Originally Posted By: bvance554
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Originally Posted By: datech
what about that synthetic recycled decking, looks like wood, weather's like plastic.
Trexx. And it's utter garbage. The stuff only expands,never contracts. It's total garbage.
I've used it twice on very large and expensive outdoor living spaces. 4 years after install the owners called me up to rip it all off and replace with cedar,which I tried to sell them on before using the trexx stuff.
The mitres had expanded so much in length and width there was buckling everywhere. In all my years I'd never seen anything like it.
Perhaps a more temperate or dryer climate would be more appropriate,like the desert,but Georgian bay was NOT the right place to use it.
Just use Pressure treated plywood. Simple,cheap and easy.
It sounded good on paper. I've heard the same from everyone who has owned it for a few years.
Absolutely. And all the literature on it made it sound like a lifetime of beauty and only cost 50% more than cedar,but the truth of the matter was that the stuff was great in a dry warm climate. Add snow or extreme heat,mixed in with some rain and the small wood fibres embedded in the plastic would expand,like OSB and due to the plastic encapsulation the moisture could never escape.
I built 2 huge decks including a dock and a 200' walkway to the dock,and I tore it all apart.
I framed everything with galvanized nails,pressure treated undercarriage and screwed the trexx down,so it came apart easy enough,the indercarriage was stellar,no rot or anything and I used that green treatment on all the cut ends,so my framing looked great 4 years later,but the trexx was buckled and twisted and looked like a bomb went off on top of it.
Never again. I will walk away from the job if that's what the customer wants. No way will I have my name attached to that brutality.
And the trexx lifetime guarantee is a joke. They cover product only. Not labour. So you can build some real pretty stuff that ends up looking like garbage and can only re-coup a small percentage of the total expenditure.
Cedar costs less,lasts longer and is easy to replace if a few boards rot out. Doesn't require complete rebuild.
Ya wood. In a thousand years man still can't find a more cost effective building material.