Composite Decking – Why Is It Better Than Wood For Your Home?

For outdoor living and entertaining, adding a deck to the backyard of your home will provide the perfect space. From summer barbecues to intimate nights, they are great for everything. But the decking material that best fits your needs can vary depending on where you live, what you want, and your budget. Wood and composite materials are the top two choices. For most individuals, these are viable options, each one with its upsides and downsides. Using wood was the norm before the recent increase in the popularity of composite materials.

Artificial wood has about 16 percent share of the decking market at $7 billion a year and seems to be gaining some momentum.

Today, in residential and industrial environments, both are competitive alternatives. Here, we will discuss why composite decking is a better choice.

What is composite decking?

Wood-plastic composite decking (also called ‘composite wood decking') was invented in the late 1980s. It is composed of wood fibers encased in plastic. Composite decking is widely available in broad boxes, home improvement shops, such as The Home Depot and Lowe's. As more contractors and homeowners hear about the challenges of wood decking, many are shifting to high-performance composite decking.

Composite decking is a revolutionary option for outdoor flooring, better designed to handle the adverse effects of weathering. This decking substitute, made of a special combination of wood fibers and recycled plastic, offers outstanding resistance to the weathering effects that also affect more conventional timber decking goods.

We agree that there is an imaginative, high-performance solution that benefits you and your pocket, as well as saving you the back-breaking amount of time for upkeep while deciding whether to go with a wood or composite deck material for your build. However, nobody can question the architectural merits of timber. When using cedar materials, it is necessary to be informed on how to care for a cedar deck so it would definitely serve its purpose for a longer period of time.  

Advantages Of Composite Decking Over Wood

While recycled composite decking is a newer material, it has become a popular option for outdoor decks, and for many good reasons. The efficiency of composite materials has increased over time, resulting in its rising popularity. To help adapt to the problems of natural wood, production methods have improved, all while retaining its sustainability and aesthetics. Some advantages of using lightweight materials are:

Composite Decking Is More Affordable

It may seem like the wisest choice for your wallet to go for timber decking, and we understand why you would think that. It's no wonder that timber materials have a more cost-effective alternative in the short term.  Boards' upkeep and maintenance over their lifespan is an expense that is usually underestimated. The cost of stripping, painting, and oiling your timber deck is steadily increasing in an effort to counteract the eventual consequences of weathering, and the anticipated savings of choosing this alternative are rapidly diminishing. Nowadays, we think clients are a little wiser and settle for the savings, not for the short-term patch.

Composite Decking Resists Aging

Composite materials stand up to sunlight, nature, and harmful insects much more than standard wood planks, despite being partly made of wood. An inch of the boards' polymer seal coating stops any rotting, fading, cracking, splintering, or structural damage from pests, all of which are normal wood problems. For you, kids, and pets, using composite is cooler because you can be free to stroll barefoot at any moment.

Composite Decking Offers A Long-Life Alternative To Timber

Timber and recycled plastic's special content mix makes it much more resilient to problems that frequently plague timber decks. The consequences of moisture build-up unquestionably take hold of conventional timber decking even with care, and the failure of your timber decking becomes imminent. In contrast, a composite provides a stable material that you can rely on year-after-year, from winter through to summer.

Composite Decking Ensures Sustainable Sourcing

Compound materials, recycled from wood chips and rubber, are renewable and environmentally friendly. They avoid erosion and allow products to be recycled and reused, conserve trees, and keep plastics and lumber out of landfills. They also need no chemical treatment as opposed to wood, keeping toxic contaminants out of the atmosphere. Recycled materials are used by certain composite firms. This ensures it will be environmentally safe with your plastic deck.

Composite Decking Requires Less Maintenance

Consumers must consider if the effort that goes into occasional staining, painting, and removing parts that have started to rot is worth the look and feel of real wood. Composites are your choice if you'd rather spend your time doing something else.

Hours of infuriating cleaning and upkeep always come hand and hand with the decision to buy a timber deck, and as the weather takes its toll, the possibility of warping, decaying, splitting, and splintering looms large. Investing in composite decking helps you to leave on the shelf the pricey tubs of sealant, paint, and oil and save the upkeep backache. Composite decking's moisture resistance guarantees a stronger, more durable material that needs little or no maintenance, saving time and money as you enjoy your outdoor room.

Visual Appeal Of Composite Decking

Composite timber looked much more like cardboard than wood in its early days. Today, the material looks much more realistic with modern technology and improved processing techniques, including different paint and finishes identical to a number of wood styles and grain patterns that imitate actual ones. Few suppliers are still focusing on making the capped composite sound more like real wood mechanically. Composites can only get closer to achieving the elegance of a genuine wood deck as time progresses. It's easy to see that more and more people are opting to build their new decks out of recycled composite decks with so many benefits.

Composite Decking Reduces Installation Effort And Cost

Composite manufacturing has made composite work comparable and also smoother than timber installation. Since composite is a processed material, the boards are straighter and more consistent, free of knots and other imperfections that can obstruct installation as compared to wooden planks. This degree of continuity saves you time, resources, and resource wastage by making installation predictable and less time-intensive.

Technology Is Constantly Improving Composite Decking

To boost longevity, some vendors also make decking with a hard plastic shell bonded to composite boards. This makes the surface less resistant to staining, drying, scraping, and mold, according to Popular Mechanics.

Now that you are persuaded that the 'better alternative' is composite decking compared to wood, let's get your project started.