We have a Fiberon Horizon deck built in Fall 2018. This summer 2022 will be its fourth. Our deck gets morning sun and late afternoon shade. We live in the Colorado foothills at 7600' elevation with big snow loads in winter, strong UV in the summer, and incredible 40- to 50-degree temperature swings in spring and fall. We chose steel framing, which helps the decking to lay nice and flat. When deciding which decking to purchase, I laid out on our existing wood deck a sample of redwood plus about 7 samples of composite and PVC decking from different manufacturers for about 2 weeks. Some definitely got hotter than others, but the Fiberon Horizon was only very slightly hotter than the existing wood deck. If I needed something on my feet to walk on the hot Fiberon decking, I would also have needed it to walk on the hot wood decking. Our deck builder uses Fiberon Horizon because it causes him fewer problems afterward, and time is money. In the end, that is the product we chose in ipe color and with walnut color at the edges of the deck for contrast, clip-type fasteners, and we LOVE it. Easy cleaning and maintenance, no warping or sagging or twisting, no delaminating, no rot, no fading even with the strong UV here in Colorado. Has held up to the snow load and is not noticeably slick when wet. Surprisingly tough and scratch resistant. So far, so good. I would make this choice again. I think it important that the material is stored properly before the build and that the installers know what they are doing.

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.

I have had my trex about 7-10 years I am guessing. I was so excited, maint. free and all. Boy was I wrong. Still looks nicer than any wood deck but need to clean mold/mildew twice yearly is a pain and I have a very large deck. Today for the first time I used a power washer on low pressure with the cleaner that came with it "G Clean", didn't do much as far as I'm concerned, for mold mildew etc, NOT. Its cleaner but all mildew/mold spores are still there so i thought I am going to try a test area with vinegar/baking soda and see what that does, pretty much nothing again. I can deal with the way it looks as the spotting doesn't show when dry so thats good but I am looking into prevention more than anything now. Any luck out there? I want to stay as organic as possible and may just do vinegar and baking soda and see how it goes. Not feeding the mold/mildew is probably better than anything. I live in MN which can be very wet at times and my deck is East facing primarily with some South sun as it passes on by to set in the West. I love everything about my trex except the mold issues http://www.maids.com/blog/3-non-toxic-ways-to-clean-mold/

We have had a large Azek deck for about six years on coastal Massachusetts and love it. I wouldn’t say it’s cool in summer but it’s definitely not as hot as trex. Our main reason for choosing it over trex was the absence of wood fibers and we have had no trouble with mildew or staining. We don’t have a rug, so can’t speak to that aspect. My husband turned our contractor onto the Camo deck fastener system and even bought them the tool. They loved it and said they would never use anything else. One key advantage is that if you ever need to remove a board, you can simply remove that board, not all of them up to the one you need to change. This is unusual. Our deck is around 40 feet long and in places spans more than 20 feet deep, almost all up about 9 feet. We’ve had no issues with movement at all, but it is very well supported. Hope this helps.