Now for the features that PrimoPlank has, but which wooden plank such as conifers (pine, fir, cedar and redwood) just don't:

PrimoPlank decking never needs restoration - no sanding, no staining, no bleaching off mildew, no painting, no resetting of nails. Pets don't bother this plank -- they can't scratch it -- they can't gnaw into it -- and they can't leave their territorial mark in it. No black spots from mildew - never! No black marks from metal patio furniture either.

Scratches and sap stains can be quickly removed with a paint scraper with rounded corners. 

To remove rust stains you only need to wipe down PrimoPlank with a dish scrub-pad or scrubbing mop.

Now, you may have to occasionally wash down the deck with a garden hose because of bird droppings and tree droppings, but there is no permanent staining as with wood. Some of our customers occasionally use a light-weight pressure washer (1400 psi) to clean off berry stains and tree sap. That's it!

Vinyl decking systems are prone to squeak. Why? Anytime you have two pieces of vinyl in contact with each other or vinyl in contact with another hard material such as metal you can (and will) get squeaking -- that's a fact we learned the hard way -- and there is no permanent remedy.

Now, let me explain: Vinyl plank is always hollow -- this precludes putting fasteners through the top. So vinyl planks must be fastened through the bottom.

Heritage vinyl plank uses a 2-part board -- a base which is fastened from the inside and a cap which snaps onto the top of the base.

Sheerline uses a lengthwise flange at the bottom for fastening the exposed side and this flange is used to hold the hidden side of the next board.

Brock Deck uses hard plastic or aluminum clips which are screwed to the wooden frame and into which the hollow plank is then inserted.

So by design, if the board is hollow there will be contact with plastic or metal. And contact means "squeak".

Another disadvantage of hollow plank is that it is susceptible to damage from falling objects. I dropped a 3 lb. hammer accidentally from a height of 7 feet when building the Becker Project and it penetrated Sheerline's "high impact" plank! And right in the middle of the interlocked deck -- what a mess that was to repair! That wouldn't have happened with PrimoPlank.

And here's one of the characteristics that people are discovering with PVC planking: they're getting shocked when they reach for the door handle! Hollow PVC acts as a capacitor for static electricity and it doesn't go away!

Here's a quote directly from a study of wood-plastic-composite decking conducted by the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB): "Disadvantages. Can absorb moisture, may have poor impact strength under low temperatures, may not be completely insect resistant, may become discolored in outdoor applications, may contain metal contaminants, much lower stiffness and strength than wood, can degrade, poor flexibility." See for yourself -- click here.

Both Timbertech and Trex are made from plastic and wood sawdust. Both turn gray with the weather, not to a "silver" as claimed by their manufacturers, but to an ugly musty gray. Both products are susceptible to speckles of black mildew because the resins leach out at the surface and this exodus forms surface micro-pockets. Now the wood chips are exposed and the chips, being organic, bring on the mildew which then thrives in these pockets!

A neighbor of mine has a Trex deck and he showed me these stains he could just not remove even with bleach -- BBQ sauce, red wine, berry and dog piddle. The cause is the same -- the wood chips get exposed. Mold is a big problem for Trex.

(For complaints and summary of litigation against Trex published on the Deck Forum click here . Also see the photos below.)

To the left is a photo of a 5 year old Trex Deck. It is about 12” above the ground. What has happened here is that the wood in the Trex decking absorbed the moisture on the ground which reacted like oatmeal and water. The decking has swelled and since it was screwed through the top, the decking is locked to the frame and therefore, without anywhere to expand, it buckled in a corrugated fashion.

To the right is a photo of a Trex railing on a 3 year old  deck. The owners cleaned and stained this railing cap per Trex specifications and it still looked so bad that they did the only thing one can do: they dismantled
and discarded it.

Trex is heavy! It's slightly less than the weight of water (specific gravity = 0.96; water's 1.0) - that's heavy! And it needs the most heavy-duty frame of all the planks. Because our PrimoPlank uses a foaming agent to force the material against the forming plates in the casting process, it has nearly the same density as air-dried wood of the same dimensions (specific gravity = 0.69, dry wood's 0.57).

Timbertech is a monolithic composite that is hollow, so its lighter than Trex. It is designed to lock together with adjacent plank to accommodate the fasteners. The composite material occasionally cracks along the interlock. Then you end up with unsecured plank. Many times this is not evident until the occurrence of high winds!

 Timbertech has a new hollow plank that does not interlock but stands alone. It is designed to be nailed or screwed from the top just like wood. But I wouldn't trust any fasteners holding through the 1/2-inch composite.

Louisiana-Pacific has a wood-plastic composite, called WeatherBest.

The wood component is actually a wood flour -- wood so finely ground it becomes a powder.

It's still 50-50 wood to plastic. It was designed to overcome the problems with the other wood-plastic composites. In doing so, they've introduced other problems:

One problem is the dimensionality -- it is only 1-inch thick. That just doesn't give a proper look to residential decks. It looks undersized and, by inference, cheap.

A second problem, but more significant, is that 1-inch thick composite planking will warble in the sun from expansion.

Another is that it's surface is embossed with a wood-grain pattern which was an attempt to make the plank look realistic. To emphasize the wood-grain, the outer surface was made a darker color than the interior. But the surface can be scratched and the scratches become enhanced by this very color difference. However, in the long run, the plank fades to a uniform, gray color.

Composites in General

Look, folks, this is the scene that's being seen everywhere composite decking has been used over a period of time. Let these composite manufacturers show an actual deck of theirs 5 years old that has been subject to some traffic, as in a restaurant. PrimoPlank can do it: here below is a photo of the Taxera deck, completed in January 2001, taken in June 2006.

Click here to see fire-test results of composite and vinyl planking.

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