Deck planning tool

Composite decking colour visualizer

A 100 mm chip tells you almost nothing about how a colour behaves across a whole deck. Pick a scene, pick a colour, and see the shade laid across a real Tarimatec terrace at real scale, with the same light and shadow the photograph had. It is a shortlisting tool, not a proof: order the sample before you commit.

Pool terraceRooftop terraceLounge terrace

Showing the pool terrace as photographed. Choose a colour below to see it recoloured.

Order samples Browse every colour

Chromatic

Wengé Marrón Miel Gris Moka

Wood

Nogal Teka Greenwood Silver Castaño Polar Ipé Roble Sándalo Luna Cinnamon Cozumel Nielsen Havanna

Ethnic

Preto Blanco Ivory Iroko Bambú Antique Lino Formentera Índigo Aloha Macao Coffee Koala

Every swatch links to that colour's page. Screen colour is indicative only.

How this works, and what it cannot do

The three scenes are photographs of finished Tarimatec installations. When you choose a colour, the deck area in the photograph is recoloured while its original light, shadow and grain are kept, so a board in shade stays in shade and a board catching low sun still catches it. That is the useful part: it shows you how a shade sits against sky, stone, water and planting, and how much a colour changes between the sunlit and shaded halves of the same deck.

What it cannot do is show you the colour accurately. Your screen is not colour managed against a board, brightness settings vary by a factor of five, and every phone applies its own processing. Two colours that look interchangeable here will not look interchangeable on a table in daylight. Treat the visualizer as a way to get from a long list to a shortlist of three, and then order those three as samples.

Boards also have a surface texture, either brushed or grooved depending on the finish, that reads very differently at a glancing angle than it does head-on. No screen renders that at all.

The Canadian range

Tarimatec's Canadian range is grouped in three collections. Chromatic is the solid-toned family, Wood reads as timber, and Ethnic covers the stone, linen and deep tones.

Chromatic

Wengé, Marrón, Miel, Gris, Moka.

Wood

Nogal, Teka, Greenwood, Silver, Castaño, Polar, Ipé, Roble, Sándalo, Luna, Cinnamon, Cozumel, Nielsen, Havanna.

Ethnic

Preto, Blanco Ivory, Iroko, Bambú, Antique, Lino, Formentera, Índigo, Aloha, Macao, Coffee, Koala.

Every colour is available in both the hollow 150 × 27 mm profile and, on request, the solid 149.2 × 20 mm profile. Colours are ordered from Spain to your project, so a colour you have chosen is not a colour that sits in a warehouse: allow 8 to 12 weeks from a confirmed order.

Reading colour outdoors in Canada

• Latitude changes everything. Canadian light is lower and cooler than the Mediterranean light most manufacturer photography is shot in, and a warm mid-brown that looks golden in Ibiza reads noticeably more grey in Ottawa in October.
• Look at the colour against what surrounds it, not on its own. Grey boards against grey stone read flat; the same grey against cedar fencing or red brick reads deliberate.
• Wet and dry are two different colours. Every composite darkens when it is wet, and pale shades change most. Run water over the sample before you decide.
• All outdoor surfaces weather. Expect a settling in the first year or two as the surface takes on its long-term appearance, then stability. Tarimatec's warranty covers the material for 25 years, administered in Canada by Zinodeck.

Heat, and why colour is a comfort decision

Colour is the single biggest thing you control about how a deck feels underfoot in August. Darker surfaces absorb more solar energy and run hotter; paler surfaces reflect more and run cooler. Tarimatec's solar reflectance index is measured above 80 on a white sample, per ASTM E1980 and Tecnalia report 082062-002, and that measurement is for the white sample specifically, not for the range.

The practical version: if the deck is a poolside surface, a barefoot terrace or a rooftop in full southern exposure, weight your shortlist toward the paler end of the range. If it is shaded, north-facing or mostly used in shoes, colour can be a pure design decision. This is also where the Class 3 (R11) slip rating to UNE-ENV 12633 matters more than the shade.

Why you still need a physical sample

Sample tiles are paid, they ship from Vaughan, Ontario in 5 to 10 business days, and they cost a fraction of one board. Put them on the actual site, look at them at the hour of day you will use the deck, look at them wet, and look at them next to the materials they will live beside. Every serious deck decision has ended with someone changing their mind at this stage, and it is far cheaper to change it here than after 8 to 12 weeks of lead time.

Related: all colours and finishes, the board, joist and clip calculator, all planning tools, and the decking range.