How to Strip a Weathered Deck

Find out how to strip weathered paint from a deck. Get tips on choosing a Behr product and following the directions for wetting the deck and coating it with the stripper. Make sure you let it dry very well before…

[mai_avatar size="40" margin_right="-4px"][post_author_posts_link before=" by "][post_date before=" — "][mai_icon icon="comment-alt-lines" style="light" display="inline-block" size="1em" margin_left="12px" margin_right="-8px" margin_bottom="-4px"][post_comments][post_sponsor][shared_counts]

LESLIE: Heather in South Carolina is calling in with a decking question. What happened? You did some finishing work to it and you don’t like it?

HEATHER: Yes. We have a pressure-treated deck that we put on – had put on six years ago. And we let it weather for a year and then we put on a stain that was supposed to look like paint; it’s beige color.

TOM: OK.

HEATHER: And it – the instructions said not to put anything on over it or not to repeat it. And it’s now six years later. It looks terrible; it hasn’t held up. It’s a lot of weathering in the summer and we don’t know what to do.

TOM: You’re going to have to strip it.

LESLIE: Well and six years is a pretty good run for a horizontal surface, I have to say.

TOM: Yeah, it is. It is.

LESLIE: You know, most manufacturers say three to five years for a horizontal surface and if it gets a lot of sun, it’s probably going to lessen that greatly.

HEATHER: What would we strip it with?

LESLIE: There’s several products out there that make a paint stripper; Behr. Whatever product that you like to work with as far as paint or finishes, they’ll make a stain – I mean a stripper.

And you want to put it on the surface according to the directions. And some of them will say work in small areas; some will say wet the entire deck and coat the entire deck with the stripper and then let it sit. But read the directions and work in a method that you feel comfortable with. If you only want to tackle sections at a time because of its size, do that.

And because you’re going to have to wet it quite a bit to get the finish off in the stripping process, you really want to let it dry very, very, very well before you apply the new finish to it. And there are some products out there that have products built in that are almost UV protectants, that will help sort of make it stand up to the sun better.

HEATHER: OK. OK, thank you.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.