There are many railing and post choices you have. First we must dtermine a few things. Size and shape of deck, ground to floor height. What thickness of flooring did you use?
Local code for rail height is usually 36" which will require 42" posts. 6x6 are too big. 4x4 is usually more than adequate.
Are you looking for maintainance free or do you prefer painted wood type or perhaps even cedar rails and posts?
Tell me if you are a do it yourselfer or have some carpentry experience and perhaps I can help.
Get in touch
the porch guy

Thanks porchguy and sorry for not responding sooner. The deck is rectangle, 40' long by 16' wide. The decking boards are a little over an inch think. We are looking for maintenance free railing and sleeves and will be doing it ourselves. The deck is 8' off the ground on one end and 3.5' off the ground on the other. We used 4x4 posts and need a sleeve to cover them and 8' railing sections. We really like the post sleeves from deckorator.com, but they are only available in 6x6. Can we shim our 4x4 posts to make them work? I love the rock look and we will be using a rock wall in the landscaping around the deck.
We have found a ton of railing choices, we're just wondering if anyone has any preferences or good/bad experiences with any? We have also thought about the glass or polycarbonate panels so as to not block our view. Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on them?

There is no maintenance free railing installed exposed to the weather. The Deckorator stone wraps are fairly new I havent tried them yet. It would be possible to fix them to most any post but its usually better to go with the mang instrustions.

Railing kits always require some adjustments on site,many composite business makret the kits. Most of the time its better to use the components.

Balusters,,,I am liking the alum ones latley installed with the conectors. The only complaint over here with the glass/lexann inserts is the cleaning issue but thats what the Maid is for.

porch person,so far you have given some really bogas advice in a couple of posts always with the get in touch thing hussle. I wonder if I could drift on over to your site/see some of your work. Mabey I could pick up a few construstion teck things. J.

john hyatt,
Pull up PhotoBucket.com and go into theporchguy. There you will see some of my work.
Thanks for your interest. I've been following your posts as well and respect your quality responses.
Thanks,
The Porch Guy

Not really a web site,must be tough to make a living sending a bunch of pictures with nothing else for the Wallet to go for like contact info,material,Customer base things like that. O well. J.

Any suggestions on what type of vinyl coated composite railing to use? Are the railing kits (like TimberTech Radiance) really a problem? Need to select something by early next week.

Really a problem how? I haven't built with any vinyl railings but I have put together multiple Radiance Rail and Ornamental Rail systems. You follow the directions, you cut carefully, it'll go fine. It takes a little more time than using 2x4s and 2x2s but it looks a lot nicer too.

Porch guy, you crack me up. size and shape of deck, height from ground, thickness of flooring, 6x6s are "too big" - dude, w...t...f... none of that has anything to do with the choices available in railing systems. Gotta agree w/ Hyatt, you post some things that have me shaking my head!

Garden_Junkie, if you're still wandering around this site, yes, you can shim out a 4x4 post to use those Deckorator rock sleeves. Try a 2x4 nailed to the inward facing side of the post and a 2x6 on the side facing the next post. See how the sleeve fits over that, you might need some additional shims to tighen the fit. If you have a table saw, you could also rip pieces to nail to the post for an exact fit. See if Deckorators will show you any of those post sleeves that have been installed for a year or two. Hyatt's got it - the stone sleeves are a new product...don't be Deckorators' guinea pig if they haven't worked out all the bugs!

Mac

I am thinking the porch guy fell off a porch one day on a 20' below slab right on his head, after waking up he saw a dream He Was A Contractor!!! A Porch Contractor,,,The Porch Guy!!

WTF is right

J.

We also need to redo our deck....love the stone post sleeves (on the Deck Depot website). do you know if these are available anywhere else more reasonably priced? We are rather inexperienced do-it-yourselfers. Is this manageable?
Also, our deck is raised quite a bit...any suggestions on how to handle the lower posts? Are these the same ledgestones available as cultured stone so the lower posts could also be covered with them?
We were also considering cable railings so...can't find much on this or the cost. Any suggestions.

Cable railing systems - check http://www.cablerail.com/index_2.shtml
They are NOT cheap. Have deep pockets.

The stone look post covers are not a "reasonably priced" item. They are a high end look with the appropriate price tag. If you're going to apply cultured stone to the lower posts, I'd stay with the same material for the same look for the upper posts as well.

Mac

Thanks, Builtbymac...for the input....since we have never dealt with the stone postsleeves, not sure how they come. Can they be applied to existing lower posts, (we would need more than 1 due to height) or will we need to start with same look cultured stone? That would certainly be cheaper, except it would involve many "corner" pieces.

I am looking for post sleeves for 4x4 and also 2x4 compostie boards and 2x6 composite boards that are all the same color so I can build a complete standard normal railing. I am using stainless steel wires running horazontal Any idea where I can find these??
Johnny