Job-Site Report — Working with Trex Lumber

JLC • AUGUST 1994 In the southeastern corner of Massachusetts where I live, most residential decks are built with pressure- treated southern pine or verticalgrain Douglas fir decking. Neither is ideal. A lot of my customers worry about the chemicals in pressure-treated wood, and if fir doesn’t get regularly treated with preservative, it starts rotting after a few years. There was a time when the naturally durable red cedar and redwood were also popular for decking, but they’ve become too expensive for most of my customers. I’ve spent a long time wishing for an alternative deck material but with no luck. That was until I found Trex wood-polymer composite. Searching for Alternatives It happened two years ago. We were asked to