Sitting back, watching television in your family room, you’d never expect to spontaneously fall clear through to the basement. With strict building codes in place in Canada, why would you?
But relaxing on your back deck? That’s an entirely different story, says Tory Weber, president of Calgary-based SigmaDek Ltd., a company that set out to remove the worry of deck collapses.
“A backyard deck is purely structural and yet there’s no code whatsoever to say that at a certain point it needs to be replaced,” says Weber. “The only mechanism in place to change a deck is when it’s so rotten, it ultimately fails.”
According to a new Ipsos poll, conducting in April 2015 on behalf of SigmaDek, the average wooden deck in Canada today is 10 years old.
Yet, nearly one quarter (23%) of homeowners with wooden decks admit they’ve never carried out a full inspection.
Meanwhile, the state of many home decks across the country is so bad that one in 10 homeowners feel their deck could collapse any minute.
You can prevent danger through routine inspection and repair, along with regular maintenance. But after more than 20 years in the retail lumber business, Weber and his colleagues decided there must be a better way.
“It was fascinating to me, as we sold wooden decks to people, that it was kind of the last frontier in terms of being maintenance-free on a house,” he says.
Launched in 2008, SigmaDek set out to engineer a safe, aluminum component decking system using materials that do not deteriorate. The answer is a pre-fabricated and maintenance-free high-tech decking system some are calling an industry game-changer.
Designed to eliminate the dangers of collapsing wooden decks, the SigmaDek system combines an all-aluminum substructure with aluminum and porcelain deck boards that connect together like “Lego® for grownups,” describes Weber. “There’s very little measuring and it all kind of clicks into the right place without measuring or cutting.”
Jeremy Reinbold installed a 12- by 14-foot SigmaDek at his new home in Macklin, Sask., in the fall of 2014. “It was easier than I thought,” he says. “When I first saw it, I thought ‘Oh boy! This is going to be a lot of work’ but it was surprising quick and simple.”
At first he was attracted by the sleek look of the product. When he learned that it
was maintenance-free, he was sold.
“At my old house I did have a wood deck and I didn’t like it. We always had to paint it and it wasn’t fun to deal with,” he says. “Whereas with this one, once it’s done, it’s done.”
SigmaDek has gone to great lengths to ensure the product’s durability. The non-combustible components used in SigmaDek won’t rot, warp, crack or succumb to insect damage.
To prove the surface won’t stain, the company rented a helicopter water bomber and dropped 660 litres of mustard on a sample deck. Hours later the cleaned boards looked new.
In addition to being Built Green™ certified and tested beyond Canada’s existing build code requirements, SigmaDek is made in Canada, in La Baie, Que. The company’s in-store presence will feature interactive kiosks designed to connect prospective buyers directly to the design centre in Kelowna, B.C.
“We walk through the whole process, design their deck with them, show them pictures and give them a price right there,” says Weber. “Nothing is stocked. Everything is custom made for your deck.”
Source: https://bit.ly/2tCJTBf
