A Year in Canaan: All Decked Out

Apologies for the boring nature of this post, but an aspect of this blog was to document how some of my time has been spent this year in Canaan - and this was definitely a time commitment.

There is about 1,500 sq. ft. of deck surface surrounding our home. Every 3 to 5 years for the past 15 years I have cleaned and treated it. In the past, given my limited amount of free time, I accomplished this by pressure washing the surface and applying a waterproofing agent with a sprayer. This approach could be accomplished in less than 2 days....given acceptable weather.

This year we undertook a different approach. Rather than pressure washing - which does damage the surface - we used a mild oxygenated wood cleaner (Defy) which did a fine job. For stubborn areas a more aggressive deck cleaner followed by a brightener worked well. The cleaning process took about 10 hours. To treat the deck we chose a relatively new product from Olympic which is an oil/acrylic mix suspended in water. We had it tinted a light grey and applied it with a brush.

I had my concerns using a water-based product, but the clean up was easy. Application by brush was laborious. The railing required 3 gallons of material and took two of us a total of about 10 hours to apply. Another 5 gallons was required to coat the deck surface and consumed another 12 hours. Here's a before-and-after shot. Actually an after-and-before shot, but you get the idea.

The material dried well and gives a nice look. Of course the real test will be how well it stands up. The manufacturer claims 5 years on horizontal surfaces and 7 on vertical. Here are a few shots of the finished project.