When Tommy Vilardo was planning a deck across the back of his remodeled Hyde Park home last year, he said a key “was finding something that was low maintenance. I didn't want to spend a couple hundred dollars every couple years pressure washing and restaining it.”

        After talking with deck builders and the folks at Hyde Park Lumber Co., he opted to cover his wood deck with a new product that looks, acts and smells like wood but is actually a mixture of wood sawdust and plastic pellets.

        Although use of the composite wood-plastic deck boards, known in the trade as wood flour, increased the cost of his deck, Mr. Vilardo said it was worth the investment.

Tommy Vilardo of Hyde Park relaxes on his backyard deck, made of a wood composite product. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

        “I'm incredibly happy with it,” he said. “I take friends out on the deck and they ooh and aah.”
       

Around for years

        Wood-plastic composites are different from so-called plastic lumber, which is all vinyl. Plastic lumber is used in heavy duty applications such as park benches, refuse containers and playground equipment.

        Wood-plastic composites have been around for years. They're used in the automotive industry to make things such as headliners, trunk liners and spare tire housings. But over the last five years, they've been a small, but growing alternative to traditional wood in home decks.

        The Cincinnati area has become a focus for the wood flour market. Milacron Inc.'s extrusion machine business in Batavia is the leading supplier of the machines that make the product. TimberTech Ltd., a unit of Columbus-based Crane Plastics, is producing decking at a plant in Wilmington, and OnSpec Composites, a small startup manufacturer, is in Covedale.

        “Wood composites are the fastest growing material in the decking market,” said John Quarmley, a director at Principia Partners, an Exton, Pa., consulting firm that has studied the use of composites.

        But wood composites, typically a 50-50 mix of sawdust and often using recycled plastic, still have only a fraction of the total market. There are about 3.25 million decks built or replaced annually in the United States. But wood composite represents about 3 percent of that market, Principia estimates.

        “A contractor building a $250,000 or $300,000 house will still use pressure-treated lumber on the deck because it's the least expensive product to use,” said Mr. Quarmley.

Bryan Buhrts, technical director of TimberTech Ltd., sifts a handful of wood flour in a bin at the Wilmington plant. (Michael Snyder photos) | ZOOM |

        “But the guy who buys a house with a 20-year-old deck that needs replacing, he's more inclined to replace it with wood composite board because he doesn't have to worry about the maintenance.”

        Principia estimates 463 million pounds of wood composite board were produced last year for the decking market — with a wholesale value of $264 million.

        That's up from 398 million pounds two years ago, with a wholesale value of $162 million.
       

Milacron's nice

        Looking forward, Mr. Quarmley said the size of the wood composite decking market should double over the next five years.

        That's particularly good news for Milacron Inc.'s ExtrusionTek business in Batavia. Milacron has built more than 100 machines over the last several years, said Tom Brown, ExtrusionTek's sales manager.

        Although the slowing economy has taken its toll on the building products market, Jim Abbiati, president of the ExtrusionTek unit, said the wood flour market now represents about a third of Milacron's twin-screw extruder sales, and he thinks it will represent half of those sales in a few years.

        “It's a good niche we've done well in,” he said. “It's environmentally friendly. You're mixing sawdust and plastic resins, and you have a superior product. You can drive nails through it, you won't have wood rot and you can stain it to look like wood.”

A TimberTech employee stacks pieces of wood-composite planking for decks. | ZOOM |

        Wood composite decking costs about twice as much as pressure-treated lumber. But because the wood composite is only used on the exposed deck (the structural beams and supports underneath are still pressure-treated lumber), it increases the overall cost of a new deck by only about 20 percent, said Tim Zeter, operations manager at Hyde Park Lumber.

        “We sell quite a bit of it,” said Mr. Zeter, who used the product when he rebuilt his deck three years ago. “I love it,” he said.

        Besides cost, there are other disadvantages to wood composite decking.

        “The material isn't colorfast,” Mr. Quarmley said. “You can buy any of 10 different colors, depending on the manufacturer. And after two months, they're all gray. If you want to maintain the color, you're going to have to stain it regularly.”

        Because of the plastic content, the product over time will show indentations from heavy patio furniture and wear in high-traffic areas, he said. Those problems are being addressed as manufacturers use more virgin plastic rather than recycled product, he said.

        TimberTech Ltd., a 5-year-old subsidiary of Crane Plastics, uses all virgin vinyl in its tongue-and-groove planks, which eliminate screws or nails on the deck surface.

        Privately held TimberTech doesn't disclose revenues. But Stu Kemper, president, said: “We've had absolutely outstanding growth. We've had 60-plus percent growth rates for the last three years.”

        TimberTech has been one of the best customers for Milacron's extrusion machines. It operates 10 extrusion lines employing about 110 at its Wilmington plant. The company bought the plant from Milacron in 1999. A sister company, Vinyl Visions, which makes vinyl fencing, also uses part of the plant.

        “We were looking to expand rapidly,” Mr. Kemper said of the decision to buy the Wilmington plant. “They gave us a deal on the property, and we gave them a nice order for the extruders,” he said.
       

New applications

        The growth of the wood composite market has spurred a lot of interest from big plastics and building products suppliers. But there are smaller operators — such as OnSpec Composites, which set up shop two years ago in Covedale.

        Starting with a single extruder, a credit card and a second mortgage on his house, owner Jay Mayer has since expanded to three machines and six employees.

        Although OnSpec sells its decking from its Muddy Creek Road plant, it has also diversified into other wood composite products for the construction and transportation markets.

        “We like to go places where the big guys aren't,” said Mr. Mayer, who is reluctant to talk more specifically about his products for competitive reasons.

        OnSpec is also trying to create a niche as an innovator for new applications, he said.

        “A lot of plastic makers don't want wood flour in their plant because it can get into everything, so we run products for them,” he said.
       

Possibilities huge

        Although the deck market is hot right now for wood composites, plastics processors and building products manufacturers are exploring other applications.

        “A number of companies (are) working on wood composite formulations to replace pure vinyl in siding. That could be a huge business,” Mr. Quarmley said.

        Other applications include fencing, roof shingles and interior trim.

        “There are a lot of small companies doing this,” he said. "They have access to sawdust and plastic resin and they put some new twist on a product. There's a company in Connecticut which has introduced a wood composite garden stake, which won't rot or splinter. They've since moved into lattice and trellis.”
       

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