Deck Maintenance Services
For those of our customers who have wooden decks, deck maintenance is a necessary process for keeping a healthy and strong deck. One of the most common problems that Metro East Decks run into is an untreated deck. Maybe your deck was built using treated lumber, but the wood was not sealed after deck installation. Sealing a wooden deck with a stain or a paint is absolutely important to keeping the wood from deteriorating over time. A common misconception in deck maintenance is that the deck will last forever as long as it is built with treated wood.
Anytime you drill, or cut your treated wood in any way, you run the risk of exposing material in the wood that is not treated. Even driving a nail or a screw into deck boards can expose weak spots in the treatment of the wood. This is why it is necessary to stain or paint the wood after the installation to help seal the wood for many years. We still recommend applying subsequent coats of stain or paint every few years to help ensure that the wood has not lost the ability to shed water. A good test of this is to pour some water on your deck boards. If the water runs off easily, then your deck is pretty well sealed. If the water appears to soak into the wood, you may need to apply more stain or paint to help keep the water from permeating the surface. You will find that regular deck maintenance will not only keep your deck strong and healthy, but it will improve the shine and beauty of it.
Deck Maintenance Belleville IL
As you can tell from the picture above, the deck boards are stained in this project. If you look at the railing in the bottom left of the photo, you can tell the difference between the stained railing, and the unstained railing. Our recommendation for deck maintenance Belleville IL is to apply stain to the deck once the wood has properly dried out. What does it mean for the wood to properly dry out? When treated lumber is purchased from the lumber yard, the wood has been pressure treated with liquid chemicals to help protect the wood from the environment. The wood eventually dries out and shrinks some after a month or so following the treatment. We want to make sure that the wood is sufficiently dry before we apply the paint or stain to ensure maximum absorption.
For those of you with a composite deck, deck maintenance Belleville IL will be minimal. You have no need to stain a composite deck, simply because it is made of plastic, and does not retain water. It is more important however to make sure that the wood joists beneath the plastic deck boards are well prepared before installing them. It is helpful to seal the wood joists prior to installing the composite deck material. In this way, you will help to maintain the longevity of the wooden joists. These wooden joists will likely decompose long before the deck boards will, so it is important to prepare these wooden joists by sealing them well.
