Today, most everyone has heard the terms composite lumber, wood plastic composite and composite decking. But there is an interesting story behind the fast growth of a market that essentially didn’t exist 15 years ago.
The market opportunity is instantly apparent: Compared with traditional wood decking products that require staining and other routine care, this new generation of outdoor decking products offers superior weathering, resistance to abrasion, and requires very little maintenance. In just several short years, brand names like Trex, AZEK, and Fiberon have become well known to homeowners, and their products are widely used to construct outdoor living spaces on more and more homes.
The road wasn’t always clear, however.
The Early Years
Starting in the late 1990’s these composite materials began to gain widespread acceptance thanks to the obvious benefits they afford builders and homeowners.. They were produced using plastic materials often reclaimed from plastic bags and post-consumer goods like milk jugs. These products typically had a very high percentage of shredded or ground wood filler, often as high as 60% wood. The products were marketed as “low maintenance” or “no maintenance” and were intended to be a durable alternative to the ubiquitous wood planks that require frequent staining, sealing, and other homeowner maintenance.
Thanks to these selling points, composite decking products enjoyed rapid growth for a number of years as they became increasingly popular with the home improvement crowd.
However, alongside this growth in sales emerged problems that caused increasing dissatisfaction among both homeowners and installers. First, the wood and plastic mixture was not nearly as stiff as wood. This forced contractors to build substructures with greater support for the walking surface that increased cost to the homeowner. Another issue was that as the wood fillers used in these products aged, the homeowner’s new deck would become grey (like driftwood) in as little as six months. After longer exposures in wet environments, rot, mold, and decay led to delamination and structural failure. On top of all this, homeowners typically paid 2x the price for the composite materials as they paid for traditional wood decking products and the expectation was that they were buying a superior product that had a long lifespan. All added up, the early wood plastic composites faced many challenges as a “drop in” replacement for wood.
Fast Forward Ten Years
2009 saw new product introductions intended to address the two most notable shortcomings of the first generation of composite decking materials: stiffness and weatherability. As with the evolution of products in other industries like flat screen TV’s and tablet computers, it was new technology that propelled the industry forward. First, mixtures of PVC with organic and mineral based fillers and foaming agents gave birth to a new generation of products that were stiffer, lighter, and more resistant to decay than earlier products. Second, the use of co-extruded caps provided a highly weatherproof barrier that resisted color change and fade with exposure to the elements. These two technologies, combined, allowed for the continued and sustained growth of the entire product category.
Teknor Apex’s Current Generation of Products
As end-user expectations have evolved, manufacturers and materials supplies have worked hard to keep pace. Some features of today’s generation of composite decking materials include:
- Superior weatherability
- Resistance to decay
- Excellent abrasion resistance
- Chemical resistance
- Color hold
- Wide range of wood grain finish options
Early in 2014, Teknor Apex acquired Viking Polymers in a transaction that brings together two companies with long histories of innovation in plastic materials compounding. For Viking’s part, the company offers a substantial portfolio of products specifically for the decking market, a category entered in roughly 2009 with cap products designed to be used with PVC substrates. More recently, though, Viking has developed a new generation of cap products to be used in conjunction with polyethylene substrates that compete directly with materials such as ionomer/PE blends found at the high end of the decking material price category. These new products have outstanding weatherability and are extremely resistant to abrasion and chemicals. What’s more, these materials are available in a variety of colors and wood-grain looks.
The market will surely continue to evolve, and as new user demands emerge Teknor Apex will be at the forefront with new materials that push the envelope of performance.
