I'm Brad and today we're gonna be
cleaning and standing a deck using the
right tools to make it easy so here's
the deck that we're working with it has
a lot of wear on it and it has a lot of
stains like this and that in this and
that the first thing that we want to do
is get rid of everything off the porch
so we can see what we're working with
and give it a good cleaning my wife
Susan and I moved everything off the
deck and either out into the yard or
into the house and making concrete top
outdoor furniture sounds great in theory
until you have to move it but when we
got all of it moved we could really see
how bad the deck looked now thankfully
the boards were in good shape they
needed a serious cleaning and some new
sting I started by removing all the
loose debris with a broom and I switched
over to the shop vac to get the leaves
and dirt that are wedged between the
boards and against the house this is
also a great time to vacuum off your
window sills and screens while you're at
it here and you'll want to remove
anything that's touching the wood part
of the deck like plant hangers or wind
chimes and if you have a covered deck
like we do go ahead and remove the
downspouts if they're attached to the
posts because you don't want to get any
stain on those all right now we're gonna
start cleaning the deck and I'm gonna be
using two solutions here the first one
is just a general degreaser
I mean applying both of them with a
pressure washer but this one's going to
help get off the grime and the stains
and loosen that up and then this one is
a specific wood deck pressure wash that
has oxalic acid in it that's gonna help
brighten up the wood I'll put it on and
I'll tell you more about it as I'm doing
it now the first tool that's going to
make this job easier is a pressure
washer I'm using a gas powered model
actually to but more on that later but
pressure washers have different tips and
the black tip is typically the low
pressure tip I put that one on the
sprayer and then I went down the entire
deck including the railings and the
posts now the wood is old and dry and if
you apply cleaner directly to the dry
boards it's gonna soak it in quickly and
it can cause streaking if it fully dries
so giving everything a good spray out of
water before degreasing is gonna help
those boards from drying out while the
cleaner is sitting and soaking I'm using
the machine siphon tube to spread the
cleaner it mixes the water with a
degreaser in a ten to one ratio so I
just put the pickup tube in the jug and
then let it dilute it for
and the instructions say to leave it on
for ten minutes and then wash it off so
I sprayed the deck down and while I was
waiting I hid the stains in the grease
spots with a deck brush to help loosen
them up the stairs don't get much Sun
and they had a ton of mildew on them so
I scrubbed them real good as well and
then I took the siphon tube out of the
bottle and I put it into a bucket of
some clean water and then switched the
black tip out to the green 25 degree
high-pressure tip to wash off the
degreaser this tip is a good mix between
high pressure but not being too strong
to damage the deck so I went over the
whole deck spraying off the grime and
the dirt with this tip I did keep the
nozzle pretty far away from the deck to
make sure I wasn't damaging the wood and
I went through in sweeping patterns
removing all the cleaner it really did a
great job with the mildew on the stairs
but I realized this new pressure washer
I was using wasn't the best one for me
right now one thing I want to know you
are gonna see me switching up the power
washer so if you wonder what you saw one
and then you see the other I started off
with this at the wall 3400 psi
way too aggressive that's why I was
holding it so far back because I didn't
want to damage the wood so I tried to
tune it down and it just wasn't really
working out for me so I'm gonna be using
this Briggs & Stratton for the rest of
it and I'm able to adjust the pressure a
lot lower just be careful when you're
working with pressure washer it will rip
up your wood if you're not careful even
when you can tune it down after I
switched over I felt a lot more
comfortable about being able to control
the pressure and not tear up the wood
now for cleaning a deck you really don't
need a gas-powered model like this most
electric ones are gonna have plenty of
power to get the job done when I was
spraying the columns I made sure not to
spray upwards at the top you don't want
to force any water behind the ceiling
trim and have it mold up there I was
also getting a lot better cleaning now
with this tuned-in power washer because
I wasn't afraid of tearing the wood up
now you could see the difference here it
is pretty crazy I just wasn't getting
close enough before but now that I was
it was really doing its job I finished
up removing all the degreaser and then I
could move on to the next step now that
we got the deck cleaned up really well
I'm gonna go apply that second chemical
the oxalic acid the Zev deck cleaner
that's gonna help brighten the wood and
remove some of that extra stain and
mildew that might have been left over
and it's gonna help prepare for stain
it's an extra step but I think it's
really gonna make the end product better
I swear
back to the black tip and I used the
siphon tube to put the deck spray on so
we could sit for 5 to 10 minutes now the
oxalic acid works kind of like a bleach
and it brightens up the look of the gray
weathered wood and it works much better
when the dirt and grime are already gone
so going with a degreaser first really
let's the oxalic acid do its job more
effectively so after sitting for 5 to 10
minutes I came back again with that
green 25 degree tip and I washed it off
just like before I wouldn't work real
quick about safety when you're running a
pressure washer things can be flying
everywhere so a few things to keep in
mind some safety glasses come on KC
debris comes back up in your face you
also want to wear some closed toed shoes
boots are gray and long pants you don't
want that beam to hit you in the leg or
the foot it could really do some damage
and also you want to have some hearing
protection because the motor is loud and
the water as it comes out of the
high-pressure is very loud I use these I
so tunes extras they are bluetooth so I
can listen to music while I'm doing
things I actually have a great coat for
you too if you use code ft bTW link down
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out there alright we've let the deck dry
for two days and now you can see it's
nice and bright but I do have some
stains here I don't know when these are
from but anyway they didn't come up so
what I'm gonna do is hit them with a
sander I've also got some nails that are
sticking up so we're gonna take care of
those as well before we get ready to do
the final stain an orbital sander is
another great tool to make your deck
refinish a bit easier a hand sanding off
stains like this would take a long time
but an orbital sander takes them up in
just a few seconds now feathering the
parts that you're sanding is also going
to help with that final color to look
more natural so it doesn't have harsh
light too dark spots where you've gone
directly down to bare wood and have
something dark right next to it and
after that I went over the whole deck
looking for nails sticking up and I
drove them flush or below the surface so
that they wouldn't catch the stain pad
an easy way to find these is to run your
hammer over the surface and see where it
catches then you can use a nail set or a
punch to set them below the surface
[Music]
before jumping into the staining we
taped up some plastic sheathing to
protect the house because we are going
to be doing some spraying soon for the
finish I went with a bare
semi-transparent stain and sealer in
chocolate that's chocolate that's
chocolate yummy
now you typically want to go on the
darker side when restaining so that you
can help cover any of the old coloring
that's left over the posts are going to
be easiest to stain just using a brush
so you don't have to worry about any
overspray getting up on that ceiling I
went ahead and got the top of the rails
while I was edit so I wouldn't have to
spray straight down either but for the
rest of the railings and especially the
spindles using a sprayer is one tool
that will save you a ton of time and
make this easy now this is the Flex Co
5000 from Wagner which is a high
velocity low pressure or HVLP sprayer
it's got a wide spray nozzle and a fine
detail nozzle which is the one that I
used and it's perfect for getting into
the spindles and not wasting a lot of
material I started off and I was getting
a lot of drips so I dialed back the
material output and then it was just
right I'll have a link below to the
flexi oh and all the different tools
that I used in this build that are gonna
make your job easier I sprayed one rail
section at a time doing the top and
bottom rails and the three sides of the
spindles that I could get to from there
after spraying I back brushed the stain
onto the wood to smooth it out and fix
any drips or heavy spots the combo of a
sprayer and a brush is a great way to
quickly get the stain on the railings
and get a smooth finish I used a ladder
to get the backsides of the post in the
outside of the railings and spindles and
after finishing up spraying all the
vertical surfaces I could then move on
to the deck floor all right we have all
the railings and the post done so now
it's time for the deck and for the deck
instead of spraying it because we did
tape it up to do that I'm going to use a
lamb's wool applicator I think this
might go on better I'm gonna find out
how it works in between the cracks here
but one thing to note when you get these
out of the package there's gonna be a
lot of little fur on there so one of the
things you can do is take some blue tape
wrap it around and then pull it off and
now that'll get rid of most of the loose
fibers and that way they won't come off
on to the finish
I put the staining pad on the end of a
pole and I fill the page right excuse me
spill the paint tray with this day this
is not paint guys so pour it slowly
now after cleaning up my little mess I
started on the far end of the deck using
the lamb's wool pad I really like this
thing it put down a ton of stain at one
time and did a great job of getting into
the cracks and crevices of the wood I
realized I probably should be cutting in
the edges there so I started doing that
after the first few rows and working
ahead of the staining pen now the nice
part about using the pad on a pole is
that it's smooth is finished out just
like brushing so instead of spraying the
floor and then having to go back and
back brush any puddling all I had to do
is one stroke and it was all done in one
step as I worked my way across the deck
I got into a groove and I was doing
three or four boards at a time it's good
to keep a wet edge and do the full
length of a board all at the same time
in doing three or four at once seemed
like the sweet spot to do it efficiently
for me and one area to look out for
though is between the board's sometimes
the stain pad did a good job of getting
down between them but if they were
uneven or too tightly spaced it didn't
really work as well so I went back and I
turned the pad sideways and I would run
it down the gap between the board's if I
saw this happening in some spots even I
did have to go back with a brush and
fill that in if the pad wasn't doing the
trick but this was definitely the most
satisfying part of the project seeing
that new stain go on and instantly
revive the worn out deck boards was
awesome I worked my way off the deck and
down the stairs and then I could let
that first coat dry there's been about
an hour and a half it says one to two
hour to dry is very warm outside today
it's over 80 degrees so it is doing good
you just want to make sure that it's not
sticky before you put on that second
coat so for the second coat we're just
going to go over it and the coverage is
gonna be a lot better on the second coat
because it's already soaked down into
the wood so I'm gonna go through and do
that second coat on the floor before the
Sun starts to come in it's always best
to work out of the direct sunlight so
the stain doesn't dry too fast when I
put on that second coat it really did a
good job turning some of those lighter
areas like where I had sanded the stains
before and making them a lot darker
after drying for another few hours the
deck turned out amazing and it went from
nasty and bleached out to rich and ready
for a steady summer of barbecues and
after its cured for a few days we'll be
putting the refinished outdoor furniture
back on it and enjoying it all season
if you wanna check out how I refinished
all the furniture to go on the deck the
video is queued up for you right there I
want to give you a huge shout out to all
the folks joining the Builders Club you
can check information down below and
I'll catch you on the next video