outdoor deck railings what to use ?
 

The home that the wife and I moved into last year has a nice outdoor deck on the back of the house. The decking is a gray man made material ( not wood ) that was installed well and looks great. However the railings are pressure treated wood that are splintered , bowed and just plain ugly. To my knowledge there are basically four types to replace with.

1.pressure treated again
2.vinyl
3.metal
4.aluminum

We are going to have a roof installed over the deck so new railings would be incorporated at that time so they tie in with any new posts/structure needed to support the roof. Any suggestions on what to use or pictures of what you have done is appreciated.

We use vinyl, or the railing system by trex, depending on the customer's budget.

Powder coated aluminum made by SPECRAIL, buy online at fencedepot.com. I got all the railing shipped to my house for $2,600.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1314461311.jpg

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The railing to use really depends if you have a view or not, if you have a view
go with a frame-less glass railing at least 12mm thick, even if you choose to use a frame around the glass it still looks better than looking through metal vertical
railings. And if you have lot's of time buy them direct out of China for about 30 % of the cost of buying here in Canada.
Actually had a look at what the neighbor had manufactured in China and no one could of told the difference.

We used stainless steel cable railing from AGS stainless. Its looks great, but it was $$$ expensive.

http://www.arcat.com/newprods/gfx/agsstain.jpg

Stainless steel railing looks interesting, and easy to maintain vs glass railing....

wood is cheapest around here; is cost a factor for you?

I would say yes cost is a factor. I'm waiting on quotes to install a roof over the existing deck. I'd rather put the money into that structure because I'm farming that out. I can make/install a wood railing system myself. Went to Lowe's today and they have aluminum ballisters that can be used with conventional wood railings that looked interesting. The thing that bothers me most about wood railings is the normal install seems to be just driving a crap load of screws through the ends which looks like junk and eventually split. If I make my own I would use a router and make cutouts in the posts for the rails to slide into. The SS rail system above is too modern for my home. I will look into the aluminum rail system posted above. Thanks