To refinish a cedar deck
 

I need to refinish my deck. It's aprox 15 years old. I've replaced some of the boards now I need to refinish. I am cleaning with bleach and sodium hydroxide to kill the mildew. The deck was stained over 5 years ago. I bought house 5 years ago. I do not want to spend alot of time sanding to have look new as ill be replacing in next 5 years. Paint or stain. I was going to go with red cedar color. To look natural

Suggestions?

deck
 

power wash it first

+1 pressure wash it and see what you have. You might like what you see.

pressure wash then some austrailian timber oil from lowes

I have a cedar deck , it was built roughly 8 years ago - we've been here 5 years - it has to be sanded lightly every year to remove flaking and re-stained its a pita - all my previous houses had treated wood decks which are basically maintenance free I would just roll on the tinted thompsons water seal every spring and done , every 2 years would be fine too

This house has a south backyard so the sun beats on it most of the day plus all the traffic - that I have no choice but to sand and stain it every year or it looks like crap

I used Behr natural cedar tone stain from Home Depot - there's probably better out there but I'm going to have to do this every spring regardless what I use

I believe there is a product from Sikkens that is a stain/sealer that does not have to be sanded off to reapply. Sorry, but this is a recollection from a sibling's deck, we went with pressure treated for ours.

I pressure washed it last year. Then did some reading that ceder is not to be pressure washed. To soft.

If I can rent a big sander I may do that as the deck is about 1000sq. Don't want to do buy hand lol

Looked at there line up online can't find one for decking

Is there a way to tell if the previous coat was paint or stain

paint sits on the surface and stain soaks in

+1 on the timber oil. The same company makes a problem solver product that helps prep existing wood, just spay or brush on and pressure wash off.

Our new deck is not Cedar, but here's some info ...

If you pressure wash it, you'll end up 'raising the grain' and have a bunch of 'fuzzy' crap to deal with (sander). Pressure washing Cedar removes some of the wood and leaves an undesirable layer of 'stuff' that you then need to sand down. Plus, you've removed some of the water repellant properties of the Cedar
You can try to 'lightly' pressure wash it, but I suggest you use a 'cleaner', such as TSP and a big brush. Research it, it works just fine with a garden hose and some scrubbing (lots of scrubbing :wink:)
Wash down all the cleaner you used so your lawn/garden etc doesn't die out for a year or 2 :wink:

Let it dry with good sunlight for a few days, and seal it with some Cedar deck sealant
Plan on having a day or 2 of upcoming good sunshine before you apply the new sealant - it has to dry before it gets wet
And save yourself the grief of brushes - use paint rollers wherever you can after you've covered all the tight spots with a paint brush

It took 3 of us 2 hours to seal our new deck with 2 coats

I'm going to clean the deck today. There's some vleaners that take the grey Mildew out of wood and ill hose it down. Not pressure wash

Thank you

+1 Sikkens-cetol 1. Ive used it on several projects over the last 15 years, comes in various colours.
I like it a lot and recommend.