My neighbor Frank changed my mind about deck staining

Frank and I were both out sanding our decks last Saturday and he told me he switched to a solid stain after his semi-transparent peeled after just 2 seasons. He said it saved him a whole weekend of work every other year because he just power washes and does a light coat now. That hit different for me because I've been redoing mine every 18 months with the see-through stuff and it's exhausting. Has anyone else made the switch to solid stain and found it holds up better?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.seth24d ago

Hold up, solid stain is a band-aid not a fix. I went that route because I was tired of the prep work too, but after two years the solid stuff started peeling in big flakes where water got trapped under it. Now I'm scraping off this thick mess instead of just a quick sand and recoat. Semi transparent lets the wood breathe, and if you use a quality oil based stain it can last 4 years easy. You're trading one weekend of work for a much bigger headache down the road when that solid film fails and you're down to bare wood. Plus solid hides the grain, which defeats the whole point of having a nice deck if you ask me.

derek_ramirez24d ago

Learned that lesson myself on my last deck. Went with a semi transparent oil stain after fighting with solid stain on a previous project. Used TWP 100 and it lasted just over 4 years before I had to recoat. When I did recoat it was basically just cleaning and a light sanding, maybe an afternoon. That peeling nightmare you described is exactly what I was trying to avoid.