LESLIE: George in Iowa is on the line with a decking question. What can we do for you today?
GEORGE: The wife and I have done the sealing with the deck twice. And both times – the first time, it lasted a year and it peeled up. And we sealed it again last year and it peeled up again this time after the winter snow had melted. So, we’re not sure – do you have any tips or some advice for us to help us out there?
TOM: Well, you might want to think about doing a deck do-over where you just pull off the decking material and add a composite deck. Keep the structure. You won’t have to do this again.
Some of the decking sealants, if you don’t strip down to the original lumber, they never absorb properly and they’ll bead up and they’ll peel off. So, your options are – to do that, strip off everything that you have there and you’ve literally got to strip it off down to the wood and sand it. And then you can use a primer and a solid-color stain and that will give you the maximum chance of adhering.
The other thing you might want to think about doing, as I mentioned earlier, is doing sort of a deck makeover where you pull up the deck boards and then you replace just the deck surface boards with a composite, like Veranda, for example, which is available at The Home Depot. And this way, you’ll never have to worry about staining again. You can even keep your existing railing or you could go further and change out the railing, as well.
But it doesn’t affect the structure of the deck because the material is still sitting on top of the old, original joist. Just that the deck surface has now been completely made-over. It looks great and you never have to worry about staining or sealing again. Because it’s a lot of work and you don’t want to have to do it every year, that’s for sure. Make sense?
GEORGE: Yep, that makes sense. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
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