A characterization of the U.S. residential deck material market

Current estimates indicate that over 6.5 million decks are constructed on US residential structures on an annual basis at a cost of $1.9 billion to $3 billion. Over the past decade, the residential deck material market experienced robust expansion, growing at an annualized rate of 8.1% between 1991 and 1999. A mail survey of residential construction firms was used to characterize the use of seven different deck materials within the US residential construction industry. A separate survey of the largest 100 residential construction firms in the US was also conducted to determine if their deck material use differed substantially from smaller firms. Survey results indicated that nearly 60% of new spec homes and 68% of new custom homes were built with decks between November 1996 and October 1998. Slightly over 47.4% of the new home decks were constructed with pressure-treated lumber, followed by western red cedar, concrete and redwood, representing 18.5%, 14.1%, and 11.1% of the market, respectively.