Repair or Replace: Is It Time for a New Deck?
If your decking has cracks, looks dirty, or suffers from mildew, it’s time to decide whether to refinish it or replace it entirely.
Signs of an unsafe deck may not be obvious, so safety checks are critical when deciding whether to repair or replace. Also, if your deck was built before 2004, there’s a good chance it’s made of lumber treated with chromated copper arsenate. Regular refinishing helps to seal in the toxic arsenic that CCA decking contains. But if the finish is flaking or worn off in spots, we suggest hiring a pro who’s equipped to safely remove the old finish, dust, and debris, then refinish it. Here are some other considerations to keep in mind.
Weigh Costs
When pricing the materials for a new or rebuilt deck, be sure to figure in the cost of railings, stairs, and supporting structure, as well as the planks underfoot. If you’re hiring a pro, note that the cost of labor—either to build a new deck or to replace worn planking on an existing structure—can easily exceed the cost of the materials.
Complement Your Home’s Design
The width of the decking, its color and finish, and the shape of the railing are important design elements. A ranch, raised ranch, or contemporary house style can work well with many deck designs. It’s more challenging to make a deck work with older home styles, such as Tudor, colonial, or 1920s bungalow. Many manufacturers of synthetic decking offer a variety of railings, such as provincial or Mission style, that can help the deck fit with the rest of the house.
Sidestep Missteps
Deck screws tend to remain in place longer than nails. Ceramic-coated screws come in several colors, which helps them blend in.
To avoid splitting wood planks, drill pilot holes if you’re using nails and countersink screws. If you’re using composite materials, predrill screw holes. Choose zinc-coated or other corrosion-resistant fasteners, and use the right fasteners for composites. Also, consider hidden fasteners or systems that hide the attachments. Most composite decking manufacturers also sell plastic plugs—designed to conceal holes from fasteners—that are color matched to different decking lines.
Before staining, pressure-wash the old surface, or brush it with a cleaning solution. If there’s any remaining mold and mildew, remove it using a solution of 1 part bleach and 3 parts water. When staining, use as many coats as the manufacturer recommends, and be sure it’s at least 50° F from the time the stain is applied until it dries completely.
Decking Types
Though wood is the most popular type of decking, other materials are catching on with homeowners. Here are four types of decking material to consider.
Wood Decking
Pros: Authenticity. Most is pressure-treated pine, but more expensive options include cedar, redwood, and tropical hardwoods.
Cons: Wood tends to change color, crack, and stain if it isn’t refinished. Hardwoods and exotic choices can be expensive.
Price: About $200 to $1,100 or more per 100 square feet.
Composite Decking
Pros: The look of wood without the need to stain. It’s made of plastic and wood fiber and sometimes can be stained to change its color. Most of these materials now come with some or all sides encased in plastic to prevent mildew growth.
Cons: Some offer far less resistance to slips, stains, and mildew than other materials. Most choices are heavier and more expensive than pressure-treated pine.
Price: About $300 to $700 per 100 square feet.
Plastic Decking
Pros: Best for resisting the elements without staining. Choices include PVC and polyethylene. It’s also lightweight.
Cons: Some products can look cheap, some are slippery, and all sag more than wood in CR’s testing.
Price: About $525 to $1,200 per 100 square feet.
Aluminum Decking
Pros: Toughness, rigidity, and slip resistance. Aluminum decking’s baked-on or anodized finish should last a long time, and CR’s testing confirms that its textured surface adds traction. Sections sometimes interlock so that rain won’t drip through.
Cons: It’s expensive, and no one would mistake it for wood.
Price: More than $500 per 100 square feet.
Deck-Wise Features
For three years, we expose our test boards to harsh weather at test sites in hot and humid Florida, and in hot and dry Arizona. Each year we have the boards sent back to our Yonkers, N.Y., labs and test them on a variety of attributes, including resistance to flexing, slipping, spills, and surface damage from dents and wear. Our exposure scores reflect how each model compares with the others in our tests.
CR members with digital access can see our decking ratings. Our tests showed that some composite decking products don’t make the grade for rigidity, and some tonier wood products outperformed most composites.
Here are some more decking tips:
Wood Alternatives Are Generally Better at Resisting Sun and Spills
Most of the composite, plastic, and aluminum decking we test keep their original color better than unfinished wood. Many also fend off mustard, wine, and other stains.
Wood Is Stiffer and Surer
Wood resists slips best in our friction tests. Woods also resist bending and sagging. A few plastics and composites come close in those tests, but several flex or sag noticeably.
Wood Alternatives Offer a Range of Design Options
Many synthetic products are available in multiple colors, such as white, gray, and several shades of brown. Surface textures include smooth (like plastic lawn furniture, in some cases), subtle wood grain, ridges, and some decidedly nonwood-like patterns. Some composite planks are flexible enough to be easily curved into patterns or shapes that would be expensive to duplicate in solid wood.
New Fasteners Improve Looks and Ease Installation
TrapEase is one brand of special-purpose screw intended for use with plastic and composite decking. It has coarse threads at the tip to bite into the deck’s supporting joist and finer threads toward the head to stop the decking material from bulging out.
Invisible fasteners suitable for wood or plastics come in three types: metal clips with sharp prongs that dig into the deck planks and the joist, elliptical wafers that fit into a slot cut into the sides of the planks and are held with a screw driven into the joist, and strips that fasten to the joist and underside of the plank. When all the planks are in place, the fasteners don’t show.
Snap-in-place fasteners are easy to install but unique to specific brands. One brand of aluminum decking we tested snaps together, much the way tongue-and-groove flooring does. A vinyl decking product we reviewed snaps in place over metal clips screwed onto the joists.
Decking Brands & Materials
We test manufactured decking made by specific brands as well as types of wood, which are generally unbranded but reflective of materials you’ll find at home centers and building material suppliers.
