I am often asked, “What have you got that is a really good finish for decks that will last a long time. It seems no matter what I use I have to re-do my deck surface every couple of years?” The truth of the matter is that no matter what you use, you will have to re-do your deck surface every couple of years at least. This is the nature of the beast unfortunately. This is no small point, and one that should be seriously considered when making the decision to build a deck structure of any type. They require CONSTANT maintenance! With that said, natural wood decks can add beauty to any home not to mention adding additional space that is great for entertaining or just relaxing.

There are many different types of deck stains available on the market with varying degrees of opacity. In general the more opaque or solid the deck stain the longer it will last. This is akin to putting on a shirt rather than just sunscreen. While the sunscreen may give you an SPF of 15 or 30 or 45, a shirt will give you a much more complete sunblock. Likewise the more solid the deck stain is the longer it will protect the surface from the UV rays that eventually wreak havoc on your wood deck. Unfortunately the more opaque the deck stain the less we can see the natural beauty of whatever wood we have used to build the deck. So it’s a Catch 22 situation here. I typically recommend solid covering deck stains for older decks that are so much trouble to maintain that the only reasonable thing to do at this point is to cover it completely. These types of stains are available in both oil and water based formulas, and for my money I prefer the water based products because they fade less over time and are generally easier to apply and are more Eco friendly. The oil based ones are better only if you need a quick one coat fix.

On newer redwood or similar type decks a more translucent stain is usually desirable. This type of product will give you just a hint of color and lets more of the wood grain show through. These products do not last much more than one or two seasons realistically. If you want to maintain that fresh new look you are simply going to have to go out and wash and reseal the deck every couple of years. We have found nothing that last longer than that. In this category you have oil based finishes that require ONLY ONE COAT, and in fact if you try to apply more than one coat you will end up with a sticky mess that will never dry. This is a case of less is more. I can’t tell you the number of people that make this type of mistake and then call me and complain that the stain never dried…IT WON’T! There are also some water based products that perform well and some of them will allow more than one coat to be applied. Cabot’s SPF deck finish is one such product that we have had good success with, and it can even be applied over damp wood.

There is another class of products represented by Sikkens that seems to outperform most things on the market. These products allow for 2-3 coats to be applied in sequence and have a satin finish that gives a very distinctive high end look to decks. The idea here is that once the finish coat begins to show signs of wear it is an easier maintenance to clean and re-coat every few years before you get back down to the bare wood surface. This type of product seems to work well over the increasingly popular hardwood decks such as ipe or mahogany. These decks are so hard that nothing seems to penetrate them. We commonly have people tell us that many finishes fail after only six months. So the approach of building up a finish on the surface seems to work well on this type of decking.

Another common type of deck stain is one that is referred to as semi-transparent. This is just what the name implies. It falls between the more translucent stains I have just mentioned and the previously discussed solid covering stains. The benefit here is that there is more pigment to protect the wood and these types of stains are available in a wider variety of colors to co-ordinate with your house. The downside here is that the wear patterns are more noticeable and more difficult to correct on subsequent coats down the road. Eventually this type of finish will have to be completely stripped off in order to get back to a uniform substrate.

So you can see that no matter what choice you make for staining your deck surfaces, there is one constant theme- MAINTENANCE! The more attention paid to this the more likely you are to be able to retain the beauty and stability of your deck surfaces. It’s sort of like regular exercise…you know you should do it but…

I have been absent from this blog for exactly one month and it has been quite a month. I have done some re-working of the website with the help of my trusty webmaster Matt Sutcliffe. I recommend him highly for anyone interested in working with a very talented and easy going web designer. He can be reached at http://www.brightdream.com.  Aside from the visual changes that he has made to the site, he also helped me with setting up hyperlinks for any PPC color that I reference in my blog postings. That way when I say something like, “PPC-DT8 Hazelnut is a brown so delicious looking that it makes you want to lick the spoon.” You will be able to go directly to that color on the palette page. One of my readers suggested this and it was a great idea, or as I often say to my staff, “You get the genius of the day award.” So a thank you to the reader who suggested this improvement. Keep the ideas coming. I promise to get back to a more regular posting schedule soon. Take a look around the site and enjoy the autumn which has so quickly come upon us.