Deck Paint for Longevity Not Appearance

[Al in Ohio]

Never paint any walking surface. You will regret it. Use deck stain. After the deck boards show their age replace them with Trex decking. No more maintenance.

 

[nativenewenglander]

In the twenty years we've owned our house, I've stained the redwood deck a few times. I've always used something that lets the grain show through (a stain).

Now, I'm not as concerned with the appearance. I just want to paint it a dark brown with something that will make it last as long as possible.

Suggestions?

I stained my siding on my bungalow with a stain mix from a neighbor. Two sides get lots of sun and weather and it still looks great two years later. He's used it for almost fifty years. The formula was made by a Sherman Williams guy back around 1900 when his house was built. I plan on using it on our 80 foot porch floor as the PT lumber has had a year to dry. One of our neighbors painted his porch with paint and it's already peeling. The mix is 1/2 gallon of white kerosene 1/2 gallon of boiled linseed oil one gallon gloss oil based paint. I plan to use a low luster oil paint when I do my porch.

 

[braumeister]

I use this:
BEHR® DECKplus™ Solid Color Waterproofing Wood Stain
You can get it mixed in just about any color and I think it does an amazingly good job. Last time DW chose a green color and it looks terrific. I've always been very happy with Behr paint products.

God Bless You for saying this. I am in the middle of a total deck restoration. Got the railing sanded and painted. Used BEHR solid on the railing. Now have to sand and use solid on the deck. Huge deck and I’m going all out in prep on this one. Full steam ahead!

The key to a long lasting, good looking job IMO is preparation. Rather than power washing, I use this stuff:
BEHR Premium 1-gal. All-In-One Wood Cleaner
Using a stiff bristled brush, I clean the boards, let it sit for half an hour, then rinse it off. Next day I use the stain. My deck looks pretty good for years.

 

[Bir48die]

The key to a long lasting, good looking job IMO is preparation. Rather than power washing, I use this stuff:

BEHR Premium 1-gal. All-In-One Wood Cleaner

Using a stiff bristled brush, I clean the boards, let it sit for half an hour, then rinse it off. Next day I use the stain. My deck looks pretty good for years.

I’m going down to bare wood on everything. Have tried stains and other preps but just haven’t taken. This has to last five years at least other than touch up. Then I’ll probably do Trex and put in metal rails and cable.

 

[TromboneAl]

All done. About seven hours of work, total.

Total cost: $0.00. I had four partially full cans of stain left over from staining the house, put them all together and had about 1.5 gallons. Some was very old. I had the rollers.

Thanks for saving me from painting it (it would have been a blunder). I'm hoping this highly-pigmented stain will give us a few years.

Here's the before:

and the after:

 

[davebarnes]

Total cost: $0.00. I had four partially full cans of stain left over from staining the house, put them all together and had about 1.5 gallons. Some was very old. I had the rollers.

Looks very good, but...
1. Buy more oil-based stain.
2. Buy a brush and use it. Puddles are OK. It will soak in.

 

[RetireBy90]

I’d have to say looks very good.

 

[NW-Bound]

Looks good. No paint. Another disaster averted.

 

[Ger0n1mo]

At least in PA you cannot buy oil-based stain. The fed or state restrictions keep changing every couple of years and the product you think you are buying again has changed, and does not perform as well. I have used Cabot semi-transparent for about 15 years and have been happy overall. But, 15 years ago it was definitely better. No brand will last more than a couple of years if you have a lot of sun or snow. And, I would stay away from solid stain since it is more like paint. Everyone I know that has used solid stain has peeling in about a year. A friend went to Sherwin Williams about it and was told that you cannot get all the moisture out of the boards and eventually the moisture will cause the peeling.

 

[meleana]

We use Cabot Australian Timber oil on our deck and also on our bridge (which is over a stream on our property and part of our driveway/private road).


We use the clear, but it does come in several stains/colors as well. The best stuff imo. We apply it every three years with a roller.

 

[Sconie]

I've used the Behr Solid Color Waterproofing Stain and am pleased with it; applied it about 6 years ago and---remarkably---it still looks good. Suspect I'll be redoing it in another 3 or 4 years.

 

[davebarnes]

At least in PA you cannot buy oil-based stain

But, you can buy linseed oil and turpentine.

 

[Bir48die]

I’ll send a photo at some point but I’m LMAO on the seven hour job. Today I spent seven hours sanding main deck. I’m guessing I have 60 hours in so far with another 20 to go. It’s not like I have a simple deck. Railing alone was over 30 hours easy.

 

[yakers]

So what do they put in the paint that is used to stripe lines in the road? Seems it would hold up pretty well.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes, paint can hold up very well when the right paint is applied on the right surface.

They have not found the right paint formulation for horizontal wood planks that are subject to moisture.