Redwood Deck Waterproofing
Applying a Preservative to Maintain a Refinished Redwood Deck
The deck almost looked like it was brand new. All I needed to do was to apply some redwood deck waterproofing so that all of my hard work would on my refinished redwood deck would be preserved. If you looked more closely you noticed the patch where the planter had been, so clearly it was not completely new. Also, if you looked even more closely at the spaces between the boards, you could see that there was some dark paint that had flowed into the cracks, when the deck was painted. But, if you stepped back any distance and stopped bending over to look the cracks of spaces between the redwood boards looked normal.
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Freshly sanded, this deck looked great, but I knew that it would only stay looking great over the years if I treated it with the right stuff. I let the deck set for two weeks to make sure that the new wood had some time to dry. It did not have to be absolutely dry and would continue to dry over the long run since its bottom surface would be untreated. However, two weeks in the warmth of the Santa Cruz sun would be enough to ensure that the top surface will full absorb any water proofing agent that I applied.
I set about figuring out what water proofing agent I would apply to my “new” redwood deck. For years I have been an avid reader of consumer reports, and I have relied upon their objective testing for guidance on a variety of products to use around the home. While I have had a subscription to this magazine for over twenty years, I usually only keep the past five years for reference. For some products, they have a cycle of issuing new comprehensive reports every year or two, but for other products you may need to go back several years to get a full report.
Consumer Reports does a report on deck stains and preservatives every other year in the summer. While I am not a slave to the brand recommendations in Consumer Reports, I do believe that the products that are on the upper parts of their lists are generally better that those further down the list. Furthermore, their articles usually provide a good framework for thinking about how to evaluate and choose between particular competing products.
If you pay attention to advertising, then the first thing that you think of with treating wood decks is Thompson’s Water Seal. For this job I dismissed Thompson’s as an option based upon my own experience. I had found with previous decks that were exposed to the intensive California sun and only limited rains in the winter had turned gray with Thompson’s. Therefore I was looking to find something else.
I got some guidance about how to select a deck treatment from Consumer Reports, but most of the products that they reviewed were actually stains that were designed for much harsher climates than coastal Northern California. So not being a slave to Consumer Reports, I learned what I could and then visited a few local hardware stores where I could get some advice that was not too heavy on the profit motive and hype. That turned out to be a pretty good idea. Several stores recommended a product that was designed to for ultraviolet light protection of decks that does not contain a coloring agent. I have used it every one or two years since then with great results.
My deck still looks as good as the first time it treated it after I did the initial sanding. Year after year we enjoy a beautiful redwood deck. It only takes about two hours to do the treatment. I just hose down the deck a week beforehand to get off the loose dirt. On the day I am going to treat the deck I get up early to that the waterproofing has a few hours to soak in before the sun gets on it and heats up the deck. I just get out a paint roller with a long handle. First, I poor the clear waterproofing fluid into a metal painting tray, put on my painting gloves, and apply a six inch strip round the perimeter of the deck and on the front facing board.
Then, I switch to the paint roller with the long handle. I apply the water treatment like I was painting a floor. I put on a lot, but I do not leave puddles that cannot be absorbed. In 10 to 20 minutes the waterproofing is absorbed, and I just let it cure for 24 hours before anybody walks on it. A second, lighter coat can be applied in thirty minutes or so, if you do not let puddles remain. Clean up is with mineral spirits. Then, out comes our rattan garden furniture, which looks very good with this refinished deck. We enjoy family and friends on our beautiful deck the rest to the year. Also, it is a good light up your refinished deck at night with LED deck lights like we did.
Adding the lights gave us a lot greater utility for our newly refinished redwood deck. And to top it off, we went all out and installed some high quality waterproof wireless outdoor speakers. The good thing about wireless indoor outdoor audio speakers is obviously the fact that you do not have to deal with a bunch of speaker wires to get the music signal to the speakers. Since this deck was already in place and was bolted to the foundation and had some relatively tight clearances between the wood of the deck and the foundation to which it was bolted, stringing speaker wires was impractical. And, obviously we were not going to pull up deck planks to string the speaker wires. This was impossible, because the deck had been built originally using twisted hot dipped galvanized decking nails. While more recent decks usually use removable galvanized deck screws, you can’t pull up deck planks with such twisted nails without ruining the redwood. Since we could not touch the deck, then waterproof wireless speakers were the way to go.
We learned quite a bit about the ins and outs at Wireless Outdoor Speakers. Oh, by the way, before you start thinking that wireless waterproof exterior speakers are magic, they solve one half of the problem, which is to eliminate the speaker wires. You still need to have an AC power outlet to plug them into. However, providing outside power boxes next to the speakers is a lot easier than you think. Almost always, you are going to mount your speakers on the outside wall of your home, and a cleaver electrician or competent handyman can easily tap into the house power through the outside wall, if there isn’t power already there. We were lucky, because there were exterior power boxes already around the deck.
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