Covering nekkid...

... deck boards. My mom's house has a big deck made from treated wood, what's called '5/4' deck boards. My stepdad painted it not long after they moved in, he used Behr all in one deck stain and it started peeling almost immediately. So I spent some time yesterday pressure washing the stain off, it blew right off except on the knots and other 'hard' wood (anything dark). The stain wasn't sticking to the lighter 'soft' wood at all.

Any ideas on what can be done to get the stuff to stick better? The deck's now ~8 years old, it's in sunlight pretty much all day and the stain is gray.

I don't stain mine, I use something like Thompson's Water Seal. It's clear, goes on with a roller. I've done it twice in 12 years, no issues.

Dan

If it were mine, that's what I would have done the first time around. But they wanted it gray... it could be done but it would be a monster job. Like replacing all the handrails and stuff.

The best stuff I've used is Wolman F&P. Goes on easier than almost everything else; I use a disposable 8" foam pad. It is sprayable for vertical surfaces. Has a sort of waxy feel when it dries and lasts a lot longer than Thompson's.

I pressure washed an old wood table and benches and coated it with a product from Olympic from one of the box stores. It went on very watery and soaked in to the wood.

5 Years of new england winters and its still not faded or peeling.

I'll look and see if I still have the can from it to get the name.

Joe

I don't trust water based stains. They don't penetrate the same as oil based stains. They act more like a paint sitting on the surface than a stain penetrating into the wood.

However, he made a mistake in application.

You didn't say, but I'm betting the deck was brand new when he stained it.

Pressure treated Southern Yellow Pine comes extremely engorged with moisture (forced into the cells under pressure). That moisture WILL come out.

Generally, recommended techniques include allowing a new deck to dry sufficiently before applying any stain.

This is especially true for latex based products.

The stain never formed a bond to the wood, because it was trying to attach itself to the moisture in the wood (which was trying to evaporate from the wood). The stain dried, and the moisture in the wood continued to evaporate, peeling the stain.

The knots you mentioned are too dense to absorb the same amount of moisture in the first place, so they didn't have as much to dry out.

Generally, a primer or conditioner is also recommended to neutralize the chemicals in the wood before painting, so they don't reduce the bond of the pigment.

Behr's recommeded installation methods

You should be OK to repaint at this point, because it has had 8 years to dry out.

But next time don't buy your paint at Home Depot.

When he painted it the first time all he did was blow the deck off with a leaf blower. It looks like the needs to use that No. 63 cleaner before he actually paints the thing.

Thanks!

There was a display at home depot last month showcasing what looked to be a tintable bedliner type thing for decks. Looked pretty awesome and fixed the reason I tore my deck out. Decks are slippery damn things!

Here it is!

I was serious about Home Depot.

Behr is one of the best selling paints because it is the cheapest, and most distributed (through HD). That doesn't make it the best.

The percentage of pigments and quality of the resins used would make it the best. Behr doesn't cut it.

It is also likely that your stepdad didn't get rid of the mill glaze before staining. This is the hard, almost glossy surface of the wood caused by high speed planers. They burnish the cells of the wood, making it hard to absorb stain. Before staining decks, you've got to get rid of the mill glaze. There are 3 ways- sand it, chemically treat it, or let it weather for 3-6 months before staining.

Most people don't have the patience...

^What he said^

"You get what you pay for" is a factual statement where paint is concerned. When we bought the first place in 2000 - a 1948 fixer-upper - we started with Behr, and was giving away the unused stuff and buying Benjamin Moore Regal within a couple months of work.

Home Despot sells a lot of Behr paint, and lot of poorly dried lumber. No matter how carefully I've racked lumber from HD, it's all unusable banana wood within a couple days. For the new place I had 1600 linear feet of clear poplar milled by an Amish planing mill and there was so little waste...

When I had a fence put in across the back yard the guys who installed it told me not to put any stain or sealer on it for a year. Then I was to power wash it, let it dry for a couple days and then use an oil-based stain on it.

I did that and then redid it twice now(3 years apart). The fence still looks like new.

I used an Olympic oil-based stain applied with a garden sprayer.

I sorta backed out of the project other than to power wash the old stain off (talk about a mess!) and I passed on to him about using that Behr No. 63 stuff to clean it and then letting it dry thoroughly.