Easy DIY Tips to Revitalize Your Old Deck

Your home’s deck and patio area add a lot of value to your home, and just like any addition to your house, there will come a time when you’ll have to revitalize it. It might seem like an intimidating task, but revitalizing your deck and patio area is actually quite simple if you know what you’re doing. Handyman Connection of Blue Ash discusses how.

A Little Cleaning Goes a Long Way

You don’t necessarily have to do extensive repair to revitalize your deck; sometimes, all it takes is a good bit of cleaning to make it look brand-new again. As a general rule, cleaning should be done annually since your patio is technically still an exposed area. If you recently experienced rain, don’t let the the rainwater settle on the boards. Give it a good cleaning as soon as possible.

Inspect for Rot Damage

When you do your deck inspection, make sure to take a close look at the parts of the patio that are close to the ground. These parts are the most susceptible to rotting and decay since water and moisture tend to travel upwards from the ground and into the deck. If the extent of the rot is more than 1/32 inch deep, get that board replaced before the rot spreads and weakens the rest of your deck.

Scrape and Reapply Stain

If the current stain finish of your deck area is too faded and showing signs of age, you might want to scrape and reapply a new one. Apply a generous amount of deck stripper on the boards, let it settle for around ten seconds, and start scraping. Solid or transparent stain colors are very easy to scrape off. Just make sure you scrape off the entire stain before reapplying.

As a final tip, make sure you do all these when the weather is cloudy or relatively cool. Deck strippers and other solutions evaporate very fast when exposed to sunlight so you’ll actually have a more difficult time revitalizing your patio area when it’s sunny.

Need a hand revitalizing your home’s deck and patio area? Give us a call at (513) 771-3950 to get an estimate on our deck repair and revitalizing services.