Do You Need Help Determining Which Material is Best for Your Home?

While composite and cedar decking will both require some annual maintenance, the similarities with materials ends there. Despite composite and plastic decking manufacturer’s best efforts, no man-made decking product is able to capture the all-natural warmth and beauty of a real cedar deck. Nature still knows best. Such differences in aesthetic beauty are easy to understand: after all, no matter what color it is, or what wood “grain” is stamped into its surface, plastic is still plastic. Yet there are several other, less obvious reasons why Western Red Cedar remains a favorite decking material as well.

Color and Fading:

First, the color of all decking materials will gradually fade when given long-term exposure to the sun’s UV rays. With plastic or composite decking, this color fade is irreversible. Deck owners must live with the color difference that appear over between sun-exposed and shaded areas of their original deck. Fortunately, there is no such downside if building a deck from Western Red Cedar. Unlike plastic or composites, Real Cedar decks can be completely restored and refinished at any time, providing a decking surface that looks virtually new.

Maintenance:

And due to cedar’s low density, you can kick your shoes off and enjoy your deck with friends and family even during the hottest summer months. The same can’t be said for plastic based products. In addition, surfaces of a cedar deck can be touched up with sandpaper and stain to remove the inevitable dings, scratches and stains of a well-used deck. Such emergency repairs are bound to be necessary over the life of your deck, but with most plastic or composite materials, they’re often not feasible. . . So much for claims of “low” or “no” maintenance.

Environmentally Responsible:

Even when produced with recycled materials, most composite decking is made from plastic and other non-renewable resources. With the major ingredient derived from petroleum-based products, plastic requires a significant amount of scarce, non-renewable energy to produce. At the end of its life cycle, a plastic based product can sit in landfills for years without breaking down. You need to consider if a backyard deck is the right place to use these finite resources.

To truly demonstrate concern for the environment requires using materials like Western Red Cedar that don’t cause an unnecessary drain of natural resources. Cedar manufacturers have developed highly sophisticated technology to minimize waste, sustainably manage harvesting, and improve yield at the same time. In fact, America grows 30% more wood each year than it harvests and has more forestland today than 100 years ago. What’s more, wood is entirely biodegradable—at the end of its lifecycle, it can be absorbed by the earth without negative impact.


Western Red Cedar also called Red Cedar, Oregon Cedar, Giant Cedar or Cypress. Known for its extremely fine and even grain, it’s flexibility and strength in proportion to its weight, Western Red Cedar is a species of wood whose lumber can be used in a variety of ways. Western Red Cedar is renowned for its  high impermeability to liquids and its natural phenol preservatives, which make it ideally suited for exterior use and interior use where humidity is high.

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