How to Restore a 30 Year Old Deck #001

Today we are going to dye a platform. This

deck

is about 30

year

s old and it's probably been about five

year

s since it was last stained, as you can see the

deck

s are very dirty, we have mold buildup, some of the boards are cracked and worn. getting direct sunlight, so today I checked and trimmed the deck bushes so we can begin our cleanup process. We will use a product called

restore

a platform. We will have a remover to get all of the old stain off the deck and then we will use a polish on there, but before we do any of that we would like to go ahead and power wash the deck today to try to remove some of these old dirt stains, mold and just discoloration when When using the pressure washer you have to be very careful, you don't want to remove too much of the soft wood from the top of the deck and that's usually what stains stick to, so after pressure washing , we're going to take a pole sander and try to smooth the surface of the deck.

Okay, I'm going to start the pressure washing process and we'll see how much of this deck gets cleaned by trying to spray off some of the dirt and debris. It is not necessary to pressure wash before applying the stripper. In this case, I did it just to make sure we actually had a clean deck and you can also see I'm using a spiral tip on my pressure washer. This is something I really don't recommend, you should use a tipped fan blade on your pressure washer, unfortunately this is all I had to work with. I hope you are using a low psi pressure washer, it wouldn't be a big deal and just resulted in some additional sanding so I wanted to point that out here, but you can see the deck got quite a clean.

Well, it's been a few days and we went ahead and pressure washed the deck. We use about a 1,500 psi sprayer for the deck which you don't want to go much harder than that 2,000 psi is probably your max otherwise you risk damaging the wood but we checked and just applied a spray top coat just so dirty this deck was and as you can see it has been cleaned quite a bit, we have removed a lot of the dark wood stains, mold and mildew that had built up and our high traffic areas have lightened it up quite a bit and to this point we haven't applied any cleaner or any polish to the deck and that will be our next step so after checking and power washing the deck we went ahead and inspected all the boards, looked for any loose nails and made sure we nailed them in and everything was nice and tight. and we also check and tape along the siding of the house just to protect it from any overspray that the cleaner may do well.

The products we will be using during this deck staining process are from a company called

restore

a deck. I did a lot of research to try to find something that would be a good stripper and also something that would be a good stain and restore a deck. I got high marks across the board and saw several independent reviews saying the material works. great job so for the first step with this product you have two different options there is a cleaner or there is a stripper for wood decks the cleaner would be used for new construction on items that have not been stained before the stripper works much better and It also works as a cleaner for any deck that has been stained before ours, so we will use the stripper.

I went ahead and also purchased this refurbished deck stripper booster, it's something that just enhances the potency of the stripper material, so we're going to add that to our mix here, in the next step we'll spray it onto the deck doing a light brushing after about 10 to 15 minutes and then we'll go through and pressure wash the cleaner trying to target. do four or five boards at a time and then go ahead, okay, and I applied some of the restoration material and technical preparation to remove the rails and the vertical slats from the deck. I finished a large section at the top and it's quite tedious so don't skip it.

As you can see, there are still some darker areas where I didn't rub hard enough or leave the material in for long, but it's starting to take a very nice shape. I've already mastered it, so you're basically there. I apply the spray, let it sit for about 15 minutes or so and then come back with a scrub brush, scrub everything and then power wash it thoroughly to remove the material because you can see on the bottom that it's back. I haven't done it yet, so that's the difference is that this is starting to dry, showing you what the wood looks like as the old stain is removed, so we'll have to finish all of this and then we'll still have to apply. the polish, but the platform is already starting to look much better.

Next we will begin applying our restored ex-stripper to our horizontal boards after we have done all the verticals and you want to start working in a small area before we move. On gives the stripper a chance to go ahead and get in here, but you don't want it to dry as you can see we're in direct sunlight, so I went ahead and wet the board, you don't want them to soak in and form puddles. you just want to get a good moisture in there so that that way while the stripper is on the boards it doesn't dry out so our next step is to use our pump sprayer applying a light coat, waiting about 15 minutes and then use a Brush the deck and brush the back a little bit and finally we'll pressure wash it and then move on to the next section.

Well, we applied the cleaner to the section that I showed you before that was wet and sprayed it with the pressure washer. and as you can see, you can see a color difference between the area that I just did and the next area that I put water on for the next round of pressure washing, so we'll continue and this is what the rest of the platform. It looks like by the time we're done we've finished applying the stripper to all the horizontal surfaces and railings, so everything has been removed and the old stain is now almost gone.

I would say probably around 90%, which is what the manufacturer recommends, so our next step will be to apply polish to the deck, so we'll check and use the restorer, a deck polish, which is step 2 in its process, helps neutralize any cleaner or stripper we have applied to the deck and also brightens the deck. wood and it will show a little bit more of the wood grain and it also helps the stain adhere to the wood and seep in better, so let's apply it well, let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes and then it should be rinsed well.

It takes about 20 to 30 minutes, they said to really make sure to get all the rinse aid out of the deck, basically spraying it with a pressure washer or hose until you no longer see any soap or suds coming out, so that's our next passed. so we go to the other side, we have completed a few more steps with the deck, applied the rinse aid to the deck, rinsed everything thoroughly for twenty to thirty minutes on each section, making sure we didn't have any. foam is left to make sure the stripper prep material is completely off the deck, bring the pH level to the proper range it needs to be in for staining, so that everything is completed and the deck has dried.

We also went through and sanded it a bit lightly. I didn't have the ideal tip on my pressure washer. It had more spiral action where you'd really rather have a white tip spray so it left the board a little rough in some areas so we went ahead and with a palm sander it took care of all the rails and trucks, just a very light just to make sure everything was smooth, areas that will have hands on them just in some areas where there was a little bit of leftover stain that we could I also used a sander to get it down so everything was completed and on the deck we used a panel sander. plaster to check and just give each board or a really light coat since this deck is a little bit older, I just want to smooth it out. some rough edges, so that's completed too.

I want to mention the axes if you are going to repeat this step. I call them a sander, it didn't fit between all the spindles, so I had to use some sandpaper, between whatever you want to use. around 60 and 80 grit, you don't want to sand too lightly or you might have some problems with the stain adhering. Also, being an older deck, we had some big cracks and I used some 100% stained wood color with putty. It can be painted waterproof and polyurethane based and I applied it to some of our larger areas here, so I selected something that is close to the color of our stain.

I think the dye will go directly on this so it should be fine. I used putty instead of wood putty only because the watch has a better rating of not cracking as time goes on so for anything that was just a small crack we went ahead and used putty and then we also had some knots in it. my deck that burst when the pressure washer was going on. These are just a little older, so I used some wood filler and filled in those knots. Hey, we're going to give it a very light sanding before staining and it's sustainable wood filler so it should blend in with our colors and avoid the big ones. indentations that were in the deck before, so our next step is we're ready to start staining and we're going to cut in with a brush around the areas that aren't going to be easy to reach with a pad or a roller, so we're going to go in and do our cut around the outside area where I'm going to need a ladder to make the edge of these railings and then after we do that all of our vertical boards will start to stain horizontally.

Well, we're looking at the platform. now with all the spindles and vertical rails stained i went over it yesterday and used a brush and all these hard to reach spots and also used a contour sponge to go over and make all the spindles really like the color we're going to have . On the terrace so far everything looks great, so all our prep work is starting to show, so all the railings are ready. Now our next step will be to cut in some areas throughout the house and in areas we are not. We'll be able to reach in with our sponge and sweep the deck just to make sure we're free of all the debris and then we'll use this foam applicator brush to apply everything to the deck on the flat surfaces. really nice and then it's wide we can do multiple boards at once and there's a lip on the planer that allows you to get into any small or hard to reach cracks or places so yeah our next step is going to be moving on. and stain the deck, we are going to apply two coats on the flat surfaces, what refinishing a deck recommends is to do a wet on wet application for flat surfaces and what that basically means is that the second coat of stain should be applied while the first stain layer is still wet or at least moist and that can be done within 20 to 40 minutes after applying the first layer.

It's okay to go ahead and walk on the stain for the first coat after applying the second coat. You need to stay off the deck for probably 8-24 hours before any heavy use, so we'll have to make sure we don't get paint in one corner, so we'll let this whole flat area dry. I will let it sit for about 30 minutes and then I will come back and do another round, as you can see we are currently in full sun on the deck, depending on the weather, they recommend lightly spraying with a hose to cool the deck. boards if necessary we have a good breeze today and yes sir it was no problem applying and in full sun so I think we're going to go ahead and apply our first coat on the dry deck we'll just have to watch carefully and do Make sure it doesn't dry before we are ready for our second coat.

Well here we are, everything is completed with the deck, we have stained all the railings, all the vertical surfaces and then I also checked and Completed all the horizontal surfaces and put on the horizontal surfaces two coats of the stain, everything was pretty good, I checked and I repaired some areas with some large cracks with some putty. There is a color variation with respect to the material I used, but in general it blends. Very good, the platform does not stand out at all, since it is a 30 year old platform. I feel like the refinished deck stain has done a great job.

We went through and applied two coats of the stain that we had to do wet. wet, so I moved about seven boards at a time, applied one coat in 30 to 40 minutes and then came back and applied a second coat. The manufacturer states that it is okay to walk on the first coat of stain after it is dry. a little bit and then I was careful with the second layer of stain not to walk on it and in a few hours everything was dry, it rained on usa bit since we applied the stain and the stain does a great job of repelling water instead of just soaking into the wood like it did before and you can actually see a little puddle still left on the deck from a storm that we had last night, it just seems to be doing a great job protecting the wood, so overall I'm very happy with this project.

I recommend the refinished deck product, its kit which includes a stripper or cleaner and step one, step two, the polish and finally the stain. All three products have done a great job and if you have an older deck, it will do a very good job of bringing it back to life. The surface was quite rough. I had done my pressure washing so I went through with a pole sander and saw that all the surfaces were very light and it has done a great job, especially once the stain is on, it's quite comfortable to walk on barefoot, so that that's all.

I hope this video has helped you and if you are looking to move forward and stain or restore a deck you have I hope this video has been helpful to you.