A side note: Those stair kits will never pass code unless you have a perfectly level, flat ground under the deck. Precut stair stringers are a joke! A person can't even lay out stairs correctly until they mark a minimum of 3 elevations: 2 at the first riser and another for the deck surface. Only then can you lay out the stringers so all the steps meet code. To: Mr Aidan M. I don't sell stair kits. The deck packages are a pile of lumber that still needs to be cut. Primary focus of thedeckbarn is aluminum balusters. Which if you quit railing off on the mouth you could save a lot of money buying by knowing me. I am in this to save you money on quality products period. I flat out am sick and tired of the retail prices larger manufacturers want to impose on deck builders, most of whom are hard working guys trying to make a buck. While various greedy muck racking profiteers sit in their boadrooms and are only concerned with market share. John Hyatt: You could have a very valid point in your statement about the different areas of the country affecting products differently. To which one might surmise that this whole deal is a regional issue and there is no perfect decking for any one area. With the SA and Chinese you still have the arguements about imports, buying american etc. What I do know for as fact is that Trex works up here and so does NewTech Composite. I have built enough decks up here to know. NewTech is coming out with capstock decking and it will be available Mid March. NewTech has 4 regional warehouses, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Texas. It is sold in Europe, Australia, China and THE United States. They have 43 dedicated lines making decking 24/7 365. Their lines ares dedicated to a single color to avoided the variances in batches caused by having to purge the extrusion lines for color changes. Steve Scholl MR SPAM

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

Just use normal wood decking —————————————————— (Wood cedar / treated) Pros Easier to repair -Can refinish to a different color at a later date -Has options for hidden fastener (camo is the name I think) -Stain or paint yourself/ contractor so no issues with finish -Cheaper than “composite” decking even if you decide to do cedar -Has a warranty Cons -Can rot, split, warp -Maintenance restaining or sealing —————————————————— (Composite decking “Ultradeck”) Pros -according to menards should not split crack or warp (seems like it does do this a lot though) -pre finished -Has a warranty Cons -Expensive -Often has issues with finish -Hard/ impossible to touch up if decking gets scratched or scraped -Often cracks splits warps (sometimes issue gets resolved) -Will fade (Color will fade in first month) which makes a replacement board look a different color down the road -Wood based composite up to 50% real wood —————————————————— Feel free to add any other pros or cons you think missed

Its really not hard at all the powder coat wont take the finish. Just brush the rails and wipe off any finish that gets on the balusters. The finish will stick to the alum so just be sure and wipe them down in a timely nature. J.