How to repair my deck?
Question:I have a fairly large deck I need to repair, I let a buddy of mine pressure wash the old paint off of it but while he did that he pitted up the wood pretty bad. I was wanderinf what would be the easy way to repair back to flat so i can re-stain it. I was thinking one of those floor sanders but i dont know with all the nail heads. please help, i dont want to drop all my money into building a new deck.
Answers:
To properly get your deck into tip top shape there are a few steps. First, take a nail set around and set every nailhead a little further. Then run a floor sander around and get the powerwash "cuts: out of the deck. The nails that you set further will not get touched, and when your done, you will have a new looking deck thats going to look great with a fresh coat of stain. Make sure after you stain it, you apply a good water sealant to it as well, it will only help maintain the look and feel that much longer for you. Good Luck
Run a sander over it and watch for areas where the water penetrated the wood so deeply that you might get rot: those boards will have to be replaced. If you have to sand so deep that the nails protrude, hammer them in deeper as you go along. Get your friend to finish helping you. That's what friends are for!
I would just use a vibrating hand sander, It may not get every pit, but that will be very hard and the floor sanders are expensive to rent, and if you aren't use to using them they can be a problem as they sand real fast! It will take some time, but you will be happy.
Keep in mind that water changes to texture of wood and that may have been what happened, especially if it was a soft wood, like Pine. If you are planning to restain it I hope that it is pressure treated lumber, or it will discolor fast because it can't handle the elements, such as pine. I am wondering if that is why it was painted.
If you do stain make sure you use a good deck sealer, or you will have problems from weather.
I would just replace all the boards on top with green treated lumber,and dont use nails use galvinized screws.
I would advise against driving the nails into the wood in order to sand. Once the nail head breaks the surface of the wood, you are compromising the wood fibers and making the wood susceptible to rot - even if treated.
Get a pry bar and pull up the bad boards. Replace them with new.
If it is pressure treated you need to be real careful about sanding. Pressure treated lumber has some not-so-nice heavy metals in it and you don't want you or anyone else breathing in the dust.
replace the badly broken boards and then re-stain it.
better safe then sorry later, and have a bigger repair.
right?
once a deck is painted you have ruined the surface and should replace the wood... sorry for cold hard truth. if you sand it adequately to refinish it will be too thin. One option is to turn the decking over if you can do this without ruining the material
you are not supposed to sand pressure treated wood but if you decide to sand use a respirator (not a dust mask) as the dust is very toxic
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