How to Restore a Weathered Deck

Responding to a request by Andretta and Kenneth Allen, Ron stopped off in New Orleans, the gulf coast city steeped in history and tradition. The Allens live in a quiet suburban neighborhood on the south side of the city with their young sons Benjamin and David. While their home isn't nearly as old as the city they live in, their deck looked as though it might have been! The Allens assumed that replacing their deck was their only option, but Dr. Ron offered a surprising diagnosis.

Click Here For a list of what you will need in order to complete this project.

At first glance, prospects for restoring the deck did not look good. The deck boards were splintered and had faded to a dingy shade of gray…

many of the boards had actually twisted out of place…

...and nail heads were popping up everywhere.

Ron agreed that the deck looked dismal, but was fairly confident that his simple methods of restoration would bring amazing results. Ron pointed out that the wood getting wet, soaking up water, expanding, and then drying out and contracting was the cause of several of the problems with this deck (the popping nails, the cracks on the surfaces of the boards and the twisting lumber). The Allens could prevent this weather damage in the future by making sure that a good sealer is applied to the deck surface every year or two.

1. Straighten twisted boards:

• The first step of Ron's restoration process was to fix the twisted planks. They began by removing the old nails. Ron drove the prongs of a nail puller beneath the heads…

• …and then Andretta used the other end of the nail puller to pry the nails free.

• Ron showed Andretta and Kenneth what he referred to as his "high tech deck board-straightening tool."

• Ron had taken a 2 by 4 and cut a notch out of it that was designed to slip over the end of the twisted 2 by 4.

• As Ron used his tool to twist the deck board back into place, Kenneth reattached the problem plank with five-inch screws, which would create a stronger grip than nails. An advantage to fixing the board, rather than replacing it, was that they would not end up with a strip of new lumber that did not match the rest of the deck.

2. Fix nail pops:

• With the twisted boards straightened out, they turned their attention to the popping nails. The ones that they could grip with the nail puller were removed and replaced with nails that were thicker and slightly longer for better holding power.

• For the nails that were nearly flush with the surface, they used a tool called a drift punch to countersink them slightly.

• For a few of the boards that still wouldn't lie flat they employed a few more creative methods. In several cases, Kenneth stood on the board, using his own body weight to hold it down while Ron hammered it into place.

3. Deck cleaning solution:

• With all the nails driven in, they were ready to clean the deck with a deck wash and brightener made just for that purpose.

• They poured the solution into a garden sprayer and Ron wet the deck thoroughly.

• Kenneth and Andretta followed behind, lightly scrubbing the solution into the wood with push brooms. The scrubbing was important because it evenly distributed the solution, but it was the chemicals that did most of the work loosening the accumulated dirt and bleaching out the stains and discolorations.

4. Power rinse:

• After about 15 minutes, they began to rinse off the cleaning and bleaching solution using a pressure washer connected to a garden hose. The pressure washer boosted the household water pressure by about 15 times. The high-pressure water produced a scrubbing effect as it rinsed off the chemicals.