Top Deck Staining Tips For Your Home
July 15, 2010
Every year at the State Fair, we walk by the booth that publicizes five year guarantee on deck floors. Many manufacturers put verbiage on their paint cans that publicize long warranties. But when you read the fine print, we haven’t begun to find anyone who will back up a guaranty on a typical deck floor in Minnesota. The most amazing small print on the guaranty is from one manufacturer that offers a three year guarantee, as long as the deck is re-coated annual!
The best stains are from Sherwin Williams, PPG, ICI, Glidden, Hirshfields, X-100, Floods, CWF, Deckscapes, Cabots, Sikens SRD, TWP, and others. All of them have good products, but there are no sorcery products that last noticeably longer than their competition. The most critical thing is to not put a coating on your deck that’s incompatible with the previous coating and keeping your upkeep costs as low as possible.
Consumer Reports is usually a good resource for many products but for protecting decks their advice is not applicable to Minnesota. They like to recommend using a solid stain for best longevity, but you do not want to do that if you are inthis is totally wrong for Minnesota. In Minnesota, we experience a big amount of freeze defrost cycles. When deck boards get wet and then freeze, the water expands and pushes the coating off. If the coating is a penetrating stain that does not leave a film, there is little to no coating to bump off. ( less is better for decks ) As a semitransparent wears away, it would seem more rustic. If a solid coating is applied on a horizontal surface, it’ll peel and look unsightly. It does not look country, it looks worn out and in disrepair. The cost to make a solid stain look good again is way higher than the price to maintain a semitransparent stain as it requires scraping and sanding.
Schoenfelder Painting is a deck sealing Minneapolis company that paints or seals over 5 hundred decks each each year. We have utilized years perfecting our deck finishing strategies and have come up with definite preferences. We strongly recommend using a semi clear stain on deck floors. It’s a tiny harder to apply, but holds up as well as anything. More importantly it looks good even as it wears away and it wOn’t peel. Semitransparent stain is also the least expensive to reapply in 2 years. It only should be washed and re-applied. Ultimately it is good even after many applications, so the long term upkeep is very cost-effective. Semi-transparent also comes in several different tints.
The railings, shafts, bottom sides and skirts can be done with the same product and color. This is the system I used on my own deck. With proper upkeep every other spring, it’s great year after year. We are proud to be your provider of commercial exterior painting Minneapolis.
The sole downside to semitransparent stain is that you can not apply it over other preservatives or paint. If your deck was painted during the past, extra prep is necessary. When this is the situation, we have a tendency to sand off the surface coating on the deck with a regular floor sander. We remove 98% of the current stain or paint from the floor, stairs and railing top. Our clients love the result. The deck surface will feel like when it was brand new. Sanding only costs about $1.25 per square foot and does not need to be done again for 10+ years. The feeling of your well maintained deck floor, priceless! So just remember that if you need deck staining advice we are here to help.
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