Decking... Composite or wood? Pros and cons?

[Deleted member 307320]

As above!

I'm looking to put some decking along with back of my house, but not sure whether to go with old school treated timber, or fancy new composite.

Given the price of timber, is there that much of a price difference between the two these days?

Can anyone recommend a particular type or brand?

I notice that some seem to lock together like laminate flooring, should I be avoiding that style if I want the area to drain well?

 

[robinbanks]

Cheapest I found composite recently was about 26 quid a square metre (and it was incredibly irritating that suppliers listed the linear metre price but planks vary in width) - ended up paying just over 17 a sqm for a job lot from fb marketplace, but did also look at importing a batch from China -it's cheap but the shipping doubles the price of it

I think it's insanely expensive for what is essentially recycled plastic and scrap wood, and I'm also irked that the wood grain pattern repeats very obviously, every few metres, but on the flip side (hah, yes, there is a grooved pattern) you don't have to maintain it much.

Timber decking I didn't research extensively but seemed to be about a third to half the price from the few suppliers I checked that had both (but equally, those suppliers wanted 50 plus a sqm for composite).. You'd be doing well to get 25 years out of it, which is apparently possible for composite

I didn't see any that locks together but most systems have an edge groove into which a T shaped clip goes to hold the boards and also space them.. is that what you're looking at?