Deck repair

If you’ve read my post about our deck, Perpetual Deck Project, you’ll know that I have refinished our deck 9 times in the last 15 years. We moved into our house in 2001 and I didn’t do anything with the deck for the first 5 years. All the details of what I did each of the 8 prior times are on the Deck Project post, this post is about Deck 2020. Since this year’s deck project was more involved than the other years, I have split it up into two posts.

Table Of Contents

Repairs needed
While waiting….
Let's start sanding
Staining
Deck repair
More repairs??
Up next, Part 2
Supplies Used
For your convenience

Repairs needed

Last year, I noticed that the right corner of the lower deck was sinking. The deck floor in that area was easily an inch lower than the front beam that it was attached to. When I looked under the deck, I could see that the cross beam support was slipping down as the beam was rotted. By the time I called our Contractor, James, this Spring it was almost 2″ below the deck floor! He put us on his schedule for ‘as soon as the weather cooperates’.

While waiting….

While waiting for James to come and replace the beam on the lower deck, as soon as the weather started getting warmish, I knew it was time to do what I could on the deck. Since the lower deck was the one that needed repairs, I decided to sand and stain the upper deck, both sets of stairs, the landing above the lower set of stairs, and the top railing. Five years ago, I started leaving these parts of the deck looking weathered by doing just a light sanding then applying a clear coat of Preserva Wood.

Last year, I didn’t sand the deck, just added a coat of Preserva wood & did a bit of touch-up paint on the railing. What that meant was that the deck floor, stairs, and top rail really needed a good sanding and staining.

Let’s start sanding

To sand the deck, I’ve almost always used a 5″ orbital sander, the exception, a disastrous one, was when we rented a large floor sander. Not only was that sander very heavy making it hard for me to manage, but the screw & nail heads on the deck floor kept ripping the paper so I had to change it frequently. Hence, the reason I now use a nice, small orbital sander.

When I was ready to sand, I grabbed the sander I’ve used for years and started to sand. To my surprise, the sanding pad just fell off! That’s weird, I thought. So, I took it in the garage and tightened the 3 screws but the pad fell off again as soon as I went back to sanding.

I looked at the head where the pad attached and saw that the screw holes had melted. Time to buy a new sander!

After some online research, I decided to buy a Makita. Home Depot had some in stock so I drove into town to pick one up. The new sander worked beautifully and didn’t take long to look well loved.

As I was sanding, I liked that look that was forming – some bare wood and some areas where the old stain stayed in the grooves. I thought it would be cool to enhance the look by adding a clear coat so I bought a water-based product, Behr’s Wood Treatment in Clear. When I finished sanding & had vacuumed the wood then wiped it with a lightly wet cloth, it was time to stain.

Staining

When opened the new can of stain, it clearly wasn’t clear! What the??! Well, I thought, maybe it would go on clear (crazy, I know) so I proceeded to apply the new stain. Here is the can after I’d applied it to the top deck.

As you can see in the first pic below, as soon as I started applying the stain, it was obvious that the stain was, in fact, NOT clear. But, I was liking the look so I decided to continue using it.

After I finished staining, I found the can of the stain I had used in 2009. I was surprised that it was the same stain! The one I had on hand was called Natural and I had chosen it that year to make the deck wood a nice, warm brown. Below are the two cans….see how the new one (on the left) is labeled as ‘Clear’ and the one on the right is labeled ‘Natural’? Then I noticed that Natural is No. 500 and Clear is No. 500-N. I am guessing that the N stands for Natural. Weird!

Deck repair

Not too long after I finished staining the parts of the deck that were not needing repair, James came over to replace the main beam on the lower deck. When he removed the facia board, we were both stunned at the damage that had been done to the beam. It wasn’t rotted, it had been eaten away by the carpenter ants we have around here! The damage was shocking!

When the beam was removed, James was able to get an even better view of the cross supports under the deck. There was ant damage on several of those also so we made the decision to fix that issue. Instead of removing the cross supports, James ‘sistered’ in additional supports. So now, instead of one support every foot or so, we have two. Before the main beam and the cross supports were installed, I painted them with two coats of primer. This will help prevent ant damage in the future.

More repairs??

As James was installing the new crossbeams, he noticed a few floorboards that needed to be replaced.

Once those there done, he took another look under the deck and said, ‘well’….he had identified several more floorboards that probably ‘should’ be replaced. I asked him to check the upper deck before he headed out to buy the new floor boards. He found a few more boards there that also had damage. At that point, hubby and I had a decision to make, should we just have ALL the floorboards replaced or wait until the good ones went bad? Even the ones I had already sanded and stained on the upper deck??! We decided that, yes, we should do that. So James replaced all the floorboards and also the treads on the lower stairs, because, yes, those were eaten up too!

Was that all? Nope! We had all the facia boards replaced as well as two 2″ x 4″ railing supports and the corner 4″ x 4″ post on the upper deck. We’ve joked that we should have just replaced everything! But, the rest was still solid so no use spending more $ and time when it isn’t needed.

Up next, Part 2

Whew, the repair on our deck that started out as a simple, one-day fix, became a much bigger job than either James or I could have foreseen! Once he had all the new pieces installed, it was time for me to peel loose paint, sand & paint the railing, sand & stain the new floorboards & stairs, and enjoy! Part 2 will be ready next week for ya!

Supplies Used

Tools
- Skill saw
- Drill
- 5″ orbital sander
- Sanding discs
- 3″ deck screws
- Primer
- Paintbrush
- Kneeling pad
- Behr Wood Treatment
Wood
- Beam: 4″ x 6″ x 16′
- Floor boards: 2″ x 6″
- Post: 4″ x 4″
- Cross supports: 2″ x 6″
- Cross beams: 2″ x 4″
- Step treads: 2″ x 4″
- Facia: 1″ x 8″