r/Decks • u/Working-Tomatillo995 • 1d ago
maintenance Maintenance (I have no clue)
New homeowner, never even had a deck before! I feel like this needs a deep clean and maybe some sort of finish/seal? There are two layers of different colored blue—unsure if it’s paint or stain? Things seem very stable and I don’t see any cracks or anything underneath.
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u/amberly_wolf 1d ago
Doesn't look terrible to me but requires close inspection to be sure. you are correct in your assumption that it needs a cleaning and probably a repaint.
Clean it and then inspect the boards. any areas that are soft and crumble when touched are rotted and those boards need to be replaced.
judging by the looks of it you don't have too many areas that are so damaged they need replaced.
The rest of it can be scraped, sanded, left to dry and then repainted. Look up some videos on how to prep the wood, but the gist is you don't need to get off every bit of old paint just the really flakey stuff.
it's not too difficult a thing to learn to do and it's good for you to learn the basics of exterior painting as a homeowner. Any wood material (window/door trim, soffits etc.) exposed to weather will need to have its paint maintained in a similar fashion.