| Just a follow-up to John and Deckman22 have already posted on this subject. Last year, we added a covered front porch to our house, and the decking material was tongue-and-groove all plastic decking material. The porch was installed by a decking contractor whose top-of-the-line materials use all plastic decking that they get from BMJ Industries (that is a Pennsylvania company that specializes in making products from 100% recycled plastics). The plastic lumber is called Millenium Lumber. I'm not sure if they sell it to do-it-yourselfers or only to contractors. If you go to their website and click on their lumber products, they have a link to the web site of the contractor we used. As for using all plastic decking material, I recommend using a contractor who knows what they are doing (seconding what John said). Now, for the plastic decking itself, we've had the porch for over a year now and like it a lot. We got the gray decking and it looks (to me at least) much more "natural" than the other colors they have. We went with the traditional gray porch flooring and white posts and railings (which are reinforced vinyl - reinforced with aluminum on the inside). Our ceiling is knotty cedar - which we left unfinished. Some other points on plastic decking: 1. The plastic decking/vinyl posts and railings was more expensive. We could have had an all pressure treated lumber (PT) porch for about 25% less. We also considered some of the composites available, and the contractor we selected has installed a number of them. Personally, after what I learned in my search on the Internet involving decking material, I decided the track record of composite materials is not quite what I would have hoped. We narrowed our decking choices to either all wood or all plastic. Since our contractor had been using the all plastic for years in our area, we went that route. 2. Plastic does heat up in the direct sunlight - but probably no more than PT does. We only had a small part of the porch floor in direct sunlight this past summer - the rest is under the roof and stayed cool. 3. I noticed a slight tendency for the decking to be slippery when wet, when it was first installed. I no longer notice that slippery-ness. In fact, Halloween was very wet here and the trick-or-treaters were running up onto the porch. Not a one slipped or skidded, so I think it might be something that occurs with the decking when is first installed. By the way, no one else in the family noticed this slight slippery-ness. I might have been more "tuned in" to it by all the research I did on plastic decking material before we decided to use it. 4. I also noticed a slight static electricity build-up when the porch was first constructed. According to several Internet sites, this is normal. It did go away (pretty much) after a few weeks. I did notice a little more when we had a very dry spell this summer (humidity less than 15% - which is very rare here in the Pittsburgh, PA area). When the humidity was above 35-40% - most of the time here - there was absolutely no static electricity build-up when I walked across the porch. Good luck with your deck replacement. PS: One of my co-workers had a deck built a few years ago at his new house by the same contractor using the all plastic material (no roof). He said that he does not notice the plastic decking being any more "hot" in the direct summer sunlight than his all PT decking at his former house. | 
