DECK REFURBISHING

Al Carrell: You'd think that the Super Handyman would know when he built a deck that you have to protect the wood. Well I didn't. And look at it now. It looks like an old deck. Fortunately, there's some new products on the market that will chemically do away with all of the damage that was done by the hail and the sleet and the snow and the rain and whatever else Mother Nature threw at it. We're going to try one of them out today.

There's very little preparation required. About all you have to do is make sure that the wood is dry and then sweep it up real good. This will protect the wood and it doesn't make any difference whether it's a new deck or an old deck. If it's made out of wood, you ought to put a water seal on there for protection. Incidentally, we isolated one of the boards here in the deck earlier today and we applied the chemicals to it and I think you're going to find it's really dramatic the way this stuff works. Now this stuff will do its thing, it's magic, in about five to ten minutes. And so you want to be sure that you don't let it completely dry before you come in and rinse it off. You can see how quickly it's going to go over this whole deck. We should be able to do this in just a matter of minutes and if you tried to roll it on it would take a long, long time. Now, most of the time you're going to find that the work is going to be done by the chemicals, but where you have stubborn spots it's sort of a good idea to scrub this in a little bit. Also, where you have puddles you can move it around so that you don't end up with a splotchy finish. Now all you have to do is turn the water on and you're almost through with your deck wash. Now you want to be sure that you really wet this down because it could go off and hit some of your landscaping and do some damage. But, basically, what you want to do is to get that stuff off of there and uncover what is now a beautiful deck. Boy, this really does look great. We do have one final step, though, and that is to put a water seal on there. This will protect the wood and it doesn't make any difference whether it's a new deck or an old deck. If it's made out of wood you ought to put a water seal on there for protection. It's okay to use a sprayer up here on the top of the railing, but down here on the uprights it's really better to pour some of this chemical out into a pan, dip a throwaway brush in there and then you'll be able to get all of the places down there without wasting any of the chemicals. I'm tickled to death with the way our deck looks now. You know, it's not a new deck, but it sure looks a lot better than the old one. It's an easy way for you to spend a weekend to make your backyard look a lot better, doesn't cost a lot and I think you're going to love it.

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Episode 65 1997 - 98 Season

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