Everything You Need to Know Before Building a Composite Deck

[Music] hey everyone welcome to the fruitful home today I'm filming part one of three of an outdoor series I have planned for you where I show you how to spruce up your outdoor space today I'm focusing on the backyard more specifically the deck if you live Ontario then you know that April May and June are some of the best months to build your deck and we're all probably going to be spending a ton of time in our backyards this summer so why not put some time into planning your own backyard oasis we built our composite deck now three summers ago so it has withstood two winters and in today's video I'm going to go over some of the pros and cons to having a composite deck [Music] [Music] so I'm going to start with some of the cons first just get them right out of the way and the biggest con to building a composite deck is obviously the cost if you've done any research on composite decking you know that it costs upwards of three to five times more than just regular pressure-treated wood in addition to the boards themselves being quite expensive you also need to buy the fasteners that go along with the composite system the second con that we've noticed and this is something that I didn't find in a lot of my own research on composite decking is that if it's in direct sunlight it can get extremely hot I'm talking too hot to stand on with their feet for us we only have direct sunlight in the morning here in our backyard and then in the afternoon as you can see the deck gets quite shady so it's not really an issue for us if your deck is going to be in direct sunlight though I would definitely recommend getting an outdoor carpet we've also noticed that the deck does not drain water particularly well this is because the deck doesn't absorb water so this is both a pro and a con so on the one hand the con the water can pool up and take a long time to sort of evaporate into the air but then on the plus side it doesn't the water itself doesn't cause the boards to warp or change because they're not absorbing any of the water and this is partly due to the fact that the composite material is not natural material it's made out of a plastic vinyl and so the water just sits on top and finally the last con that I want to draw your attention to is the fact that when you're installing your composite decking you want to be super precise so you definitely want to measure twice and cut once and this goes back to the very first con that I mentioned at the start of the video and that is because these boards are super expensive I can't remember the exact cost of these boards but I know that one board itself is upwards of like a hundred bucks as you can see Matt made Asian cuts when doing this decking so kudos to Matt so now that we've covered all of the ponds I want to go through some of the benefits to having a composite deck and the first pro that we've noticed in having a composite deck is just how durable it really is in the past three years that we've had this deck we've noticed no warping no discoloration and no cracking and so for us this really makes the deck worth it and so because we haven't had any cracking or warping this means that the composite deck itself is extremely low maintenance this means we haven't spent any money on fixing any of the boards on stains nothing like that and so while you have to put a lot of money up front for your composite deck there is virtually no costs in maintaining it and because of that it lasts way longer than a wood deck another feature that really drew us to a composite deck is the fact that it comes in so many different colors we were really interested in getting a colored deck and so we went with a two-toned option here and that's really easy to do with composite decking there's infinite number of colors that you can choose from and for us this was a real selling feature and lastly if you want to recoup some of the money when installing a composite deck you should know that while you have to make your cuts very precise it actually is relatively easy to install and this is because of the composite system that accompanies these boards which makes it super easy to space them to screw them in to the foundation of the deck as you can see on top of the deck here there are no screw holes and that's because of the composite system so if you're relatively handy then definitely consider installing it yourself so overall now that I've gone through some of the pros and cons for us we would definitely recommend a composite deck as I mentioned in the three years that we've had it now we've noticed no discoloration or warping and it's been zero maintenance we absolutely love the look of it we feel that it adds a more custom look to our backyard and it really is a great feature when you come around the corner and you see it if you're wanting to install a deck in your forever home definitely go with a composite material it's so long-lasting that you'll probably never have to replace it in the time that you're living in your home that being said if you don't plan to live in your home forever or you have to install a deck for a rental property or an investment property then a composite deck might not be a good option for you and that's simply because you probably won't get the return back on your money when you go to sell all right everyone I hope you liked this video and that it helps you in your decision between a wood and accomm posite deck hit the subscribe button below and give it a thumbs up if you liked and comment below if you decide on a composite deck I hope the tips help you make your house a more fruitful home thanks for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: The Fruitful Home

Views: 13,386

Rating: 4.780488 out of 5

Keywords: deck building, composite deck, home improvement, backyard, do it yourself, exterior design

Id: t3t410VMNbo

Length: 6min 39sec (399 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020