Decks

One purpose of this blog is to celebrate (aka complain) about all the work associated with home ownership.

If you have a house you either have a deck or dream of having home. Just think of it: if you had a deck, you could invite family and friends over for a BBQ and life would be grand. Right?

I built our deck myself five years ago. It was a lot of work and fairly expensive. Little did I realize the work and expense was just beginning. We have had to seal the deck every year since its construction!

Each year I use Olympic deck sealer with a 5 or 6 year guaranty and it only lasts one year!

Step one is the timing. It requires three rain free warm days in a row. One day to clean the deck, one to dry, and one to seal and let the seal dry. Finding three dry and warm days in upstate New York can be difficult!

The deck needs to be cleaned before it is sealed. It can be cleaned by sweeping it and then hosing the deck down, or better yet, poor a deck cleaner on it (basically it is bleach), scrub it, then hose it off. If you choose to use the deck cleaner method? Remember it is bleach and will turn anything it splashes on white (including your clothes).

Then comes the staining. At $40 per gallon, plus disposable brushes and various supplies - this gets expensive.

I tape plastic around the deck so the Cedar colored stain doesn't splash onto the white siding. The trick with Painter's tape is that it melts in the sun, so, it has to be removed within 24 hours or less.

I always apply the sealant with a brush so that I can fill the cracks and the areas between the boards. However, this year I used a plush roller because I didn't have the standard four hours that it normally takes.

Building a deck is very expensive and a lot of work, but it is just the start. The yearly maintenance on a deck is a huge consideration too. But now that it is done we can enjoy cookouts on the deck for the rest of the summer!

Deck furniture

It is a yearly cycle. In the spring I bring the deck furniture and hoses up from the basement. In the fall, I take it back down. I have been doing it this way for eleven years. Next year I hope to make it a little easier by having a shed!

Revisiting the Deck

If you have read many posts you will recall that the summer of 2013 I tried something new with my deck. I was upset that the 5 year Olympic sealer never lasted more than a year.

I complained to the hardware store and they told me I needed to clean the deck with their cleaner, which was basically like a bleach.

I did. And the deck looked good. But it didn't last. By Spring, the deck looked all dried out and the stain was mostly gone!

In late August I sealed the deck again. This time I didn't clean it with their chemical. 

My hope is the sealant will stick better this year than it did last year.

Back to the Back Yard: Washing the Deck

I put a deck on the back of the house several years ago. Every year since ( including the year I built the deck) I have used Olympic water proof with the 6 year protection. By the time a year passes, the deck badly needs another coat.

I complained to the guy at the hardware store and he said I needed to clean the deck first. I always clean the deck first. But he said I needed to clean the deck with Olympic deck cleaner.

I decided to give it a try this year and applied the cleaner to the deck. It smells like bleach, so, I was careful not to get it on me.

After spraying an ample amount of cleaner on the deck, I hosed it off. The guy at the hardware store warned me not to use a spray nozzle, so, I unscrewed my nozzle and rinsed the deck using the hose. I probably rinsed with enough water to full a swimming pool (a small pool). 

Now we'll see if the cleaner works its magic. I will let the deck dry this week, then I will be applying the Olympic sealer with 6 year protection this weekend.

Back to the back yard: patio

Several years ago I placed a deck on the back of the house, and then surrounded the deck with a multi-level patio. The patio wall is timber held in place with spikes. One area of the wall started to come apart and if it broke? It would be like a damn breaking - pouring gravel into the back yard. I fixed it by using pry bars to push the wall back into place, then pounded in rebar with a sledge to hold the wall and keep it from coming apart again.

Back to the Back Yard

For Mother's Day I bought Linda 36 feet of rope light. Since I was in the back yard putting flowers in the back flower garden anyways, I got the rope light installed onto the deck railing. It is on a timer so it only comes on from dusk until 10pm.

2010 Backyard Reconstruction Project

It was 2010 when I noticed water leaking through my basement wall. The house was only 7 years old, so I was very concerned. A discussion with an engineer determined my grading had eroded due to settling. This resulted in too much stress on the basement wall. The solution launched the Backyard Reconstruction Project.

The project started by removing a stone patio I had created using paver stones. Then hiring a back hoe to dump topsoil all around the house. I then packed the dirt and graded it so water would run away from the house.

Next came seeding to regrow the lost grass.

To help prevent this problem in the future I built a deck back yard. Around the deck I placed a multi-level stone patio. With the exception of the back hoe, I did all of this massive project myself.