PVC Decking in Canada: What You Are Actually Buying

Three different products are sold in Canada as PVC decking: cellular PVC, which is 100 per cent polymer; capped wood-fibre composite that gets miscalled PVC at the counter; and PVC-mineral composite like Tarimatec, which is PVC with rice husk and limestone. They price and certify differently.

You are probably here because a contractor said go PVC, it lasts, and then you found boards priced from three dollars a linear foot to nearly twelve. That spread is not a scam. It is three different materials wearing one label.

Our interest, declared up front: Zinodeck is the Canadian distributor for Tarimatec, and Tarimatec is a PVC-based board, PVC with rice husk and limestone in roughly 100:50:40 parts, which the manufacturer in Valencia calls Ecofiber Stone Composite. This is not a conquest page dressed up as a category guide. We belong here. What follows is where we fit, and where a competitor beats us.

The three products Canadians call PVC decking

Walk the decking aisle of a big-box store in Mississauga on a Saturday in May and all three families sit within ten metres of each other, near-identically labelled.

Cellular PVC

One hundred per cent polymer, foamed into a cellular core, with no wood fibre and no mineral filler. TimberTech Advanced PVC is the line you will actually find here. Nothing organic in the board means nothing organic to rot, and the Advanced PVC lines reach a Class A flame spread to ASTM E84, a real North American result and a genuine advantage when a building official asks in writing. The trade-off is what your feet notice: a foamed board is light, and over a hollow joist bay it sounds light.

Capped wood-fibre composite, miscalled PVC

This is most of the aisle: wood flour and polyethylene under a co-extruded polymer cap. The cap is why somebody calls it PVC: the shell is plastic, the core is not. These are the entry prices, and honest value. Veranda Meadow lists at $3.04 and Trex Enhance Basics at $3.45 per linear foot at Home Depot Canada, verified September 2026. The caveat is the core: cut a board to length across a joist run and the fresh end is exposed wood fibre, cap or no cap.

PVC-mineral composite

PVC as the matrix, rice husk as the fibre, limestone as the mineral load. This is where Tarimatec sits. The mineral load is the point of the recipe: it makes the board heavier in the hand than a foamed plank, and a denser board carries less of that hollow drum sound when a chair scrapes across a rooftop terrace. It is also the least familiar name here, fairly held against it.

What the mineral load actually changes underfoot

Numbers first, because the feel of a board is worth nothing without them. Tarimatec takes up 0.59 per cent water at 24 hours in the hollow profile and 0.38 per cent in the solid, rising to 1.66 per cent at 28 days, all to UNE-EN 317. Wet slip is Class 3 / R11 to UNE-ENV 12633, the highest class in that European wet-pendulum scale, the one required around a pool surround. On a chlorinated pool terrace, or a Vancouver Island patio that never dries between October and April, that is the number worth arguing about. More in our guide to specifying composite decking for pool decks.

The system follows the same logic: hidden clips in AISI 304L or 316L stainless at 25 clips per square metre, onto aluminium joists in EN AW 6005 T6 at 350 mm spacing. No face screw to back out, no carbon-steel fastener to weep a rust tear down a pale board. The palette runs to 31 colours across three finishes, and the boards sit in the Tarimatec composite decking range.

Tarimatec and TimberTech Advanced PVC, side by side

TimberTech is the benchmark in Canadian cellular PVC. Here is the honest version, their wins marked.

TimberTech takes three rows that matter: an ASTM E84 Class A result you can hand to a building official, a dealer network that puts a board in your truck this week, and a published price you can budget against without phoning anybody. On a fast rebuild with a hard date, that is difficult to argue with.

Where we push back is on documentation and on the surface. A 50-year term that pro-rates down to 10 per cent recovery in years 43 to 50 is a different promise from a flat 25-year one, and worth reading line by line rather than counting the headline number. A verified EPD registered with Environdec is an audited document, not a marketing figure.

What PVC-family decking costs in Canada

Public retail prices at Home Depot Canada, verified September 2026, in CAD per linear foot: Veranda Meadow $3.04, Trex Enhance Basics $3.45, TimberTech Prime+ $4.92, Trex Transcend $9.45, TimberTech Landmark Advanced PVC $10.62 and Vintage Advanced PVC $11.87. True cellular PVC lives at the top of that list.

Tarimatec is quoted per project in CAD, so there is no per-foot figure for us to publish and we will not invent one. Finish, profile and substructure move the number too much for a shelf price to help. Request a project quote in CAD and you will see the real figure for your deck.

The part most category pages leave out

Tarimatec's test data is European. Tarimatec does not hold a CAN/ULC S102 flame-spread test or a CCMC evaluation today, and several North American brands do: Fiberon holds CCMC 13500-R, and Trex, Deckorators and Fiberon all hold CCMC reports. If your project sits under an authority having jurisdiction who wants Canadian-domiciled test documentation, that is a real reason to choose somebody else, and you should hear it here rather than at plan review.

There is also no published cold-temperature rating. None. Any supplier claiming a board is rated for a Prairie winter is describing marketing, not a certificate. What we offer instead is practical care: a plastic shovel, never a metal blade, rock salt kept away from the fixings, calcium-magnesium acetate or sand for traction. That is guidance, not a rating, and we work through it in our guide to composite decking in a Canadian winter.

How to choose between the three

• Budget is the binding constraint: capped wood-fibre composite, from $3.04 per linear foot at Home Depot Canada.
• A building official wants an ASTM E84 or CAN/ULC S102 result, or you need boards on site inside a fortnight: cellular PVC.
• Wet slip, audited documentation, a dense board and colour range decide it, and your schedule carries an 8 to 12 week import: PVC-mineral composite. Our guide to composite decking versus PVC takes that comparison wider.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tarimatec a PVC decking board?

Yes. Tarimatec is a PVC-mineral composite: PVC, rice husk and limestone in roughly 100:50:40 parts, which the manufacturer calls Ecofiber Stone Composite. It is not a wood-fibre composite and it is not a pure cellular PVC board. The PVC is the matrix and the mineral load gives the board its density.

Is cellular PVC better than PVC-mineral composite?

It depends on what you are optimising for. Cellular PVC lines such as TimberTech Advanced PVC reach a Class A flame spread to ASTM E84, which PVC-mineral composite does not hold in a North American test. PVC-mineral composite is denser, quieter underfoot, and Tarimatec is rated Class 3 / R11 for wet slip to UNE-ENV 12633.

What does PVC decking cost in Canada?

True cellular PVC sits at the top of the market. TimberTech Landmark Advanced PVC lists at $10.62 and Vintage Advanced PVC at $11.87 per linear foot at Home Depot Canada, verified September 2026, against $3.04 for Veranda Meadow at the entry end. Tarimatec is quoted per project in CAD, so no per-foot figure is published.

Does Tarimatec hold Canadian fire test documentation?

Not today. Tarimatec is classified Bfl-s1 for floorings and Broof(t1) under UNE-EN 13501-1 and ENV 1187, which are European standards. It does not hold a CAN/ULC S102 flame-spread test or a CCMC evaluation. If your project requires Canadian-domiciled test documentation, that is a real limitation you should weigh before specifying.

Settle this with your own hands. Order Tarimatec decking samples, which are paid and ship from Vaughan, Ontario in 5 to 10 business days, and set them beside a cellular PVC board from the store. Weigh them. Tap them. Wet them and stand on them. Then request a project quote in CAD and we will price the real deck, boards, clips and joists included.