Composite decking – is it actually any good?

Our back garden needs sorting, the patio is old block paving & a mess.

Either a patio, which would require a new retaining wall, backfilling and then laying on top – not a small job and not something I’d even consider taking on myself.

What I would consider doing myself is building a deck, over the top of the patio and extended out a couple of metres, raised over the grass. Is composite decking any good at not getting slippery and horrible like wood does? There’s no way I’d consider wood for it as it will be lethal, but composite maybe?

It’s quite a big area so getting someone to slab it will not be cheap.

When I costed it out composite decking was about the same prices as slabs

If you go for it cost for composite bearers as well.  no point in having impervious decking and a sub frame that can rot

It marks easy  and can be slippy. I feel the only advantage is that it does not rot and may need less maintenance. I also found the clips for holding  it down don’t grip that well and makes the final plank fitting a bit tricky,

I’d guess like most hard landscaping, it partly depends on the aspect.
South-facing – gets the best of the sunshine most of the year, possibly too warm in summer and may even buckle?
North-facing  – it’ll get/stay damp much longer, more prone to grow a bit of moss & lichen and therefore also be more prone to slipperiness. Just like our slabs, which need their springtime jetwash about now.

Anything beats block paving. Hideous stuff. I have a driveway and patio made from the shite. There does appear to be some decent composite but its not cheap and I’d worry about it if it was in direct sunlight a lot.

In a similar situation. An old retaining wall fell down but as access to the back is via steps only, I have to hand carry everything.

Rebuilding the wall was not happening nor was I going to pay thousands for someone to do it. I briefly considered decking but decided that I hate the look and it just looks a bit naff these days.

In the end I rebuilt the retaining wall using sleepers and am about to lay proper slabs on the area. Like this:

have those sleepers been properly treated? ones that aren’t from railways (and thus not coated in carcinogenic treacle) have a tendancy to rot away over time as the moisture is just held against them

Great stuff if you pay the money and get sealed 4-sides product. The cheap stuff is cheap for a reason.

Power washing no problem if it gets grubby.

You do need to provide for airflow below though

have those sleepers been properly treated?

Yes and lined on the inside. They’re wood and they will eventually rot but I’m not planning to be living there / alive once they do. The 40 year old fence posts straight into the earth have only just started to rot through so think I’ll be fine.

I didn’t realise I was being assessed on my garden project; just offering an alternative to decking 😂

I didn’t realise I was being assessed on my garden…

Are you new here?

Nice retaining wall, but that lawn! And the less said about the hedges the better 🤣

Composite decking….. Why not just be honest and call it plastic decking….?

The 40 year old fence posts straight into the earth have only just started to rot through so think I’ll be fine.

our 4 year old fence posts rotted through, so I bought some new ones, and 3 years later they rotted through again – guess soil type makes a big difference but I won’t be holding anything in place with wood here 🙂

Composite decking….. Why not just be honest and call it plastic decking….?

Because most composite decking is a composite of wood and plastic

There’s no way I’d consider wood for it as it will be lethal

Properly treated wood isn’t lethal.

There is a mile up mile of the horrible plastic stuff in Dubai and the sun doesn’t appear to have effected that.

Personally I have a dislike for any form of decking it’s always slippy and never appears to be used

Why not just grass it?

Properly treated wood isn’t lethal.

But might require a minuscule amount of maintenance, the current trend for plastic dominated outdoor living rooms rather than gardens doesn’t allow for any effort.

My neighbour has a decked area over a completely flat piece of yard – zero maintenance done. Can’t understand what the point is, completely rotten in places, super slippery, and has had rats nesting underneath at times. I’ve politely hinted it might be time to remove it, but not interested as that would require some effort.

But might require a minuscule amount of maintenance

Maybe 2 or 3 short afternoons a year to do the ones i have (2 decks, maybe 90-100 sqm total, one for the kids to play on, one outside the back door.)

The one at the front was neglected for 25+ years before i moved in, so that will (eventually) require a weekends work to tidy up and repair. And that’s at height (balcony level) so i’ll definitely be doing that! (It’s now 44 years old…)

When I costed it out composite decking was about the same prices as slabs

It’s not so much the cost of the actual decking vs slabs, more the cost / effort / time to raise the current patio to extend it out to about where the washing line is. Any material to raise the level would have to come around a reasonably narrow sideway in a wheel barrow.

I’d guess like most hard landscaping, it partly depends on the aspect.
South-facing – gets the best of the sunshine most of the year, possibly too warm in summer and may even buckle?
North-facing  – it’ll get/stay damp much longer, more prone to grow a bit of moss & lichen and therefore also be more prone to slipperiness. Just like our slabs, which need their springtime jetwash about now

West facing. West coast of Scotland so not exactly hot & sunny all the time.

Personally I have a dislike for any form of decking it’s always slippy and never appears to be used

Why not just grass it?

Plenty of grass already, don’t need more! I need somewhere to use that isn’t muddy & wet for most of the year. Slippery is my main concern…

Properly treated wood isn’t lethal.

What counts as properly treated? We’ve got a small wooden deck down the garden, I only go down there in the summer and clean it once or twice a year & re-oil it which is fine. But the patio gets walked on all year and I don’t want to have to be cleaning it over the winter.

In a similar situation. An old retaining wall fell down but as access to the back is via steps only, I have to hand carry everything.

Rebuilding the wall was not happening nor was I going to pay thousands for someone to do it. I briefly considered decking but decided that I hate the look and it just looks a bit naff these days.

In the end I rebuilt the retaining wall using sleepers and am about to lay proper slabs on the area. Like this:

Looks good and yes similar except most of your material is already in the right place I guess. I have considered using sleepers, the loosely stacked stones that are there at the moment aren’t really do a good job.

While the topic is hot, any recommendations as to type, supplier? I have a 14 year old softwood deck which will need repair or redoing this summer or next spring.

What counts as properly treated?

Treating it properly when it’s new and a quick wash yearly, then another treatment every couple of years.

I walk on mine pretty much daily for 9 months of the year… Sometimes clear the snow off it so i can use it!

Chairlift!

Millboard has been excellent. Sadly the original wooden frame underneath has not and will be replaced with composite and the Millboard reused. Ours is dark railway sleeper like. Annual jet wash sees it return to as new. otherwise maintenance free. Our decking is about 25m^2 and raises the back of the house by three steps. Hence the frame underneath.

West of Scotland here too, on a flood plain in the Clyde Valley. Converted the back garden from grass to a mix of patio, decking and gravel. Previously it had been largely unusable due to either being boggy or the grass being too wet to cut until May. It was so wet, we had frogs despite not having a pond. It’s all actually useable now. Just jet wash the slabs and decking every spring and we can enjoy the garden on both days of summer. The frogs now live under the decking and can more effectively hide from the neighbourhood cats. Win Win!

Decking is NeoTimber Advanced, highly recommended.

My opinions…

Cleaning composite is much easier than wood

Not having to oil it is fantastic

Ours faded A LOT. We were told it would fade a bit, we bore this in mind and chose a dark  colour (i thought the lighter colour would be too close a match for the walling) guess what? It now matches the wall!

It gets icy much more easily than wood

Ours suffers from linear expansion in the sun. The T blocks allow it to slide without buckling. But it is in a hering bone pattern and the centre joint now looks shocking. In retrospect i wish i had pinned the central ‘ends’ and let the expansion happen at the far end.

The supplier i went with only did 2.4 and 3.6m lengths, the former timber  came in upto 5.2m, not a huge problem until it contrscts and every joint opens up.

But no more oiling!

A little bit of experience with composite decking.

I’m happy doing the wood stuff, and treating it regular – personally prefer a clear oil as it penetrates the wood.

The in-laws static caravan was given to us to pay for over 10 years ago – came with a wood base/composite top deck and railings. Been used alot, but we’ve had to let the van go due to it being over 20 years and the site not letting anyone have them longer (despite condition).

So, commences pulling the lot to bits. Bit of a job, but all the composite jists were screwed to the wooden structure with stainless screws. All came appart pretty quick once I worked out how to get to the screws withut damage – many are on a retainer clip these days.

Onto the frame work. It was machine nailed together with the odd bolt. Mahaged with significant pursuasion to break it all down. The wood was actually in great condition. The only bits that weren’t were the legs – wooden posts, covered in PVC square tubes to look nice – mose were rotted.

I’ve since re-assembled the lot at home. Cut new legs out of the spare 20 year old timber and assembled the base. Treated the wooden base with decking oil again (buy in bulk off ebay). Then re-assembled the composite top and bannisters as closely as I could to the original.  It’s great.

It does scratch and mark, but for 20 years old still looks good – pale grey deck with white bannisters. Pain in the ass to keep looking clean as mud and dirt show, but it’s rarely slippy ike wood – or more -invilibly slippy. Plastic will show any alge, wood hides it.

Certain shoes can be slippy on any decking, even when clean.

Personally, having got both, and composite had to be taken away and re-used (and was free but was mega bucks), I still prefer wood treated with a clear oil.

We’re going through the same type 3 fun at the moment too. Moved into a place ten years ago and the wood deck  (about 25 square metres in all) looked super dodgy then, but kept getting moved down the job list until it and the garden are the only thing left for us to fix.

By last December it was definitely about to go, so I ripped it out before someone broke a leg or worse. The vast majority was so rotten, and the screws so corroded, that it was easier just to tear it off in chunks. It was a full mid-sized skip worth.

Several people said the timber available now wouldn’t last as long as it’s younger growth stuff.

Composite is quite expensive for stuff that doesn’t look sh*t and the underpinnings need to be composite and much more hefty to take the extra weight

The delta between full composite and porcelain slabs is narrow, especially if you take on a bunch of the groundwork yourself. There’s also the issue that it’s at least partly plastic, which ain’t good for environmental reasons and for if you want to run some sort of fiery cooking or manly fire-poking-bucket stuff on it.

FWIW, we’d decided to go with fairly cheap and cheerful porcelain; it’s not much more, it’s easier (hopefully) to maintain, and it’ll last a lot longer. Decking seems to have been a bit of a fad that’s starting to pass, maintenance is an issue for wood outdoors however you look at it, and as we’re hoping to sell at some point having something a bit more robust definitely appeals.

To answer the question directly – no.

FWIW, we’d decided to go with fairly cheap and cheerful porcelain; it’s not much more, it’s easier (hopefully) to maintain, and it’ll last a lot longer.

It’s not so much the laying, it’s bringing the level of the garden up to where it needs to be that could be the issue.

To answer the question directly – no.

This is my concern 🤣

Personally if I were the OP I’d keep that block paving, and spend the money you’d save on decking to get someone to come and soft wash/jet wash/resand/seal.

Personally if I were the OP I’d keep that block paving, and spend the money you’d save on decking to get someone to come and soft wash/jet wash/resand/seal.

What if the OP (well Mrs OP) had just jet washed it and we still wanted a new patio / decking area? 😀 It’s too narrow to be a particularly useful space.

I’m not going to the effort of re-sanding or sealing it, the whole thing is a bit shit. It’s sunk in places and look at the size of the gaps between the blocks!

Ah, if you want a bigger area that’s fair enough. I thought the paving looked fairly decent but clearly the photo is deceptive!

Yes it’s a pretty flattering photo of it up there! It’s got various sunken bits & lifted bits with roots underneath.

At least it’s moss free for now.

Millboard has been excellent.

Just found the Millboard outlet shop on eBay… not cheap is it!

I’m looking at over 100sqm of whatever I put down.

It’s not so much the laying, it’s bringing the level of the garden up to where it needs to be that could be the issue.

My parents are on a fairly steep hillside in Dartmouth in the new house, and the decking that was there when they moved in had rotted. It’s built up on pilings off the hillside – up to about 12ft in some places. My dad did a very thorough job redecking it with wood on the existing (well-built) wooden pilings and framework. Their neighbours did the same with composite, and for whatever reason have now redone it *twice*. The educated guess is their pilings weren’t up to snuff, or that the extra weight of the composite was a problem.

Possibly a dumb question, but could you stick a new retaining wall in, use the old patio as foundation and stick new stuff in on top? It very much depends on how stable what you already have in is, of course.

So having got a couple of samples of composite, yeah I’m still not convinced…!

So how about something like this instead?  https://www.woodtrend.co.uk/fsc-cumaru-decking-21-x-145-mm-x-6-foot

I’m going to try and find somewhere to see some decent examples.

Possibly a dumb question, but could you stick a new retaining wall in, use the old patio as foundation and stick new stuff in on top? It very much depends on how stable what you already have in is, of course.

Yes I’m sure I could but how much material will I have to get around the back of the house to raise the level? I’m not sure I could DIY that whereas I’m pretty sure I can DIY a deck (it’ll take me ages but I think it will turn out OK. Hopefully!)

If you struggle to get a wheelbarrow  around the back how on earth did you get a cable car cabin in there?!