Q: I have 35-year-old decking made of pressure-treated wood planks. They have been stained several times. Now the surface is splintering and nail heads are popping, creating a risk to bare feet. I have spread indoor-outdoor carpeting over broad areas as a temporary, seasonal fix. Is there a better solution, short of tearing up and replacing the 800-square-foot deck?
A: Sometimes when wooden decking splinters, it’s possible to round over sharp edges with sandpaper to eliminate the slivers that poke into feet. But sanding isn’t practical when the wood is so heavily weathered that the whole deck has splinters.
And there’s another reason not to sand your deck extensively: Because it was built in the 1980s, the pressure-treated wood you mention probably contains arsenic, in a formula known as CCA, for chromated copper arsenate. Mostly because of concerns about arsenic leaching out and contaminating soil, manufacturers quit putting this preservative into residential decking in 2003. Even before that, though, the Environmental Protection Agency warned against sanding CCA-treated wood to minimize exposure to arsenic, an element that can increase the risk of getting certain types of cancer.
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In your case, replacing the decking is the only sure way to make it friendly to bare feet for the long term. If you need to put off that job, you can make your old deck much more pleasant to use for at least a while either by applying a high-build, acrylic coating or by continuing to use indoor-outdoor carpet some of the time.
High-build, acrylic coatings create a film that is many times thicker than regular opaque deck stain or even paint. The coatings are so thick that they can fill cracks up to a quarter-inch wide and lock in splinters. Options include Rust-Oleum’s RockSolid 20X deck resurfacer ($52.99 a gallon at Home Depot), Behr’s advanced deckover ($44.98 a gallon) and Olympic’s rescue it ($39.98 a gallon).
On some decks, these coatings provide an easy-to-clean, splinter-free surface that lasts for years. But customer reviews make it clear that the coatings can peel, sometimes in less than a year. And if the coatings fail, they are difficult to remove completely.
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Although the high-build coatings are all acrylics, the manufacturers’ recommendations about how to apply them vary significantly. With all three, you’re supposed to thoroughly clean the deck using a deck cleaner. Each brand has one; Behr’s all-in-one wood cleaner is $12.21 a gallon at Home Depot. But with each finish, you will probably need other products to prepare the surface, and with some finishes, you need two coats of the final finish. Factor in all of the costs and your time to help you decide whether it’s worth it. Among Home Depot customers, Olympic’s rescue it scored 4.5 points out of 5, Behr’s advanced deckover scored 3.9 and Rust-Oleum’s 20X deck resurfacer scored 3.8.
For the Behr product, you first need to take off all the old finish with a chemical stripper, such as Behr wood stain and finish stripper ($21.96 a gallon at Home Depot), then clean. With the Olympic product, you’re supposed to scrape off loose finish, clean and then go over the deck with a pressure washer. Rust-Oleum says to scrape off loose finish, remove any large splinters that might poke through the final finish, wash the deck and then prime with RockSolid deck start wood primer ($51.48 a gallon). This is a specialty primer that dries clear and seals in the remaining finish and weathered wood.
You can apply the primer when the deck boards are still slightly damp from the cleaning step, provided all actual puddles are gone. With the Olympic and Behr finishes, you must wait for the wood to dry completely before you apply them. Rust-Oleum says a single coat of its finish is sufficient. Olympic and Behr recommend two coats of their products. Behr adds a prep step that the others don’t mention but that might be wise for all: After the deck is clean and prepped, brush a little finish into cracks up to a quarter-inch wide to pre-fill them. This will help the main finish stay more level and reduce the risk of cracks, which could lead to peeling.
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Covering a splintery deck with indoor-outdoor carpet is another option. Trade the time and money spent choosing and buying these rugs, some of which look quite stylish, for the time and money you wouldn’t be investing in preparing the deck for paint and then applying the coating. But keep carpet sections small enough that you can hang them over the deck balustrade or another place to dry between rainstorms. While the carpets are drying, clean the decking underneath. Reinstall the rugs once they and the wood are dry.
The chemical preservatives in your decking minimize the risk of rot, but it’s still a real concern, especially if the boards stay damp for long periods and the boards were trimmed to length without coating the ends with a preservative. CCA-treated deck boards typically received only a relatively light application of the preservative because they were rated for aboveground use only.
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