Does Composite Decking Get Hot? A Canadian Answer

Short answer: Yes. Every composite deck board gets hot in direct summer sun, ours included, and anyone who tells you their board stays cool is overselling. Colour is the biggest lever you control: Tarimatec's white colour carries an SRI above 80 (Tecnalia report 082062-002, ASTM E1980). Shade and timing do the rest.

You are probably asking because of a specific afternoon. Someone stepped onto a deck barefoot in July, made a noise, and hopped to the nearest patch of shade. Or the dog walked out, thought about it, and went straight back inside. That is the real question behind the search, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a brochure line.

We supply the Tarimatec decking range across Canada, and heat is the complaint we hear most often about composite decking in general. So here is how we talk it through on a site visit: what actually makes a deck hot, what you can genuinely change, what the one number we can stand behind covers, and where a competitor beats us on this specific point.

Why every deck gets hot, and what actually drives it

A deck surface in full sun is doing simple physics. It absorbs solar energy, converts it to heat, and gives some of that heat back to the air and some to the sole of your foot. How hot it gets depends on four things: how much sun lands on it, how much of that sun the surface reflects rather than absorbs, how fast the surface sheds heat again, and whether any air is moving across it.

Notice what is not on that list. The brand is not on that list. A dark charcoal board from any manufacturer, on a cloudless afternoon with no breeze, will be uncomfortable underfoot. That is true of composite, of PVC, of ipe, of weathered pressure-treated pine, and of the porcelain tile on your neighbour's patio.

What does vary, and varies a lot, is the reflectance of the surface. That is where colour comes in, and it is the one lever that costs you nothing on install day.

Colour is the lever, and it is not close

The measurement that describes this is the Solar Reflectance Index, and it is worth thirty seconds of your attention because it is the only heat number we can put in front of you honestly. SRI combines how much solar energy a surface reflects with how efficiently it re-emits the heat it does absorb. Higher is cooler. Cool-roof programmes lean on the same measure.

Tarimatec's white colour was measured at an SRI above 80 under ASTM E1980, in Tecnalia report 082062-002. That is a genuinely reflective surface, in the range that roofing programmes treat as a high performer.

Now the honest part. That test was run on the white colour. One colour, out of a range of 31 across three finishes. We are not going to quietly let an SRI figure measured on white do promotional work for a deep walnut or a charcoal, because it does not apply to them, and you would find that out the first hot Saturday. If heat underfoot is near the top of your list, browse the 31 Tarimatec colours and finishes and shortlist from the pale and mid-tone end. That decision will do more for your feet than any other choice on this page.

A south-facing Toronto rooftop in July

Picture a rooftop terrace on a low-rise off Dundas West. Full southern exposure, no mature trees anywhere near roof level, a membrane below and pedestals holding the boards above it. From eleven in the morning until six in the evening there is nothing between that deck and the sun, and reflected heat comes off the parapet as a bonus.

That deck will get hot regardless of what you put on it. The design response is not a magic board, it is shade and zoning. A pergola over the seating third of the terrace changes the whole space, because you are never more than a few steps from somewhere you can stand comfortably. A retractable sail costs less and does much the same job. Pale boards in the walking zone, an outdoor rug in the lounging zone, and the barefoot problem largely goes away. If a roof deck is your project, our guide to rooftop decking covers the assembly side in more detail.

A Kelowna poolside in August

The Okanagan in August is the other classic case, and it is a different problem because of one detail: everyone is barefoot, and everyone is wet.

Wet feet change the equation twice. They cool the surface locally for a moment, which helps. And they make the slip question live, which is why pool surrounds have their own rules. Tarimatec is classified Class 3 and R11 in the wet condition under UNE-ENV 12633, the European wet-pendulum classification, where Class 3 is the highest level and the one required for pool surrounds. If your project is a pool deck, read the detail in our post on whether composite decking is slippery when wet before you choose a finish.

For heat specifically, the poolside trick that actually works is a cool landing strip. Keep the immediate pool coping and the metre of deck beside it in the palest colour you are willing to live with, run an outdoor rug or two along the route from the water to the loungers, and put the shade structure over the seating rather than over the water. People move between wet and shaded surfaces and never spend more than a couple of steps on hot board.

The practical heat-management choices, ranked

Here is the whole toolkit on one screen. Read down the first column in order, because that is roughly the order of impact.

Lever	What it actually changes	Where it earns its keep	What it costs you
Colour choice	The largest single factor. A pale or mid-tone surface reflects far more solar energy than a deep charcoal. Tarimatec's white measured SRI above 80 under ASTM E1980, Tecnalia report 082062-002	Any deck with no afternoon shade	Nothing, if you decide before you order
Shade: pergola, sail, umbrella	Removes the sun from the area it covers, and gives every barefoot walker somewhere to land	South and west-facing decks and rooftops	The most expensive lever, and the most effective
Layout and traffic path	Board direction barely changes surface temperature. Where the route from door to table falls does	Long decks and pool surrounds	Nothing, if you plan it early
Rugs, mats, a cool landing strip	Breaks up the barefoot journey so nobody crosses more than a step of hot surface	Pool edges, hot tub surrounds, doorways	Low, and reversible
Time of day	Surface temperature peaks mid to late afternoon and drops fast once the sun is off the boards	Evening-use decks, which is most of them	Nothing
A hose-down before use	Evaporative cooling. Real, immediate, temporary	Right before a swim	Nothing, but it wears off

Where a competitor genuinely wins

If low surface temperature is the single thing you will not compromise on, you should know that at least one North American brand engineers around it explicitly. MoistureShield's Vision line with CoolDeck technology is built and marketed on running cooler than a comparable dark board, and it was publicly priced at $7.80 CAD per linear foot at Home Depot Canada in our September 2026 survey. That is a real product with a real claim aimed at exactly your problem, and pretending otherwise would not help you.

What we will not do is claim our board runs cooler than a named competitor. We hold no side-by-side surface-temperature testing against other brands, so any such claim would be invented and you would have no way to check it. The one heat number we hold is the SRI above 80 on the white colour, measured by Tecnalia under ASTM E1980.

Frequently asked questions

Does composite decking get hotter than wood?

Yes. Every composite deck board absorbs solar energy and warms up in direct sun, and so does wood, stone and concrete. What varies between products is how much, and the single biggest variable is the colour you choose, not the brand name on the invoice.

What is SRI, and what does SRI above 80 mean?

It is the Solar Reflectance Index, a measure of how much solar energy a surface reflects and re-emits rather than holding on to. Tarimatec's white colour was measured at above 80 under ASTM E1980 in Tecnalia report 082062-002. That figure applies to the white colour only, and we do not extend it to the other 30 colours in the range.

Does a dark composite board stay cool?

No, and we will not pretend otherwise. A dark board in full sun gets hot, whoever makes it. If a dark tone is non-negotiable for the look you want, plan shade, a traffic path and footwear around it rather than expecting the material to solve it.

Does spraying the deck with water help?

Yes, briefly. A hose-down cools the surface by evaporation and buys you a comfortable half hour or so before the sun wins it back. It is a fine trick before a swim on a Kelowna afternoon, but it is not a substitute for shade or a lighter colour.

Is there a decking product designed specifically to run cooler?

MoistureShield's Vision line with CoolDeck technology is built and marketed specifically around lower surface temperature, and it is publicly priced at $7.80 CAD per linear foot at Home Depot Canada as of September 2026. If barefoot heat is the one factor you will not compromise on, it deserves a look alongside anything we sell.

How do I test heat before I commit to a colour?

Order a sample in the colour you are considering, put it on the spot where the deck will go, and stand on it barefoot at three in the afternoon in July. Samples ship from Vaughan, Ontario in 5 to 10 business days and they are paid, not free. Nothing on a screen will answer this question for you.

The honest ending to this one is that you should test it yourself rather than take anyone's word, ours included. Put a sample of the colour you like on the exact spot where the deck will go and stand on it on the hottest afternoon you get: order decking samples, which are paid and ship from Vaughan, Ontario in 5 to 10 business days, or request a project quote in CAD if you already know your colour and square footage. Boards are import-to-order on an 8 to 12 week lead time, so the earlier you settle the colour question, the easier your build season gets.