Should I build a wood deck or a composite deck?

Summary:

Jeremiah approaches the question as a financial investment over time rather than an up-front comparison. He acknowledges a wood deck costs less to install initially, but asks how much maintenance it requires over a twenty year period and how many boards will need replacing. He observes that most homeowners do not want to focus on maintenance, so a wood deck needing attention every two to three years becomes a job repeatedly postponed until boards must be replaced. He singles out wood railing systems as particularly frustrating to stain. His conclusion is that when maintenance across twenty years is accounted for, a homeowner actually saves money by choosing a good quality composite up front. He specifically names TimberTech advanced PVC, where maintenance amounts to spraying it down with a hose once a year, and raises the railing choice as a related decision between powder-coated aluminum and a wood system.

Answer:

Should you build a wood deck or a composite deck? This is a great question. Now, let's look at it from a financial investment standpoint. So will a wood deck cost me less money up front to install? The answer is yes. Absolutely yes. But if you look at that over, say, even a twenty year period, how much maintenance are you going to need to put into that wood deck? How many boards am I going to end up having to replace? Because let's be honest, most homeowners don't want to focus on maintenance. And when you have to maintain a wood deck every two, three years, you're going to say, I'll do it next year. And now you've ended up having to replace boards. And the wood railing system, is that something that you're maintaining? There's nothing more frustrating than having to stain a wood railing system. I will just say that openly and honestly. So when you look at it from an investment standpoint, the maintenance that a wood deck requires over a twenty year period, you'll actually save a lot of money if you just do composite up front. A good quality composite. I'm talking TimberTech, advanced PVC. Literally the maintenance on that is you spray it down with a hose once a year. And the railing system itself, are you using a powder-coated aluminum that only requires you to spray it down, or are you using a wood system?