Any composite requires at least as much Work as a quality wood project. Dawn will work as well as windex,dont use a power washer,Do put some good old elbow bending work with a scrub brush into your deck. John

It's been 4 years now and our Portico deck still looks good. It appears that it gets slightly more porous as it ages, making it a little more difficult to power wash the winter's dirt off. It still beats staining though and there are no splinters. I also have noticed some spots of unknown origin, possibly tree sap, that appear. The pressure washer removes them, but they eventually return. Another poster reported the same problem and was very unhappy. I guess our expectations are a bit lower. We remain happy with the decision to go with portico. We used mahogany on the upper deck two years earlier and that, in spite of yearly applications of Australian Timber Oil, is weathering not much better than the original pressure treated pine. I find that spraying with Olympic Deck Cleaner with a garden sprayer, followed by pressure washing cleans it up rather easily. My neighbor built a deck with Ipe last summer, that was our alternate choice when we were making our selection. We decided against it because I had a sample board laying on the deck for several months and it was warping and splitting. I will see how their's holds up over the years to see if we made the right choice. I don't think the perfect deck material has been developed yet... I hope this helps.

Hi, we live in Southern California and I found this website VERY helpful including this specific thread. I am sure by now the OP has already decided on the kind/type of decking to use, but for anyone that is also looking at this thread, I wanted to share my experience with having Trex Transcend installed. We had replaced a 20+ yr old Trex deck that was inherited when we bought the house. That deck was still in amazing condition, but it was the framing that had dry rot so we just decided to redo the whole thing. Ultimately it really come down to whether to stick with Trex or go with another type of decking material from ipe wood to Trex competitors. It was really difficult because there are quite a few competing fake products out there and then of course the tried and true 'real' wood. The arduous part for us was getting through the negative posts about Trex products. I am not a contractor so I am only talking about from a home owners point of view. From a big picture point of view, I dont know anyone can really make broad statements about a company's products when they have several product lines, a stock price that is over $30/shr. I just dont think a company could possibly last that long,e specially in the homebuilding industry. Clearly they must be doing something right vs the mess they are probably most known for from over a decade ago. For us deciding on this specific line was not about which was 'better', wood vs fake. It also wasnt about 0 maintenance claims either. I think we would have been fine with any of the products. We chose this because we liked the hidden fastener system and the splinter factor. But really these are minor details and totally subjective. Our contractor was vastly experienced with all the materials we were considering and was neutral about which we chose. Some tips if you are getting this line: - Make sure the contractor knows what they are doing. Trex is very specific about how it is installed. - Dont expect 0 maintenance. This is simply naive. Anything that has to sit out in the elements will be prone to natures way. - Get the hidden fastening system if you like the aesthetics of indoor flooring. Yes you can have that installed on many other systems including wood, but we were most impressed with the Transcend fastener system. - Think about where you live and look at what contractors do and the successes they have with certain materials. Trex or other fake wood products might not be fully realized in your area. At this point I dont think you can wrong with any product, especially the real thing. Just weigh up the options that are best for you and the lifestyle you have as it relates to how you will use the deck. Its possible that you can save a lot more money in the short/long run when weighing up these options. As far as the photo, we went with Spiced Rum and Vintage Lantern picture frame and fascia boards. White Transcends rail system. The deck is ~630 sq ft and the framing was done to spec per manufacturer in terms of spacing etc. In other words, there will be no sagging. I believe they went with 5/8 spacing on the boards. Good luck!

we've just had a screen porch built with azek tongue and groove, and a deck above it with azek decking. i do not love the azek tongue and groove. its shifts and sounds like squeaking plastic if you walk on it barefoot. (shoes masks the sound, but this is really semi-indoor living space, so bare feet are the usual way we're walking on it.) in the past we had a fir tongue and groove screen porch ( a previous house) that was painted with porch paint and held up very well. i'm sorry we didnt go with fir again but we were going to be all modern and get with the azek program etc. i'm sorry i didnt walk on one barefoot before we went this route. i can't comment on pine. the azek decking is good, if thats a choice for you rather than tongue and groove, do that. one last thing about azek, water beads up on it and takes longer to dry. we bought a long handled large squeegie for the top deck because we tend to get really heavy dew overnight near the ocean. azek tongue and groove... no spaces between planks azek decking...spaced planks over sleepers and a rubber membrane.