LAST?

By Dani Messick House and Home Feature Writer

If you want affordability, go with wood material. If you want durability, go with composite. There are several kinds of composite materials with varying degrees of cost and durability. Made from combinations of wood particles, fiberglass, other fillers, and PVC, composite boards create a deck that is less susceptible to the weather and staining.

“The most common question is pricing between different companies,” said Big C Lumber Co. manager Ryan Beck. “As long as you stay good line to good line, best line to best line, the pricing is going to be comparable. We really just lean to them to get the color they want and style… From one company to another it doesn’t matter pricing as long as you stay in the same quality.”

The amount of certain materials determines the grade of the board. Lower grades might fade early on in their lifetime, making for a grayer than wanted material, but higher grades increase the price point. Each manufacturer sells varying grades of quality at all price points ranging from $45 per board to $100.

Wood patios are also a viable option, with several variations of those as well, but patio specialists generally push against it. “With wood, assuming the customer is taking care of it in the first place - staining it, clear coating it, they usually have to do that every year or every other year,” Beck said “You’ve got to strip off the old stain and put new stuff down. It’s not a fun job.”

Overall, composite materials function in construction and usage basically the same way as wood materials do. “A lot of the vinyl will cut like wood and they do what they call an ‘embossing’ to give it grip when it’s wet so it’s not slippery,” said Raber Patio Enclosures CEO Chris Schlabach. “Overall, cleanability, it cleans off nice because it doesn’t have open pores so your dirty water, dirty leaves, won’t soak and leave color in.”

The price of the materials is a major chunk of the project, and there’s no denying composite is more costly. “It’s a lot more expensive up front, anywhere from two to four times more expensive up front,” Beck said. “If you’re just looking at money, time, and energy, (wood) saves money upfront, but aesthetically, you’re going to get a better look (with composite), and it’ll last 25 years to a lifetime.”

Still, Schlabach said, those who choose to hire an installation company like his, labor accounts for less than 25% of the cost of installation of composite decks. Whether you opt for the more expensive composite deck or the natural-based less costly wood deck, having a properly built understructure is important.

“That’s our job as an installer is to educate them on the benefits and why we do

RaberPatioEnclosures

things the way we do,” Schlabach said. “If you have a deck board that has a 25year warranty on it you want to build the infrastructure that lasts 25 years.” n