Composite decking lasts longer than wood through Quebec winters, because it does not absorb water, so freeze-thaw cycles and road salt cannot split or rot it. Natural wood can last just as long, but only if you seal it every one to three years and keep it drained. The honest choice comes down to how much maintenance you will actually do.<\/p>\n
A deck in Saint-Jerome spends five months under snow, then thaws and refreezes dozens of times each spring. Every one of those cycles pushes water into any material that can absorb it, and water expands about nine percent when it freezes. That expansion is what splits boards, lifts fasteners, and opens the checks you see on a tired deck by May.<\/p>\n
Then there is salt. We track de-icing salt onto decks on our boots all winter, and chloride draws moisture out of wood fibres while it eats at galvanized hardware. A deck that would last twenty years in a mild climate is fighting a harder battle here. So the question is not which material is tougher in a brochure. It is which material shrugs off water, ice, and salt with the least help from you.<\/p>\n
Composite decking is a blend of wood fibre and plastic, usually recycled polyethylene, extruded into boards and, on the better lines, wrapped in a protective polymer cap. That cap is the part that matters. It keeps moisture out of the core, resists stains and fading, and gives the board its wood-look texture.<\/p>\n
Because the core is sealed, a capped composite board does not absorb water, so there is nothing for frost to expand. It will not rot, splinter, or need staining. What it does do is move with temperature, mostly along its length, so installers leave end gaps for expansion, and in direct summer sun a dark composite board gets noticeably hotter than cedar. Early uncapped composites earned a reputation for mould and fading. Modern capped boards fixed most of that, which is why they now dominate new decks across Quebec.<\/p>\n
Here is how the two families compare on the things that decide a deck’s life here.<\/p>\n
Composite wins almost every winter row. Wood wins on feel, price per board, and how it looks the day it goes down.<\/p>\n
This is where the decision is really made. A wood deck needs a clean and a fresh coat of sealer or stain every one to three years, more often on the sunny south face. Skip two cycles and the surface greys, water gets in, and the freeze-thaw damage starts. Over ten years that is four or five weekends and several hundred dollars in product, assuming you do it yourself.<\/p>\n
A composite deck needs a wash with soap and water each spring and the occasional check that gaps are clear of leaves. That is the whole list. When homeowners tell me in the showroom that they “will keep up with staining,” I ask them when they last stained the deck they already have. The honest answer usually decides the material.<\/p>\n
Wood is cheaper on day one, and the gap is real. In our market, pressure-treated boards cost the least, cedar sits in the middle, and capped composite costs roughly double pressure-treated per square foot of material. The structure underneath, the joists and footings, is the same price either way, so the total gap on a finished deck is smaller than the board price suggests.<\/p>\n
Spread over twenty years, the picture flips. Add the stain, cleaner, replacement boards, and the labour or weekends a wood deck consumes, and composite usually comes out close to even or cheaper, with far less of your time spent on it. Our decking catalogue<\/a> shows the lines we carry in both families, and our guide to flooring for cottages and chalets<\/a> covers the same freeze-thaw thinking for a seasonal home.<\/p>\n Wood still has one thing composite cannot fully copy: it is wood. Cedar smells like cedar, silvers gracefully if you let it, and stays cooler under bare feet on a July afternoon. The best capped composites now carry convincing grain and colour variation, and from the patio door most guests cannot tell. Underfoot and up close, the difference remains.<\/p>\n Heat is the practical caveat. Dark composite in full sun can be uncomfortable to walk on barefoot, so on an exposed south-facing deck we steer people toward lighter composite colours or toward a wood like cedar. For a shaded or north-facing deck, heat is a non-issue and composite’s winter advantages carry the day. The Canadian Wood Council<\/a> publishes the durability and design guidance we follow for the wood side of this decision.<\/p>\n “Every spring someone comes in with photos of a grey, split deck and asks what went wrong, and the answer is almost always that nobody sealed it after the second year,” says Sefi Dollinger, Owner of Planchers Bellefeuille, serving Quebec homeowners since 1983. “If you love wood and you will maintain it, cedar is a beautiful deck and I will build you one. If you want to put the furniture out in May and never think about it, buy the composite. Neither answer is wrong. Lying to yourself about the maintenance is the only mistake.”<\/p>\n Choose capped composite if the deck is large, exposed to winter traffic and salt, or belongs to a home you want to maintain as little as possible. Choose cedar or another natural wood if you want the real material underfoot, the deck is partly shaded, and you will genuinely clean and seal it on schedule. Either way, insist on proper drainage, stainless or coated fasteners rated for your material, and an installer licensed by the R\u00e9gie du b\u00e2timent du Qu\u00e9bec<\/a>, because the structure under the boards is what fails first when it is done wrong. Our installation services<\/a> cover both.<\/p>\nLook, Feel, And Heat Underfoot<\/h2>\n
What I Tell People On The Showroom Floor<\/h2>\n
Which To Choose For Your Quebec Deck<\/h2>\n