Recoating a treated lumber deck

Personal Finances Building / Maintaining a Home
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Our money pit has a small backyard deck, 150 square feet of treated 2x6. Looks like the previous owners coated it with semi-concealing stain.

75% of the deck area is almost bare wood and it looks like s…t. (I could actually type the word on discord.)

My feet are like leather from decades of salt water life, but my wife, just did another splinter removal session.

If I just use stain it won’t seal the splinters.

If I paint it with a heavy paint of some sort to seal the splinters will it cause the planks to mold and rot underneath?

Some wood deck paint?

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For splinters you probably need to sand the deck.

If the wood is gray from weathering, wood bleach can be used to make it look newer.

Dark stains with lots of pigment will hide much and look nice. Often dark reds or browns in my area. Probably will need recoating every 3 to 5 years.

Paint is my last choice. Water based latex? Oil based will fail by chipping but might give best protection from mold and rot. Antimold additives (Skane M-8) are available from paint stores.

Or consider replacing the 2x6s with something new. Laminates available these days are popular. Might last a long time (but who knows).

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My original deck, I had a deal, gave a fellow $100, he dropped of a truckload of 2x5 & timbers, I didn’t ask questions, friend if a friend in the '7os… Some was actually heartwood redwood, beautiful… But I made it too close to the ground, and the supports weren’t pressure treated, so they rotted in areas without decent ventilation… And then with grandkids, barefoot, came splinters…

So I ripped it all out, saved the footings, extended most higher with sono-tube concrete forms, Simpson bracketing, and raised it all up to where the finished level is the same as the home… Supports all pressure treated, 2x5 on edge with more Simpson bracketing… Solid, and a bit closer for better support of the new decking. No more redwood, I went to a composite, TimberTech, not solid, but no surface fasteners except at the final edge. I uses boxes of Stainless screws, all hidden… Flat, no splinters!

I used to pressure wash it yearly, leaves tended to stain it, a bit of mold builds up, but now we removed that tree, and with the drought here, I haven’t pressure washed in a few years now… It’s aged well… And no splinters!! No added finish to redo over and over either…

Still a few of the old redwood around I’ve used for fence fixes…but tossed most of it… There are other composites around now… Take a look at what’s available, I had to go to a couple towns to get enough for my deck, so size matters…

Have fun!

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The original deck, here when we bought the house, was built with untreated wood with an untreated plywood flooring and just to be sure it rotted out the plywood was covered with indoor/outdoor carpeting. We didn’t really use it and referred to it as our burglar trap for several years until the budget allowed replacement.

I’m not sure what the replacement wood was. About 7 years ago, we took about half of it down and replaced some of the floor boards and two years after that had the whole thing replaced using cedar. It was stained and looking at it this weekend, it’s time to pressure wash it and restain it again. No splinters from the current deck.

I still regret not leaving a Halloween skeleton under a light covering of dirt under the deck when it was rebuilt for someone to find in the future.

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In my area cedar is often used for deck planks. They do say wood beetles attack it. But lasts a long time.

I have pressure treated timbers surrounding my raised garden. After about ten years they are rotting. The new pressure treated does not last like the old (was it copper chromite?)

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So I ripped it all out, saved the footings, extended most higher with sono-tube concrete forms, Simpson bracketing, and raised it all up to where the finished level is the same as the home… Supports all pressure treated, 2x5 on edge with more Simpson bracketing… Solid, and a bit closer for better support of the new decking. No more redwood, I went to a composite, TimberTech, not solid, but no surface fasteners except at the final edge. I uses boxes of Stainless screws, all hidden… Flat, no splinters!

While I like the look of composites, I would not build a deck out of the material around here. I stepped on a deck here with that material on a 95F plus day in full sun. I was in my bare feet. It burnt the heck out of them. I thought I was going to get blisters but fortunately didn’t.

PSU

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Yes, i’d like to know of user experiences before installing. Composites are usually made of small particles like sawdust glued together. Claims of long service life are often based on accellerated testing. But that is not always reliable. What will it look like after 20 years?

Lumber used in building easily lasts 50 years or more. Decks are a unique stressed application.

I had Masonite siding. Thats a composite that failed. Big law suit and payments.

Note that decking is an excellent application for recycled plastics. Especially when pigmented a dark color. Already used for railroad ties. Could be a good opportunity. Nailing it might be a challenge but drilling and deck screws should work.

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The deck screws I used with the TimberTech were slotted at the tip to create a drill bit that bored its way int the support beams after going through the planking, it would be the same for Trex or similar, self drilling tech! The beauty was the planks were all perfectly straight, and the next one covered the previous screws…

Looking at the pics, the photo metadata is messed up on most, but some show it was in September of 1999 when I did the project… Seems about right…

If I were to replace it, I’d look to the same or similar product… It looks like they are still in business…

https://www.timbertech.com/ideas/timbertech-vs-trex/

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I stepped on a deck here with that material on a 95F plus day in full sun. I was in my bare feet. It burnt the heck out of them. I thought I was going to get blisters but fortunately didn’t.

Well, maybe umbrellas, awnings, or even misters to cool it down… I avoid barefootedness, have had to deal with messed up feet, tight tendons, so Orthopedic Doc had me avoid barefooted wanderings for years…

Losing our big old tree saved a lot of leaves, but also lost a lot of our natural shade, so a couple big umbrellas help out…

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Hi pauleckler,

You are thinking of chromated copper arsenate (CCA).

Gene
All holdings and some statistics on my Fool profile page
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While I like the look of composites, I would not build a deck out of the material around here. I stepped on a deck here with that material on a 95F plus day in full sun. I was in my bare feet. It burnt the heck out of them. I thought I was going to get blisters but fortunately didn’t.

My original concern with composites, but here’s the thing, early composites were/are blends of plastic and wood. They do absorb and retain heat, significantly. TimberTech Azec, at least many of their lines are pure PVC beads and do NOT absorb or retain heat as much. We have gotten samples from them and indeed, in a raw test sitting in the sun, they were cooler than a piece of Trex. We are switching to TimberTech Azec as we need to change decks (and dock decking). Just Google it, there’s a lot of Youtube tests out there.

But also keep in mind, you need closer supports for composites. You can’t just rip the old off and lay new, you will have to add supports.

Lakedog

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If I paint it with a heavy paint of some sort to seal the splinters will it cause the planks to mold and rot underneath?

Some wood deck paint?

We have used Valspar solid stain from Lowes for decks in poor repair. Great results.

IP

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I put in (first generation) Trex decking when the house was built 22 years ago. It has stood up to feet of snow and ice and direct summer sun up to 100 with no degradation. The only issue with it has been accumulation of mildew in the shaded end that never gets sun. It comes out with pressure washing. First generation means flat, slightly rough surface - no fake wood grain / smoother veneer. Over the years it also developed a few black mildew stains and scrape marks from shovels with rough bottoms.

This year I painted it with Ben Moore latex acrylic (“Arborcoat”) in a color that nearly matched the original medium gray. Really, really sharpened it up.

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I forget why we’re talking about decks, but here’s my story:

Our last house had three, 15 years old, all three failing in spots even using 2x8 PT lumber. Like most decks it sat in the blazing sun all season and was restained roughly every 8 years before we bought it. All three decks required remediation, and I did it myself.

All three required pretty extensive replacement of the horizontals, while the verticals were fine. The top deck we replaced with 2x8PT, as that height was required to meet the door way out. That was a (not) simple matter of prying up the old lumber and replacing it.

The largest, and middle deck, was built on a diagonal with 24” centers. As a result many of the boards had a span of 36” or even more, and you could use certain areas like a trampoline. (Exaggeration). Not surprisingly all of those areas were extremely weak, and I opted to replace everything, so I added more joists and the replaced the floor with 5/4 PT, but kept the diagonal. (The deck shape was rhomboid.) We continued to live in the house for over 20 years and the deck showed no sign of deterioration. I had it restained about every 8 years.

The third deck was 2x8 and surrounded a (defunct) hot tub, in which I built a faux bottom and then filled with dirt on the way to becoming a daffodil cutting garden. For that one, because of the existing infrastructure I chose to replace only those members that were deficient, which was about 25%.

All of that was a PITA, but it all stood fine until we sold the house, the only changes we had to make were due to code: the stiles were more than 4” apart so those had to be replaced.

Flash forward to the current house. The previous owner had the deck replaced in 2014 with Trex, and while I appreciate the lower maintenance, I hate how hot it gets in the sun. It will actually singe the bottom of the feet, if barefoot, something actual wood never did (in my experience.) They also had to double the joists (from 24”OC to 12”) because the Trex is much more flexible. While it probably won’t happen in my lifetime, if I have to replace it I will go with wood.

(In fact, they also made the handrails out of Trex, with 6’ spans, and even though they put a supporting strut (also Trex) at a vertical beneath it, they all sag and look like crap. I’m in the process of finishing some oak to replace the horizontals on the railings so they don’t look like a Dali painting. (Otherwise it’s a cable railing, so the rest is fine.)

The Trex they used has a rippled bottom side; I have seen some which are extruded with 3 hollow tubes. I have a fantasy of pulling water through those tubes to both cool the deck and produce hot water for the house (heat exchanger), but since mine aren’t built that way it ain’t gonna happen.

When we moved in our dock was decrepit but structurally fine. I over-topped it with Trex, not realizing the “heat on feet” issue. It’s common to be barefoot on the boat, but coming off it the deck is blazing so I wish I had done that differently.

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Ouch…(In fact, they also made the handrails out of Trex, with 6’ spans, and even though they put a supporting strut (also Trex) at a vertical beneath it, they all sag and look like crap.

PT stiles/balusters for the edge, and a mahogany rail treated with stain every 1-2 years now.