Dried out Deck

[plainpainter 217]

Hey - I started taking care of this pressure treated deck in the summer of '04.

At that point is was approx. 4-5 yrs. old never treated light greyed out appearance.

I cleaned it with Bleach diluted. Then put on a coat of stain - well it drank the stain.

And put on a second coat several days later, of the curing type kind. It had some

sap on the floors. Then I did the deck again in May of '06 - had some peeling on the

decks - faded everywhere else. So I pressure washed it again, this time with bleach

at the same diluted concentration - approx 1.25% with TSP and surfactant this time.

Sanded down the boards that were peeling and put on two solid wet coats. Now

I am on the deck again this year for a maintenance clean and another coat on the horizontals.

The deck is fine - no peeling, but I have been steadily noticing how hot this deck is.

And this time there is sap bleed all over the place - and the deck is real crickity - like

it is majorly dried out - you can hear the squeaks of dry wood rubbing against nails.

The question - what tact would you take for a customer like this? Not that I am going

to suggest stripping now or anything. But I would like to write them a note after the

job is done explaining what could be a different tact for the future. Would it make sense

for the future to propose stripping and then soaking wood with a parafinic oil stain like

Ready Seal or Timber oil and then applying a regular stain over it? I am a curing stain kind

of guy - but I just hate how this wood has become like dried out bones. Would it make more

sense to go with IPE with such a hot deck? Or would that suffer the same fate? You can see

how sap is boiling out of the wood all over the place - and it's heat that is doing it.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

What kind of wood is the deck made of?

Beth

[Celeste 341]

Pt :)

[PressurePros 248]

1. Stop using bleach ;-)

2) Use a product like Ready Seal or Wood Rich Timber Oil

3) Top seal with WT

The deck honestly sounds like it needs to be reskinned. Ipe would hold up better as long as customer wanted it turn gray. If they like the stained look I would not go ipe. Maybe cypress?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I agree with what Ken said.... :)

Beth

[plainpainter 217]

Thanks for the opinions - by reskinned, you mean new floor boards? Now the deck is like 8 yrs. old. Seems like a short life to be replacing floor boards. My Deck is 20 yrs. old and other than replacing a bunch of nails last year with decking screws - the boards are fine and full of life and juices and no crickety sounds. IF this was my home I wouldn't know what to do - it's by far the hottest deck I have ever been on - you'd cook your feet if you walked on it barefoot. If you put new boards down and topped with WTW - I believe the new boards would heat up as well and all the resins would boil out as well through the finish. Are some people just screwed sometimes? Would resins boil out of IPE as well under tremendously hot conditions?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

One of the things to keep in mind, you may only need to replace certain boards.

If you have a sap vein running the length of the board, you may want to replace that board. Boards with veins are problematic. Not the knots that leach sap, but boards with entire veins running the length of the board.... look for cracks that cut across the vein (and the grain), rather than running with the grain. Those are your sap veins. As the sap leaches out and the vein dries, you will begin to get small, squarish chunks of wood that break out of the vein. They can go pretty deep and sanding won't help. Replace boards that have this problem, or tell the customer to expect to have to live with a place they can catch their bare foot, and they will have future splintering there as well.

Hope this helps ;)

Beth

[bigchaz 157]

If the heat is the huge issue, they might want to look into a retractable awning. We put one on the lower portion of our deck and it makes it much nicer to sit out there. Ends up keeping the house cooler too from all the morning sun that normally comes through the sliding doors

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

I can comment on ipe' and extreme heat. My own deck is skinned in ipe' and gets extremely hot in the summer due to orientation.

In four years, have never seen any "sap" leaching out of the ipe'. The wood itself after installation does have a lot of, I guess, tannins, or coloring that is mostly removed with a good cleaning. After that, the only possible effect that heat has possibly had on some of the ipe' 5/4 x 6 decking boards are some hairline cracks that may have been caused by excessive drying of the wood.

Less expensive Asian hardwoods such as "Phillipine" mahogany will leach out weird stuff, sometimes sappy compounds, often a crystalized "powder" of various colors.

Is your "problem" deck high enough off the ground with decent ventilation?

[PressurePros 248]

Yes, Dan I mean replacing the floorboards. The reason I say that is because the board quality on that surfacem is suspect if there is a high degree of leching. As Beth mentioned, its an ongoing issue that cannot be undone by sealing. It always comes back. Replacement is the only solution. I am not a fan of replacing individual boards, espeicaly on PTP because to get any type of coninuitty of color you will ned to let those boards age for awhile (6 months? a year?) In the interim, boards you did not replace sit there untreated and suffer the warping effects of wet/dry cycles.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

The problem is indicative of all your pines which is your PT. Also indicative of the alive part of the tree, the sapwood rather than the heartwood. Perhaps you'll have lesser amounts or longer periods between the leaching if you soak and clean the offending boards with turpentine. That is your remover for sap/pitch. Perhaps it will help the boards to be unclogged so to speak and allow it to come out evenly and unnoticed. Maybe they clogged like a big old zit from past coatings....just two cents.. :)

[seymore 90]

PINE SAP nature of the beast can't have one without the other.

[plainpainter 217]

Rick - yes the deck is high off the ground. As to pine sap leaching - the first year I did this deck - just one board was leaching. Last year more boards were leaching. Now this year it seems the whole deck has leaching problems. It seems to me the leaching of the sap is more indicative of extreme heat than anything else. And first and foremost - the deck is real crickety. I think the retractable awning idea sounds best. As I think due to extreme conditions of this deck - any boards layed down will eventually the same fate of drying out and having the innards boiled out it.

[MMI Enterprises 289]

What's it sit on a volcano or some such thing? :)

[RPetry 564]

Daniel,

Ok, so its not ventilation. Maybe its the stain? You mention a "curing" type stain, is it dark and form a film?

I service a bunch of 19 yr. old small 2x4 PT decks that get full sun nearly all day long. Know this as they are my neighbors. Through the years have done a whole lot of similar wood with similar exposure.

Yes, you get the sappy board here and there but nowhere near the condition of the complete floor as you have described. Just guessing, its either the stain retaining a lot of heat or just bad lumber. Or maybe both?

[MMI Enterprises 289]

Sounds like that deck wants to be an auto-linseed boiler....pardon the pun..carry on..I'll be quiet now.. :)

Here's current area temps for what it's worth:

[plainpainter 217]

I use a film forming stain with tung oils - I use the same stain on my own deck. Perhaps it's bad lumber - and I have not seen another deck behave like this either. It's tone is real similar to WTW - I wonder if WTW would retain the heat as well. And if I switched over to a parafinnic oil type stain - would it constantly boil out of the wood and then people would track it in onto their carpets? I guess I will just keep recoating this deck, until it all boils out - and then sell them on a total restrip and parafinnic + WTW type job.