By Barry John Davis

Heavy metal is something i have enjoyed since my first exposure to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album. I often play the heavy stuff whilst not so quietly scratching away on my apple computer and scientific calculator with its paper role all freshly renewed. It allows for more focused concentration on the detail that is vital for any data to be considered as viable.

Now fun with statistics also means manipulating or converting data to generate interesting values. Staying with the North American deck market we can extrapolate from one of our main data files that in 2021 there were around 1.82billion fixings used to secure deck boards to joists. The weight of the through the board screws (excluding the hidden fixing plastic blocks and screws) would be a round 6,598 tons of metal, or 20,200 average Harley Davidsons (without fuel and oil obviously).

Now those little black blocks and their screws would weigh in at around 2,400 tons in 2021 or, around 1.6 million crash helmets to use on your Harley (helmets are always recommended).

So decking has a lot of heavy metal in one form or another and quite a bit of plastic (yes most of it is recycled) through those hidden fixings.

Source: LinkedIn.com. See original article published HERE