Hi Pam,
Depending on the age of your deck, the BEST prep is to rent a 12″x18″ vibrating-plate sander & sand all exising stuff off the walking area.
This does 3 VERY IMPORTANT things…
1) Strips coating with no harsh strippers to worry about, AND
2) EVENLY removes crushed/fuzzed wood fibers which can’t hold a stain/paint anymore anyway!
3) Leaves structurally sound, NON-degraded wood fibers open to accept AND HOLD new stains/paints.
I have an 11-yr-old Redwood deck facing west, 0 shade. Two years ago I rented the plate sander, bought 2 80-grit sanding sheets, a 1″ thick sanding backer pad, and sanded with the board direction.
>> Keep sanding till surface is clean & even looking.
>> Sweep/vacuum off ALL dust…then a quick wipe with paint thinner.
>> For handrails/steps, use a palm-sander/mouse-style sander.
>> PRESSURE-WASHERS CAN DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD!! If cleaning with one, keep the tip a foot away, & pressure down to ~500psi. Otherwise, you’re just destroying the surface fibers/cellulose structure. Sure it’ll be “clean”, but basically destroyed for the purpose of holding stain/paint.
Because my deck is Redwood (which you can’t buy anymore…unless you mortgage your house again…!), I used Sikkens SRD “Redwood” color deck stain.
>> I DO have to clean (not sand though!) & recoat this year. Even the best finishes need recoating every 2-5 yrs.
>> Visit nam.sikkens.com for excellent wood care advice/cleaning-regimens.
>> You solve a LOT of problems by sanding. Otherwise people are just cleaning and re-staining crappy wood fibers that will soon fail regardless of what’s applied!!
Any ?’s…post back here!
Faron
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