Deck Refinishing in Annandale, VA

The canopy along Holmes Run and Accotink Creek sits over most of these back yards, and it lands on the deck. Three different marks get called the same thing:

• Tannin staining. Brown weeping streaks from oak and poplar litter left on the boards. Cosmetic. A wood brightener after the cleaner pulls most of it out.
• Mildew and algae. Black speckling and green film on the shaded half of the deck, worst under a limb. It has to be killed and washed off, not coated over.
• Iron tannate. The black halo around every screw head, the wood's tannin reacting with the fastener. That one does not fully come out, and anyone promising otherwise has not done many of these.

Pollen matters too. April and May put a yellow film on everything in 22003, and stain laid over pollen does not bond. In a heavy week we rewash the morning we coat, or we move the deck to June.

The split levels and bi-levels put the main floor half a story up, so the deck off the back stands eight or ten feet in the air on posts with a run of stairs down to the yard.

Those fail in a different order than the low rambler decks. The walking surface and rail tops go first from sun. The stair stringers go at the bottom where they meet a wet patio or bare ground. The post bases rot upward from the footing while the top of the post looks new.

They need staging rather than a ladder leaned against a rail, because the rails, the skirt and the underside all have to be reached properly instead of sprayed from below and called finished. While we are set up, the tall gable end above the deck is usually the most weathered wall on the house, and it is worth doing in the same visit.

Plenty of Annandale houses still wear their original cementitious or asbestos-cement shingle siding, and on a retrofitted deck that siding sits directly behind the ledger and the rail returns.

It is stable if left alone. What it does not tolerate is sanding, grinding, blasting or a pressure washer tip held close to it, which rules out the fast way of cleaning a deck against the house wall. We wash low, keep the wand off the shingles entirely, and mask that wall before any stripper goes on.

If your house has it, say so when you call. It changes how we set the job up.

There is no county-wide architectural board over ordinary Annandale streets and no dominant association across 22003. For most people the color of the deck is their own decision, which is not true in half the towns we work in.

The exceptions are worth knowing. Sleepy Hollow Woods runs an architectural committee working from covenants written in 1959 and it does review plans. Broyhill Crest has a community association taking in Annagrove, Beverly Manor Park and Oliver Park. Holmes Run Acres has its own historic district, which is a point of pride rather than a hurdle for refinishing a deck.

Everywhere else the only thing limiting you is the wood. We brush out real samples on your boards, in your light, because a stain that reads warm brown in the store reads gray under an oak canopy.

The early Holmes Run Acres phases were designed by Nicholas Satterlee and Francis Lethbridge and show their post and beam frame on purpose: flat roofs, wide plank siding, exposed beam ends, and decks that read as part of the floor plan rather than an addition.

Those beam ends are end grain and they drink water, so they are usually the first thing we replace or seal. The deck often runs straight out from a wall of glass, which means no spraying and a cut line visible from the sofa. And because the roofs are flat, the water off them lands on the deck in one place rather than spread along an eave. Wherever that falls is where the boards have gone soft.

If more than about a quarter of the boards dent under a thumbnail, you have a material problem rather than a finish problem. The framing on these retrofits is often still sound, so replacing the decking on the existing structure is a smaller job than people assume.

Fredy Vargas walks the deck himself before quoting. He sounds the posts and the ledger and tells you whether this is a wash and stain or a full strip and restore. Those are not close in price and neither can be judged from a photograph. Call 703-869-0593.