Monday, September 05, 2022

Deck Restoration Project 2022


Deck (2009)
The winters in Minnesota are hard on decks. I have been living here for 11 years and this is the third time that the deck has needed restoration. The last time I repainted the deck was about 4 years ago. I used one of those deck restore products that is designed for older wood decks. The product was very thick and filled large gaps in the wood. It looked good for a few years, but then it started to peel off and expose the wood. This year (2022) I started by removing as much of the old paint as possible.


















I spent a few hours each day over three months working on the deck. I first scraped and repainted the railing. I then replaced 60 feet of deck board. It just worked out that the boards I needed to replace were every 5th board on the 400 sq ft deck. It would have been nice to replace all of the deck boards, but I didn't have the money for that. Instead, I replaced the worst boards with the best boards I could find for the project. I bought a used 3-inch belt sander for $28, thinking that I could use it to remove the old paint. But the sanding belt got clogged and I ended up scraping most of it by hand. That took a lot of time, but that was less messy and made it easier to collect the old paint chips.

Restoration in Progress

I was originally planning to use Thompson's Water Seal on the deck because I had some from a previous project. I realized that I would have to completely remove all of the old paint if I wanted to use the water seal product. After scraping and sanding the deck with 80 Grit in the belt sander, there was still some paint visible in a few places. Thompson's is inexpensive compared to other deck stains, but I found reviews of their product were subpar when used on decks. I decided that if I spent this much time preparing the deck surface, I needed to use the best solid color stain I could find. 

After some research I decided to go with Cabot solid color stain + sealer. The reviews are 4.4 out of 5 on the Lowe's website. Of course, the best product is going to have the highest price. At $52 per gallon, I needed to complete the project with only 1 gallon. To make sure I had enough, I finished the new boards with the leftover Thompson's transparent stain and added a few ounces of water to the Cabot each time I started a painting session. 

The Cabot solid color stain covered well and looks great. The boards with the Thompson's water seal have large water puddles every time it rains. I'm glad I didn't paint the whole deck with it. I'm sure the deck will need to be redone again in 3 or 4 years. No paint or stain can hold up to 6 months of winter for very long. Total amount spent on this project was about $200 and 60+ hours of labor. 



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