Hi, I am David Lupberger with servicemeasure.com. In this video, we are going to talk about deck maintenance. Many homeowners feel that decks don’t require maintenance. I want to show how wrong that assumption is.
In this case, the deck was painted initially by the homeowner that sealed the deck but then they didn’t repaint it. You’ve got direct sunlight coming and baking this deck. I want to point out what happened when this deck maintenance was not taking care off. You can see how boards have dried they split. If there is a child coming on to the deck that is a potential injury just waiting to happen.
You see the gaps up to an inch wide, because the boards have not only dried but they split in warped. If we come over to this side of the deck, we can actually see how the boards are literally coming apart, and in this case, a deck plank has actually broken. All of these is from the lack of maintenance, and the sun just baking this everyday of the year.
In this case, we got a hand rail. The rail both split and is now warped. I’m pointing this out because the maintenance was deferred for so long on this deck, that this deck can no longer be fixed. The remaining fix now is to replace the entire deck itself with fresh wood and to comeback and replace all these handrails.
The only thing that’s left for this deck that we can now work with is the frame itself that will hold support the deck and then the handrails, everything else would need to be replaced.
In this case, I tell people, you're looking to both clean and sear your deck at least once a year. In this case, because of the sudden exposure, you should do it twice a year. The first step is to start with some kind of wood wash. And this allows you to use this to apply on the surface and then wash it off with either a hose or a pressure sprayer, but let me warn you these are chemicals, these are powerful chemicals don’t let it go and in contact with your skin, wear gloves, the directions are there on the label.
So make sure that the deck is clean, and once it is clean and dry then follow up with sealing the deck. You can go to any good hardware store. There appropriate wood sellers. Once again, do this at least once a year. In some cases, you may need to do it more. Do that and you wont run into replacing a deck like this homeowner is going to have to here in the matter of weeks. Once again, this situation that could be avoided with simple annual deck maintenance.
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