Deck Refinishing in Bethesda, MD

The usual history on these decks is four or five different products applied by four or five different people over twenty-five years. A semi-transparent one year, a solid color stain a few years later because the semi-transparent was blotchy, then a deck resurfacing coating because the solid was peeling.

Those thick resurfacing products are the hard ones. They are built to bridge splits, which means they are also built to trap water underneath, and once they let go they come up in sheets that take the failed layers below with them. Patching into that never looks right and never lasts.

So the first real decision on a Bethesda deck is whether we are washing and recoating, or stripping back to wood. A stripper, dwell time, agitation, rinse, then a brightener to correct the pH and reopen the grain, then real drying time before anything goes on. It is slow, it is most of the labor, and it is why two decks that look the same from the kitchen window are not the same price.

What we do not do is open the pressure washer up to blast a coating off. On thirty year old pine that erodes the soft spring wood, leaves a furry, ribbed surface, and guarantees a blotchy finish.

On a typical Bethesda lot the deck is a short distance from a fence line and the neighbor's planting bed is on the other side of it. That matters, because deck strippers are caustic and deck brighteners are acidic, and neither belongs in somebody's hydrangeas.

We pre-wet and tarp plant material on both sides of the line, catch and direct rinse water rather than letting it sheet wherever gravity sends it, and neutralize before it leaves the work area. On the streets that drain toward Little Falls Branch and the Capital Crescent Trail corridor that is the difference between doing the job and doing damage.

Spraying a finish is generally out on these lots. Overspray carries further than people think and your neighbor's car is parked twenty feet away. We back-brush and roll, which on a deck is the better method anyway: it works the product into the grain and the checks instead of laying a film across the top of them.

Access is the other small-lot reality. Many of these back yards are reached through a gate, and a gate decides what equipment can get back there. We look at that at the estimate rather than on the morning.

The 20814 version of this job is a balcony or a roof terrace, and the constraint is everything below you.

Water and product cannot go over the edge. A balcony drains through a scupper or a deck drain that goes somewhere, and that somewhere is often a neighbor's balcony two floors down. We contain and collect wash water rather than rinsing it off the slab, we do not spray at height, and we work on windless mornings when a finish is involved.

The association controls the rest. Whether owner maintenance of the balcony surface is even permitted, what products are allowed, whether anything may be fastened to the rail, and what hours work may happen. We get that confirmed in writing by management before we schedule rather than relying on what a neighbor did last year.

Materials come up the service elevator, which gets reserved, and the corridor to your door gets covered. Certificate of insurance goes to management first. We hold Virginia contractor license 2705098145 and are licensed, bonded and insured in Virginia.

The work itself is usually the wood rail cap, a small platform or duckboard system, and any painted metal. Many of these surfaces are not wood at all, and a membrane or a coated concrete slab is a different scope entirely, so we identify the substrate first.

Small decks get walked on constantly and there is nowhere else to stand, so wear concentrates in the same lanes: the path from the door to the stairs, and the spot the grill lives.

A semi-transparent penetrating stain wears rather than peels, which means the next refresh is a wash and a recoat instead of a strip. A solid color stain covers more, hides mismatched replacement boards, and looks better on a deck that has been through five products already, but when it goes it goes by peeling and the next cycle is a strip. Both are defensible. It depends on what is on the deck now and how long you plan to keep doing this.

Rails and the deck floor can take different products, and often should. The rail is vertical, sheds water and holds a film far longer than the floor does, so a solid on the rails with a penetrating stain on the boards is a combination that ages well and saves you work.

A stripped deck has to dry before finish goes on, and that is a weather judgment rather than a number of hours. We would rather move a day than seal moisture into pine.

Fredy looks at the deck himself and tells you which of the two jobs it is: a wash and recoat, or a strip and restore. Those are not close in price and nobody can tell them apart from a photograph. He also tells you which boards he would replace first, even if you are not doing them this year.

No minimum job size, so a single flight of stairs and a rail run is work we will take. Weekends by appointment. Call 703-869-0593.