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