what do you recommend to use? that is low maintenance and cost effective.

There is at least equal upkeep in manmade material as there is in a wood deck.

Manmade decking is high dollor stuff X 100 if you use the rail system. Not exactley cost effective or low $

What are you looking for ??

A. An upstairs deck that will not leak water down below

B. Low maintenance

C. Low $ because you have already spent all the money on the new house. If this is true its pretty silly not to have planed for this spendy project way in advance.

J.

Side note>>> what is this Fiberglass decking thing

J,

Thanks again for responding.

What I meant by cost effective was for the life of the deck. I don't mind spending more upfront if the cost of maintaining one product type for the life of it is easier/less.

Some more details of the projects:

1. It is a second floor deck. ~800 sqft.
2. We will most likely do a patio thing underneath it at some point down the road.
3. We would like to create an outdoor kitchen down on the deck as it will be off the kitchen and family room. (not sure if that would affect the choice in material)

In our current house we have a pressure treated deck and have lived in this house for over 20 years that the deck looks like crap. Part of the blame falls on us as it wasn't very well maintained.

so any suggestions you have based on the above would be greatly appreciated.

The fiberglass thingâ¦we saw a house recently that had a deck that was coated in Fiberglass so didnâÂÂt have wood planks or anything showing was just fully coated in fiberglass, havenâÂÂt really seen many of them like that but appealed to us because it seemed like 0 maintenance and it had Trex (or some synthetic hand rail system).

If you want to have a dry area under your deck it has to have a roof over it.

Frame your deck with fall to the outside,put on plywood,install a torch down modified or T O P roof over that with all needed flashing, lay pt stringers in the direction of the flow 16'' on center,screw the decking to the stringers not past them into your roof.

Bang Bang Done.

Fiberglass exposed flat to the sun will split at the seams.Belive me the Maintenance involved in geting it off is Major.

Lets agree to use the term Manmade and leave trex completly out. J.

John is not well informed. A fiberglass deck is exactly what your looking for. No seams and completely waterproof. It is the same material used to make boats, swimming pools, storage tanks etc. although not as in expensive as traditional lumber ( pressure treated, cedar) it is comparable in price to composite decking.

Thank you for this question . I too am in a similar situation wether to use fiberglass deck vs composite. My issue is it is for a covered screened in porch that I'm not sure if I want to weather proof it in the future . Based on what Kozlowski wrote, I now understand fiberglass decking in close to composite decking . I originally wanted fiberglass but want sure how much more $$ it was over composite . So with that being said , thank you both for clearing my issue up for me.

How much is it a square foot to re-fiberglass a second floor deck in South Jersey?