Complaint / Review
Lowe's
If I had know it would look so bad, I wouldn't have build such a BIG A

I went to the effort to make an account on this site so that I could let everyone else know that these are not isolated or regional problems. I bought and installed this deck in Central Michigan.

I also bought the brownish Choice Dek material. I passed on a decent product in my local Home Depot to have this crap decking from Lowes shipped to me from a store 30 miles away (adding more to the cost) SPECIFICALLY because of the color. Within the first year it was GREY (not so nice with a house that I had painted to go with the brownish deck (several projects going on at once that year).

We built a HUUUUUGE multi leveled deck that surrounds the pool, has several dining/cooking areas and a gazebo. It is large enough that we have had some band concerts held here (friends of our kids that brought all of their instruments, amps and such).

Yes, it cost a fortune and I was excited to be using this product that claimed to eliminate all the washing and refinishing that I hear is associated with wood. But, we figured we would save in the long run. You can't imagine how badly I wish I had the wood.

A year after we built the deck someone who also used this material but lived a few hours north of us called to mention the problem with black spots. They don't have any trees near by so it couldn't be sap or pollen or all the other things that Lowes will tell you. They get full sun all day so even the mold theory is iffy.

At that point, we were unhappy with the extreme fade of our deck but it wasn't showing spots YET...

The following spring we started getting them and now several years later the deck still looks like C R A P.

We spend a lot of time on the deck and you can bet that Lowes and Choice Dek get a lot of "advertizing" from our deck. Everyone who had built a deck since they have seen ours has bought a different product.

Notably, the balcony we had done two years before this big deck project, the balcony we did using a Home Depot product... Still looks GREAT despite a little algae that grows in the shady area.

RUN, RUN, RUN from this product. I have repeatedly tried to find out about the class action lawsuit — even had the name of one firm that was working on it but still have received no replies.

This month we are trying to order some Choice Dek "facing" to fix part of our deck steps — the Lowes guy claims that we can clean it with Oxylac acid cleaner but I have read that it is only a temporary solution.

Has anyone tried staining this material with deck stain?