New wood and Old Wood

[tlc]

Just started doing decks, a couple for freinds family and so on, run into a new and old deck side by side. Just wanting to know what direction I should go. Question I am asking I guess is should you treat them as one or seperate. The new deck is freshly put in and is about 3 to 4 weeks old.(the saying is let the new sit untreated for 6-12 months).The old deck is about fifteen yrs old and has a really bad solid stain on it. Thanks for all the help. This BB has been wonderful to me with trying too solve problems.

Thanks Travis from Oklahoma.

 

[TheHoodGuy]

New deck--- clean with sodium percarbonate, acid bath and then stain when moisture is 15% or lower. The letting a deck sit for a while is an old myth that does more harm than good. Seal it right away.

Old Deck---Strip it with sodium hydroxide, acid bath, seal

 

[tlc]

Doing the deck tomorrow. Just a little concern about the coloring of the two woods. Going to stain them both in a semi-trans. redwood, see how it goes. It is a freinds deck that I am charging very minimal on and using it as experience so thanks for the advice.

 

[RogerG]

Your old wood will absorb more stain than the new wood. You will see a slight color difference in the old and new as well.

 

[Aplus]

The letting a deck sit for a while is an old myth that does more harm than good. Seal it right away.

The real issue is whether or not the moisture content is below 12% The new ACQ wood is very wet, and may take a couple weeks to dry enough.

Cedar is such a tight grained oily wood, that often it will not accept much stain when new, and often times is better left to gray out once, then clean and seal.

 

[5 Star Johnny]

New Wood - I would prepare with ABR X-180, allow to dry and then put one coat of ABR X-100 pre-finish. Let that go for the first season, then next season, reclean with the X-180 & put one coat of X-100 pre-finish, then one coat of X-100 deck finish. Works very well.

If you don't use a penetrating preservative on new wood, especially a deck less than 3 months old, you can expect most stains to dry on top and fail within the first season.

Solid Stain on the old deck? Unless you can get it completely stripped, this one might not look very good with semi-trans on top of any remnant stain left. From the sounds of it you were attacking these this past weekend. How did it go?

 

[tlc]

Went pretty good I got all the old stain off the old deck. The concern that I have again is that the Old deck is PRT pine whereas the new deck looks to be PRT Fir. None the less it is raining hard here today so doesn't look as if I will get to stain it for a couple of days anyways. Thanks for the help.

 

[unclepete]

worn wood deck

Hi Group,
I'm giving an estimate on a wood deck that is cracked and well worn in places.I guess I could replace some of the boards but it might not look too good with some new boards and some old ones.CAn I rent a big sander and sand the worn and cracked areas before I seal it? If so,where do you rent something like that? Thanks.

 

[Aplus]

Depending on the size of the deck, it may be better to hire someone to sand the deck. By the time you rent the equipment and learn how to use it to get good results, the pro will be gone and you're closer to applying stain.

Most guys won't use a drum sander because of potential drum damage. A hardwood edger sander works well.

I subcontracted a guy to sand a deck once. Here is a pic that shows the sander.

He used a palm sander to get into corners. This guy knew what he was doing and the floor turned out great. I have an agreement with him for future sanding jobs I may need.