Completing the 'outdoor room'

Las Vegas — Composite wood deck maker Trex Co. is giving homeowners more reasons to stay outside with the addition of a television cabinet and a new shaded pergola to its line of outdoor living products.

Like the storage units for swimming gear and garden hoses that the Winchester, Va.-based company debuted a year ago, the new products shown at the International Builders' Show from Jan. 19-21 in Las Vegas are made by other businesses and sold through a trademark licensing agreement.

“This is about completing the outdoor room,” said Andy Sears, vice president of Structureworks Fabrication, which is based in Fredericksburg, Va.

The business launched Trex's pergola line about five years ago, Sears said, and added to it recently with a model called Vision that has a synthetic canopy. The pergola has an aluminum core wrapped in flat sheets of cellular PVC.

“It's proprietary technology that we've developed to reduce the number of seams, and the chance that it will split or pop or open up over time,” Sears said. “We call it our mono-seam technology.”

The pergola columns are made of structural fiberglass and the canopy options are a high density polyethylene mesh or vinyl-coated polyester. They come in kits called Air, Balance and now Vision.

“Adding a structure gives you a sense of enclosure and it provides shade, which allows you to use your outdoor living space more,” Sears said. “In a lot of today's suburban developments, you could be out on a deck with no trees around. This allows you to have shade and something for side privacy as well. This is the framework for your outdoor room, where people are mounting heaters, audio systems and TVs, and expanding their outdoor living.”

Some will expand their searches, too, for game and TV remotes.

NatureKast Weatherproof Cabinetry in Freeport, Fla., is manufacturing TV cabinets for Trex out of PVC at a facility in Canada, owner Mike Moras said. When the sides of the cabinet are glued together, he said it creates a welded frame that keeps out water and won't warp or fade. The finish coat has a UV inhibitor, he added, and the cabinet doors are made of the same materials.

“You could hit it with a baseball and you won't dent it because it's harder than wood,” Moras said of the cabinet.

Trex, which describes itself as the world's largest manufacturer of alternative-wood decking, has been adding to its product line to help homeowners make the most of their outdoor spaces no matter the season or region.

“Thanks to advances in all-weather materials, furnishings and accessories, you can outfit an outdoor living space in much the same way that you would any room in the home,” design expert Paul Lafrance of HGTV Canada said in a Trex news release that calls him a “Trexpert.”

Through the third quarter of 2015, the company posted net sales of $351.6 million. Trex is ranked No. 11 among pipe, profile and tubing extruders in North America, according to Plastics News' latest ranking.

Across the board

Trex decks, which are made of wood dust from flooring and cabinet makers and recycled polyethylene bags and film from retailers, come in three lines for good, better, best options. The decks are protected against fading, staining, scratching and mold on the top and sides with a polymer shell. Transcend decks top the trio in price, the company says, and performance.

However, competitors are bringing other innovations to the market, including Azek, which has a new “alloy armor technology” for all of its decks and new colors; TimberTech, which is a wood composite deck with a cap on all four sides that comes in new colors; Fiberon, which debuted a new deck line capped all around; Royal Building Products, which bills its Zuri deck as similar to Transcend but best when it comes to price; and MoistureShield, which came out with a capped deck last year.

At IBS, Azek introduced its armor alloy technology, which allows the brand to offer a 30-year “industry-best” limited warranty against fading and staining, according to spokeswoman Rachelle Shendow.

“It is the next-generation innovation in capping,” she said. “Extensive testing has been done for a number of years. All Azek deck colors now have it.”

Azek is owned by CPG Building Products, which also makes TimberTech out of post-consumer PE and wood flour. The company says its shell for that brand is a protective polymer that covers all four sides to guard against staining, rotting, cracking and moisture.

“We are proud to say that the TimberTech brand has your ‘back side' covered and that we don't cut corners,” CPG Building Products Chief Marketing Officer Julia Fitzgerald said.

With estimated sales of $285 million, CPG is the No. 14 pipe, profile and tubing extruder, according to Plastics News' most recent ranking.

Fiberon, another composite wood deck manufacturer, launched its new Horizon line at IBS, which it says has a “unique low-gloss formulation and micro-texturing process to give boards an elegant matte finish.” The decks are capped on all four sides while other products of the New London, N.C.-based company have the protective coating on three sides.

Thinking cap

Over at the exhibit booth for MoistureShield, a composite wood decking brand, the need and function of board caps is always a hot topic. MoistureShield has had a non-capped deck product for 27 years and it has performed well — even for ground and water contact and even after a decade of heat and humidity at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, according to President Randy Gottlieb.

“Others have taken their non-performing uncapped decks, put a raincoat over them, taken cost out of the middle, and said it must work better,” Gottlieb said. “We say take our uncapped version, and if you want to literally put it under water, it still has the same warranty.”

The Springdale, Ark.-based company added a cap option in 2015 because the market was asking for it, Gottlieb said. It serves mainly as an aesthetic difference, he added.

“There's some fade and stain benefit” from the cap, Gotlieb said. “You see more of a natural wood grain in the uncapped product and around a dock or pier or marina that's what you're looking for. But we don't push people in either direction.”

MoistureShield decks are made from all grades of recycled PE, like grocery bags and milk jugs, as well as wood fiber waste, by Advanced recycling Environmental Technologies Inc., which is ranked No. 46 among PPT extruders with sales of $76 million.

Royal Building Products makes cellular PVC decking called Zuri, which a company official said sold out in 2014 and 2015. The Woodbridge, Ontario-based business, which is the No. 5 PPT extruder, added capacity last year. Zuri decks have a topcoat that the company says resists UV light and color fade.

“What we're attempting to do is provide the best aesthetics with our siding and decking at a highly competitive price,” said Vice President Simon Bates. “We've been improving our manufacturing process and bringing the price of that product down. It does compare quite favorably with the very high-end composite decks like Trex Transcend.”