Decking in Teesside

Composite or timber, honestly weighed

Composite decking is the low-maintenance answer: no staining, no rot, no splinters, colour-stable for 20-plus years, at roughly double the material cost of timber. Timber decking (pressure-treated softwood or hardwood) costs less up front, looks warmer on day one, and demands oiling every year or two plus eventual board replacement, the true 10-year cost gap is much smaller than the day-one gap. Both are quoted side by side so the choice is made with real numbers.

What neither survives is a bad frame. Decks fail from below: undersized joists, posts on soil instead of footings, no ventilation so the frame rots in its own damp. Every quote here specifies joist size and spacing, footing type, and ventilation, the lines that decide whether the deck is solid in year ten.

Where decking earns its place

Decking shines on sloping Teesside gardens, a raised deck levels a slope far more cheaply than retaining walls and fill, and on courtyard plots where a warm, low step-out surface beats cold flags. It is the wrong answer in permanently shaded, leaf-dropped corners (slippery whatever the material) and over ground that floods, the survey says plainly which situation yours is.

Details that separate the quotes

Picture-frame borders and breaker boards on composite (or visible end grain that swells), hidden fixings versus face screws, stair nosings and handrails where heights demand them, and weed membrane plus gravel beneath so nothing grows through. A like-for-like comparison needs all of these visible, which is why every quote itemises them.

Prices

A typical Teesside deck (15 to 25m²) runs £1,500 to £4,000: treated softwood at the bottom, hardwood mid-range, composite at the top. Raised and multi-level structures price by survey, height adds engineering, not just materials.