Composite & PVC Decking

Composite vs PVC — the actual difference

Composite boards are wood flour mixed with polyethylene, usually with a hard polymer cap on the visible faces. PVC boards have no wood in them at all. That single fact drives most of the practical difference: no organic content means nothing for moisture to feed on, and it means a lighter board that runs cooler than a dark composite of the same colour.

Composite is less expensive and the capped lines are genuinely good products. PVC costs more and is the better answer near water, on decks that take hard all-day sun, and anywhere the owner wants to think about the deck as little as possible.

Where the brands actually stand, as of August 2026

TimberTech absorbed AZEK, which is why you will see the same PVC line sold under both names — TimberTech AZEK. It is the same board. If you have older AZEK on your property and want to match it, that is where to look.

Trex spent years without a PVC product while the market moved toward one. They have since brought PVC lines out. It is a reasonable product. What it does not yet have, as of this month, is the depth of fire-zone listing history that TimberTech AZEK has, and in Los Angeles that matters for a large share of our work. We expect that to change. We are not going to write it on a material schedule before it does.

Fire zones narrow the field fast

If your property is in a fire hazard severity zone, the deck walking surface has to comply with the California Wildland-Urban Interface Code, and most of the decision gets made for you.

TimberTech AZEK's Vintage Collection is listed Class A with no conditions attached. Trex Transcend, Select and Transcend Lineage are listed, but each carries a condition: the adjacent exterior wall covering has to be noncombustible or ignition-resistant. Trex Enhance is not listed at all — it is a perfectly good board for a deck in Encino and it will get red-lined on a Palisades permit.

We check the specific product, not the brand, against the State Fire Marshal's listing before it goes in a proposal.

Colour, heat and honest expectations

Deck surface temperature is driven mostly by colour and sun exposure, not by material category on its own. A dark board of any material runs hot in a Valley August. There is no independent, published dataset comparing barefoot temperatures across hardwood, composite and PVC, so we are not going to quote you a number — manufacturers' "runs cooler" claims are their own tests against unnamed competitors. What we will do is tell you to look at a sample outdoors, in the sun, in the colour you actually want, before you commit.

One thing worth knowing about warranties: Trex's stain warranty requires the surface to be cleaned within seven days of a spill. That is in their own care documentation, and almost nobody is told about it at the point of sale.

Installation is where these products get ruined

Composite and PVC move with temperature considerably more than wood does. That means gapping at butt joints and at the perimeter according to the manufacturer's schedule for the temperature on the day of install, hidden fasteners in the board's groove rather than face screws where the system calls for it, and joist spacing tightened to the manufacturer's specification — often 12 inches on centre for a diagonal layout or for stair treads, not the 16 inches people default to.

Get the gapping wrong and the deck buckles in July. That is an installation failure, not a product failure, and the warranty will say so.

Call (818) 345-2866.