Staining a deck help.

[Punisher84]

I'm going to, hopefully, stain my deck next weekend now that the weather is nicer and I was kinda looking for some help/tips on doing it. This is going to be my first major project on the new house.

I'm using a dark stain and I was thinking about using the pump sprayer to do it, but other than that I'm kinda just winging it. Here's what I'm wondering:

What types of deck wash are good?

What's a good stain/sealer?

Any tips or tricks to it that you'd like to share would be appreciated!

[enfield]

If the deck is new, you want to wait at least a year (for drying) before staining or sealing it. Olympic makes a good deck wash and their sealer isn't bad either. I use both. Stay away from the expensive natural oil finishes - they mildew like you wouldn't believe. Thompson's Water Seal is useless. Stain I don't know about - I have a natural finish on my deck. I stained a shed once with Thompson stain and it seemed to come out OK.

You're about a month late in getting started. You probably need nights above 50 degrees for the stain and sealer to dry and you can't depend on weather like that this time of year. However, you might get lucky.

Edited September 28, 2010 by enfield

[Punisher84]

My deck is older so now the previous stain has worn off in spots so it looks kinda rough. So im gonna need to put some type of stain or color on it. I have been looking at Olympic so I may just use their products. Right now we've been running high 50s here in Memphis at night so if that holds for a few weeks I can get it done.

[enfield]

Well, if the weather doesn't hold, don't try it -- wait until spring.

[Punisher84]

Will do I appreciate it!

[DuallyNewt]

Use a good pressure washer, let dry for day or 2 then use Cabolt Stain (Lowes).I've never used deck wash just Clorex Outdoor (it's alot stronger).

Thanks, Newt

[Guest jackdm3]

But don't get too close to the deck with the nozzle lest you make the wood get furry.

I just use a pushbroom and the sprayer on the end of the hose. Comes out blond everytime. As far as final finish, I tried Thompson's only to find out it S.U.X.

[-boatman-]

I use bleach to clean. I put it on with a pump up sprayer. I get it covered well like this. If the deck is not too weathered I'll mix it 50'50.Then use a pressure washer but don't get too close. The color in the wood will look like new. Let it dry good before putting on the stain.

[titan14]

If you have any plants close to your deck, cover them up when cleaning or staining...the cleaner MIGHT kill them....the stain(water sealer) WILL kill them.

[laktrash]

No expert here but I've had good luck with using the deck staining pads. I've got a dock and seawall that I do and I can really knock it out and it seems to spread evenly. There may be a downside to them I don't know about but they're cheap and easy on the back.

[Guest RemedyCNC]

If you spray on your stain, get a good paint roller and backroll it immediately after spraying. It will even it out and make the stain go a bit further. Just my .02.

[VERO1]

I make my wife do ours! Seems to be working out pretty well so far, although, she does have a few places that need to be touched up. I think I buy her Cabots stain. It lasts a year or two before I need to tell her to redo it.

[Mike.357]

Well, if the weather doesn't hold, don't try it -- wait until spring.

yep a spring time activity.

[Punisher84]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I may end up just waiting unless I get another one of these 85/60 days coming up.

[eapking]

I stained a deck once...the last time I drank peppermint schnapps.

[MudBugjr]

If we could sell products and services on here I have a Deck coat with a cement product that you can make the deck look great. I make the kits myself for my business. To bad your that far away. Goes on solid color and doesn't have to be re-done every year or two.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Had put in yellow wood steps down into the woods and a deck down there about 18 months ago. About 15 feet of steps and about a 15 X 15 small deck.

Last spring researched on the web about various stains. Didn't learn much because everybody on the interwebs has a personal favorite. Everybody thinks one product or the other is great. Ended up getting Flood Clear Cedar Tone stain from home de pot. It is a darker brown color than I usually expect cedar to be, but I like the color fine. I wanted to see the grain. Didn't want an opaque stain.

Read about pressure washing and possibly bleaching the wood, but the wood was in pretty clean shape, no fungus or algae. A few wood stains from tree rain dripping on the deck, but I really don't care that much. Discolorations just add character to wood in my opinion. Decided that washing wasn't worth it. Just swept the deck off good.

Waited till it was good and dry and no rain forecast, stained with a brush. This Flood stain looks too thick to me, to spray on with a garden sprayer. I've garden-sprayed thompson concrete sealer in the past, but the thompsons had about the viscosity of kerosene. No problem spraying the thin thompsons.

There is a lot of painting detail on the simple railings, lots of vertical 2X2 stringers every 4 inches. The main paint work was the vertical small boards, not the horizontal flooring. A mop brush wouldn't be any help on all the vertical detail and the railing tops. So I just brushed the whole shebang. It was lots quicker brushing the floor boards than the zillions of vertical 2X2's in the railings. Most of the work was in the railings. It took maybe 8 or 12 hours total, but I'm real slow on everything.

The stain looks great to me. The instructions on the Flood stain cans, says 1 to 2 years for decks, 1 year for fences, if I recall. So it sounds like an annual springtime ritual now.

[peejman]

I stained the deck at my previous house a couple years ago. I prepped it by spraying with a pressure washer then let it dry for a few days. If it was really bad, I'd use a mixture of TSP and Clorox. I rolled the stain on and had mucho problems with it being splotchy. Based on a friend's results, thinning the stain and using a power sprayer is much easier. Just like painting anything else, several thin coats works better than one thick coat. As stated, just be sure to mask off EVERYTHING you don't want stained... the house, the plants, etc. The stuff gets everywhere and, well... stains.

[Punisher84]

The stuff gets everywhere and, well... stains.

Waka Waka Waka lol

I really appreciate all the input guys. I'm gonna post a pic or two later so y'all can see what I'm dealing with.

[G27]

I disagree re: Thompson water seal - my Dad and I have used it for various outdoor projects (they've always had large decks on their houses) and it's kept the would in GREAT shape. You just have to reapply it every year or three.

Otherwise, great advice above...

[Guest db99wj]

A friend of mine does pressure washing living as one of his services and he uses that industrial strength bleach from the homedepot or lowes. He did my deck last year, I never did put a sealer on it. Might put down some more bleach this weekend and seal it soon too.

[Guest jackdm3]

These questions started to get to me. So I called Memphis' most popular provider of fine woods and finishings, Colco. My deck is 18X22, 30 years old and was in need of refinishing over 15 years ago when I got it. I pressure washed it and sealed with Thompson's. It didn't last much more than a year, so I guit and just wash and scrub every Spring. So I called Colco just now and Gary said what they sell is Penofin, which has UV protection (as I'm sure a lot of them do) and it can be had for the meager sum of $65 a gallon!!! Oh, boy! Where do I sign? My deck would require just under 2 gallons. I'll scrub next year as usual, regardless of protection. We have too many trees to keep any $130 finish looking good. Fuggedaboudit!

Colco Fine Woods & Tools - Home Page

[Punisher84]

Well here is what I'm dealing with as far as what it looks like. I'm not sure of the actual size of the deck, but it's fairly large. There are some parts that the original stain is gone completely, but I wanted to give a good idea of the color stain I'd be trying to cover or get rid of.

[Guest jackdm3]

Perhaps pressurewashing would lift a lot of the old stain off for you, but if it were mine I'd find a small section that wouldn't be noticed so much and electric sand to see how easily it comes off. If it doesn't take long to do this experiment, do the whole deck to clean the slate and stain and seal. You'll thank yourself for it! I see too many thin sections on your deck to not try this. Also important is filling the nail holes as well as the cracks with the appropriate filler. That's where the water collects and the rot starts.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

That Flood UV protect oil-based stain I got is $23 per gallon.

Flood CWF-UV5 Cedar Gallon 350 VOC - FLD 466-01 at The Home Depot

Maybe it is the crappiest thing you can buy, but OTOH it looks OK after 6 months and apparently you have to re-do stain every year or two anyway. Some of the oil based stains protect against water penetration just by soaking oil into the wood, and over time the oil evaporates, necessitating re-application.

Some of the coatings will peel like house paint. So you have to scrape the wood before re-finishing. With all the rough detail on a deck, ain't no way I'm gonna scrape a dern deck, so I don't want any part of thick coatings that might peel when they get old.

This flood stuff is pretty thick. I was just slapping gobs of it on with a brush, since the deck had never been stained. After a minute or two it would kind of foam up a little bit, then soak in real fast and be mostly dry to the touch within a half hour. That was on a hot day though. The Flood stain was thick enough that when slobbering a bunch of it into a crack, after dry it would somewhat fill the crack. Or perhaps re-expand the wood to narrow the crack. Dunno.

After the first year of weathering, the yellow wood treated lumber looked OK but had developed occasional linear cracks, which isn't unexpected of course. I was concerned about those weathering cracks. Ice gets in the cracks every winter, and eventually prematurely age the deck. I think something like this Flood stuff, used yearly, will basically fill up the cracks so there's no place for the water to get down in there and ice up and widen the cracks. Maybe that is just a "crack pot" theory though. Dunno nothing about the topic.