Hidden clips are becoming increasingly common in the deck industry. For decades, fastening deck boards by piercing the material from the top was the norm. A slight upgrade was to sink the screws a little deeper and install plugs for a more decorative look. For years these were the options. This style carried into the first composite deck boards as well as the eventual development of full synthetics.
Eventually hidden clips started to hit the market. The EB-TY clip: a football shaped plastic puck with a steel plate at the center was an early option that mimmicked the shape of a biscuit, a piece of wood used to unite two other pieces. These can still be seen amongst older builders but is largely a relic of a time where carpenters had to groove their own boards.
Today nearly every board on the market comes grooved and square edged. It is now common to see hidden clip decks with a myriad of purpose designed clip systems throughout the country on both wood and synthetic deck boards. But which is better? Conventional wisdom still often claims that it is preferable to face screw the boards and sink plugs into them. This belief clashes sharply with our experience and our research.
First: Aesthetically the look of hidden clips is generally considered to be far superior to either face fastened option. This is because generally speaking, the less visible hardware on a project, the cleaner it looks which in the majority of cases is the preferred option. There are some clients and some applications that like the look of stainless steel fasteners gleaming on a deck. Others like the “nautical feel” that plugs create. However, it’s important to consider the functional and practical angles to this decision.
Second: When using hidden clips on your deck, you move the attachment point to the furthest outboard point possible. This means that the amount or resistance to cupping on wooden deck boards comes from hidden clips. Top fastened boards have the attachment points considerably further inset and as such are less able to resist the tendency of wood and wood blend composite boards to curl and cup as they weather. From this perspective as well, the hidden clip wins out.
Third: From the perspective of longevity, especially in wood but even with composites and synthetics, plugs are always going to accelerate rot and degradation of the deck board. By piercing the board, you give a channel for water to enter the interior core of the board. In composites, especially the cheaper ones, once the outer shell is pierced, you allow water to travel along the fastener where it will not rapidly diffuse or dry out. This issue is only further compounded when plugs are involved. A screw head buried usually halfway or so into the board gives an area for water to sit below the plug and further compound the issue of trapped moisture. In areas where temperatures dip below freezing, this will nearly always create a situation where the plugs work themselves out in time. As the moisture spreads from board perforations, a conical rot pattern is often visible, greatly reducing the expected lifespan of the board. It is not uncommon for us to be a able to lift boards off of an old frame with minimal resistance because the wood beneath the screws have rotted to nothing long before the wood between the screw locations have lived out their life. As a side consideration for aesthetics, in wood decks where plugs are used, it is very common that the plugs and the boards weather unevenly leading to splits around every screw and plug location. This leads to premature damage to not only the functional life of the deck but also its visual appeal.
Fourth: While labor cost is not always the primary consideration on a build, it is worth mentioning that the old trend of the “fancier” option being more affordable does not apply here. It takes considerably more time to use square edged boards top fastened. Clips of nearly all kinds have integrated spacing devices on them meaning that the need to dial the spacing on your deck is completely automated. On wood decks, plugs need to have the pocket pre drilled. Then the plugs have to be, or at least should be grain matched then driven manually. After this plugs need to have the excess removed, often with a chisel, then the plugs get sanded to bring them flat with the deck level. This all takes a considerable amount of time for each and every screw, all to have inferior longevity and inferior performance. On composite and synthetic decks, the screws themselves are made with the ability to create the plug pocket to the proper depth to accept the plugs. From there the process also involves grain matching and driving each and every plug. This process looks entirely different with hidden clips. Especially when using the best clips on the market, which we will delve into in another entry, a skilled builder can load several rows of deck boards at a time with clips, set their spacing and tension en masse, and move down the line with a range of tools depending on the builders preferences and style.
At the end of the day, unless you have very specific visual tastes, there is just no comparison between clips and top fastened decking. There remains a tremendous amount of institutional inertia behind traditional attachment techniques, but that does not make them correct. Skepticism is healthy and important. There are a lot of scam products out there. There are a lot of people who jump on without thinking to the latest product. Be Nice Home Solutions is one of the few deck companies out there that have a research and development branch. We take a very forward facing approach when it comes to technology, processes, material science, and engineering when it comes to how we build and what we use. We hope this brief rundown has given you a helpful insider opinion for your deck build no matter where it may be. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, we’d love to hear hear from you.