and county has to inspect.

I had started looking into this back early in the year and sought advice here. Got a bid from Lowes that I did not like in May then waited til end of summer and got three more bids. One I liked and chose was 2nd lowest.

At my age, definitely not a DYI project but there was a lot of work on choice of materials and finding a good contractor and I appreciated advice from this group.

I chose Trex because it is essentially maintenance free and oldest on the market of all the synthetics. These materials need time to go through their growing pains as Trex did. Bad comments were on light stability and mold resistance of early Trex which have been cured. I might have gone Azex but it cost over 1/3rd more.

[redzap78]

You did the right thing and your timing was great.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Looks very nice. Like the railing you chose. My neighbor has Trex and he just pressure washes it in the spring. All you would need is aSunJoe electric, maybe even the hose.

[dpb]

...

The only real issue I have w/ Trex or any of the similar is their solar heat capacity and thermal conductivity of the surface--out here in hot summer sun you can seriously burn a bare foot in summer...lighter colors help in that regards.

Not so bad with deck railings with typically shorter spans and intermediary supports as with fences, but every one of the synthetic fences I've seen in town has serious sag from loss of rigidity over a couple summers...

[Frank]

Wife wanted darker color but I was concerned about it fading faster. I have a black grill cover practically bleached white on top after two years.

The railings except for top are PVC and I have not seen sagging problem with them.

We don't spend a lot of time there and never go out in bare feet but I agree it could be a problem for some people.

[dpb]

On 12-Oct-17 2:07 PM, Frank wrote: ...

Intended to comment it is a nice-looking job; hope it holds up and serves well...

It gets near or 100F here for quite a fair amount of summer with

110-115F a few times a year most years. In more temperate areas it surely won't be nearly as much an issue. I've not built any decks here owing to such; there are two wide covered porches on the old farm house although we really don't use them...

[notbob]

I saw a neigbor install a entire Trex deck. As a geezer with some wood framing experience, I was shocked. Not only by the screws used to assemble everything (first time), but the extra support needed to install things like steps, etc. That "serious sag" can even be seen at the lumber yard. I saw Trex long boards that couldn't even support their own weight.

No doubt Trex requires a different technique. ;)

nb

[dpb]

Indeed, comparatively it's a wet noodle even without the temperature issues...

Modulus of Elasticity is 400 kpsi (ultimate) for Trex while SYP in lengthwise bending is about 1.8E6 psi or 1800 kpsi. In deflection calculations, E shows up linearly in the numerator so for a given span, loading and material dimensions being the same, the Trex will have a deflection roughly 4X that of SYP.

[clare]

You won't be sorry - Looks good!!

[clare]

Which is why Trex recommends 12 inch centers for the deck support joists.

[Wade Garrett]

Looks nice!

[dpb]

On 12-Oct-17 3:58 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

It's more than "recommend"; couldn't meet Code deflection rules any other way...see above on yield properties(*). Span shows up as L^3 or L^4 (point/uniform) with loading so (3/4)^[3 or 4] power counteracts the

4.5X factor.

(*) Altho inadvertently type numerator instead of denominator; lower E means higher deflection but ratio is same.

[hrhofmann]

My Trex deck is at least 10 years old and still like new. Only visible signs of age are where a really hungry squirrel barely nibbled on the edge of the railing around the deck.

[ItsJoanNotJoann]

Nice looking deck and it also looks like they did a great job.