Here is a frustrating scenario that plays out across thousands of UK gardens every year: a homeowner installs a beautiful composite deck. The boards look fantastic. Five, eight, ten years pass and the surface still looks great — no fading, no splintering, no maintenance required. Then one day they notice a board that has started to dip slightly. They step on it and feel a soft spot. They lift a board and discover the timber joist beneath has turned to mush. The deck surface is perfect. The...

Composite decking is designed to be durable, low-maintenance and long-lasting. But even the best boards in the world cannot overcome poor installation. The most common problems with composite decks — sagging boards, buckling in summer, water pooling, rattling underfoot — are almost always caused by mistakes made during the build, not defects in the material itself. Here are the seven most common errors we see in UK composite decking installations, and exactly how to avoid each one. 1. Joist...

Walk into any decking supplier and the price tags tell a simple story: timber is cheaper, composite is more expensive. For pressure-treated softwood boards at £3–5 per metre versus composite at £6–10 per metre, the maths seems obvious. But anyone who has owned a timber deck for more than a few years knows that the purchase price is just the opening chapter of a much longer (and more expensive) story. In this article, we break down the true cost of owning both types of decking over a realistic...