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Get your deck in shape for the summer

It's been covered with snow for a few months, a behemoth in the backyard doused in white powder.

Or perhaps it's just been laying bare, the patio furniture that's usually atop it piled inside during the winter.

But soon, as the snow disintegrates and the weather warms, the deck reappears, calling to you to come hang out and have a barbecue.

Yet, when this outdoor oasis appears again after a few months of snow or pounding rain, give it a little love - a refinish or even a rebuild - and it'll embrace you back as you spend spring and summer days lounging on it.

When to refinish

When the stain on your deck begins to peel and fade, it's likely you'll need to restain, also known as reseal or refinish, the deck.

Maintaining the deck stain seals the wood from harsh weather and keeps the wood looking new, says Paul Binkowski, owner of PB Decorating in Streamwood. Binkowski, who's been staining and re-staining decks in Chicago and its suburbs for a dozen years, adding that without refinishing, the wood on decks will "start to tannin and turn grayish and brown. And then pores start opening up, and the wood starts blistering up - and then there's water getting in. Then all of a sudden, you have rotting issues."

Nowadays, most stains are designed to last an average of about two years.

Still, Brian Mattey, a painter with Alger Decorating in Palatine and for his own company, Generation Paintings in Lake Zurich, says along with rain and snow, the way the sun hits the deck, as well as how much foot traffic tramples on it, may necessitate a more frequent refinishing of the deck.

If you have a new deck, Binkowski recommends waiting a year before power washing and re-staining it.

"The moisture has got to come out of the wood, and it needs to dry," he says. "If you stain it too early, or right away, you're going to have peeling issues. It's like putting a bag over your face, and you're trying to breathe, and you can't. Any fresh wood needs to be exposed to the elements, so it has that weathering for a full year."

How to refinish

If you're inspired to refinish or re-stain your deck on your own, go for it, say professionals like Binkowski and Mattey. But they also advise you to know exactly what steps are involved before you start.

Before applying the stain, be sure to power wash the deck. Simply trying to clean the deck with soap and water won't be enough, says Binkowski. The exception is if you have a composite deck with a material like Trex, which Josh Murawski, owner of Murawski Construction in Lombard, says only needs to be cleaned off with a water hose.

Run the pressure washer at a minimum of 3,500 pounds per square inch, or psi, because, Binkowski says, "you want some force to clean the wood." He adds that a pressure wash will open up pores in the wood so they best can absorb the new stain.

Afterward, sand down rough spots, especially on the floor of the deck, to avoid splinters, Mattey recommends you wait at least a day and a half after pressure washing to stain the deck.

As for the actual stain, homeowners typically choose from four kinds: transparent, semitransparent, semisolid and solid stains. Binkowski says homeowners can go from a more transparent stain, which will show off the grain of the wood without adding color, to semisolid or solid, which adds color to the deck the way paint would.

He said trying to do the reverse - going from a solid to transparent - is far more difficult. Someone already using a solid stain, however, can replace one solid color with another, such as turning a deck from blue to burgundy.

Experts recommend two coats of professional grade stain, such as those made by Cabot and Sherwin-Williams. Binkowski also recommends using paintbrushes (a 4-inch brush should do) to apply the stain instead of a sprayer, saying a paintbrush ensures the stain gets absorbed fully into the wood, including the sides of the floorboards, railings and spindles.

"It's like a tattoo," Binkowski says. "You can take a black marker and write on your arm, but if you take a needle, it's not going to come off after 100 showers. You're working the stain into the wood versus just laying it on the surface."

Rebuilding a deck

Yet, sometimes even staining can't save a deck.

Do a spot check all around your deck, says Murawski, and if you spot splitting on just one or two boards, they may be able to be replaced. However, if the deck feels spongy or puddles of water start forming, after rain, it's a signal of a sagging deck and rotting wood.

"It might be cost-effective to just replace a few boards," Murawski says, "but if you're going to replace five boards one year and 10 the next year and 15 the next, you might as well do the whole thing right away."

Murawski says homeowners typically choose between woods like pressure-treated pine and cedar for decks. He says cedar has a "much classier look" but is also more expensive.

He's also had clients opt for composite decks, which are easier to maintain because of their synthetic material. However, composite decking is twice the cost of conventional cedar deck boards. Some have even chosen a hardwood called Brazilian Ipe, which Murawski says has a burn value that's comparable to concrete; his team goes through about 20 drill bits every time they're building a deck made of Brazilian Ipe and has seen homeowners spend more than $30,000 for Ipe wood decks.

"It's extremely labor-intensive to install Brazilian Ipe," says Murawski. "But the colors are just beautiful."

While a transparent stain shows off the grain of the wood, a semisolid or solid stain adds color the way paint would. Either way, experts recommend applying at least two coats of stain.
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