Decking Material: Every Option Compared

The gap between the cheapest and most expensive decking material is wider than most people expect — roughly $2 per square foot for pressure-treated pine boards versus $15 or more for premium PVC or ipe — but the upfront price is only half the equation. A wood deck demands cleaning and refinishing every two to three years for its whole life, while composite and PVC cost double upfront and then mostly leave you alone. This guide compares every mainstream option on cost, lifespan, maintenance, and feel underfoot, so you can match the material to how you actually live.

Pressure-Treated Wood: The Budget Workhorse

Pressure-treated (PT) southern yellow pine covers roughly 70 percent of American decks, and price is why: boards run $2 to $5 per square foot, and a full installed deck lands around $30 to $40 per square foot. The copper-based treatment resists rot and insects for 15 to 25 years of structural life. The trade-offs are real, though. PT lumber ships wet, then shrinks, cracks, cups, and splinters as it dries; expect to replace individual boards along the way. It also needs cleaning and a coat of stain or sealer every two to three years — skip that and boards gray, check, and roughen quickly. Choose boards stamped “KDAT” (kiln-dried after treatment) if available; they’re more stable and can be finished immediately instead of after months of drying.

Cedar and Redwood: Natural Beauty, Real Upkeep

Western red cedar and redwood carry natural tannins and oils that resist rot without chemical treatment, and nothing manufactured quite matches their look and smell. Boards cost $4 to $9 per square foot, with redwood pricier and increasingly hard to source east of the Rockies. Both are soft woods — expect dents from furniture and dog claws — and both demand the same two-to-three-year finishing cycle as PT if you want to keep the color; left bare, they weather to a silver gray that some owners consider the whole point. Realistic lifespan is 15 to 25 years with maintenance. Use only stainless or high-grade coated fasteners, because cedar’s tannins react with cheap ones and leave black streaks around every screw.

Tropical Hardwoods: Ipe and Its Cousins

Ipe, cumaru, tigerwood, and garapa are the exotic tier — dense enough to sink in water, naturally rated for 25 to 50 years, and Class A fire-rated in ipe’s case. Material runs $8 to $15+ per square foot, and labor runs high too: these woods are so hard that every screw hole must be pre-drilled, and hidden fastener installs are slow. Maintenance is a choice rather than an obligation — oil annually (Ipe Oil or Penofin hardwood formula) to hold the rich brown color, or let it silver and simply clean it. The honest downsides are cost, weight, and sourcing; buy from suppliers with FSC certification if responsible forestry matters to you.

Composite Decking: The Market’s Center of Gravity

Wood-plastic composite — a blend of wood flour and recycled polyethylene wrapped in a polymer cap — is where the market has moved for good reason. Boards cost $5 to $12 per square foot, installed decks run $40 to $60, and in exchange you get 25-to-50-year warranties, no staining ever, and cleaning that amounts to soap and water twice a year. Modern capped boards from the major brands solved the staining and fading problems that plagued 2000s-era composite. The big four each have full lines worth comparing:

• Trex — the volume leader; Transcend Lineage at the top, Enhance at entry level.
• TimberTech — strong realistic grain and a wide capped-composite and PVC range.
• Fiberon — often the best value in mid-tier capped boards; see our full Fiberon decking review.
• Deckorators — notable for its mineral-based composite that behaves unlike standard WPC; our Deckorators decking guide covers the lines in detail.

Composite’s weaknesses: it gets hotter underfoot than wood in full sun (darker colors especially), it flexes more between joists — most lines require 16-inch on-center framing — and scratches don’t sand out the way they do on wood.

PVC Decking: All Plastic, Zero Rot

Cellular PVC boards (TimberTech Advanced PVC, Trex Transcend Lineage’s competitors from Azek, Wolf) contain no wood at all, which removes the last failure mode: nothing organic means nothing to absorb water, stain, or grow mold. That makes PVC the pick for docks, pool surrounds, and shaded, damp yards. It’s the lightest decking per foot, stays cooler than dark composite in some formulations, and carries 50-year-to-lifetime warranties. You pay for it — $9 to $15 per square foot in materials, $48 to $65 installed — and cheap PVC can look glossy and artificial, so view boards in person. Expansion and contraction is the installer’s headache: PVC moves more with temperature than composite, and gapping must follow the manufacturer’s chart exactly.

Aluminum Decking: The Outlier That Outlasts Everything

Powder-coated aluminum planks ($10 to $20 per square foot) are the niche option that wins specific fights: they’re fireproof, rot-proof, cooler than composite in sun (aluminum sheds heat fast), and many systems interlock to form a watertight ceiling for the space below — ideal over walkout basements and second-story decks. Lifespan is measured in generations. Deal-breakers for most people are the metallic look, the sound underfoot in rain, and cost. It shines on rooftop decks, wildfire-zone homes, and waterfront structures.

Don’t Forget What’s Under the Boards

Whatever surface you choose, it almost certainly sits on pressure-treated framing — and the frame, not the decking, is what actually determines how long the deck stands. It makes no sense to lay 50-year composite over joists with a 20-to-25-year life expectancy, yet that mismatch is standard practice. Two upgrades close the gap cheaply. First, joist tape: self-adhering butyl flashing tape (Trex Protect, G-Tape, about $20 per 50-foot roll) applied to the tops of joists and beams seals every fastener penetration and keeps the water that falls through board gaps from soaking into end grain — the single highest-value $150 you can add to a composite deck. Second, spec ground-contact-rated lumber for posts and any framing within 6 inches of grade, not just for buried members.

Premium projects increasingly go further with light-gauge steel deck framing (Fortress Evolution and similar systems) — dead straight, fireproof, and rated for decades beyond wood, at roughly 25 to 40 percent more than a lumber frame. It’s worth pricing when you’re already paying for top-tier PVC or hardwood boards. And regardless of frame material, give a low deck airflow: composite and PVC boards over a poorly ventilated, damp crawl-height frame void warranties at several manufacturers, so check the required clearance in the install guide before you build tight to grade.

Cost and Lifespan at a Glance

• Pressure-treated pine: $2-$5/sq ft materials; 15-25 years; refinish every 2-3 years
• Cedar/redwood: $4-$9/sq ft; 15-25 years; refinish every 2-3 years
• Tropical hardwood: $8-$15+/sq ft; 25-50 years; optional annual oiling
• Composite: $5-$12/sq ft; 25-50 year warranties; wash only
• PVC: $9-$15/sq ft; 50 years+; wash only
• Aluminum: $10-$20/sq ft; 50 years+; essentially none

How to Choose for Your Situation

Run the ten-year math, not the day-one math. A 300-square-foot PT deck costs maybe $4,000 less than composite upfront, but three or four refinishing cycles at $300 to $800 each — or your own weekends — close most of that gap, and the composite still has decades of warranty left. Choose wood if budget rules, if you love the feel of real lumber, or if you genuinely enjoy the maintenance ritual. Choose composite for the set-and-forget middle ground most families want. Go PVC where water is constant, aluminum where fire or waterproofing matters, and ipe when you want the deck that makes contractors stop and stare. Whichever decking material you land on, fasteners matter almost as much as boards — our decking screws guide covers matching the fastener to the material.