Deck Refinishing in McLean, VA
McLean houses are rarely built from one material, and the deck is where those materials meet. What the wall is made of matters here as much as what the decking is made of.
Three houses on one street, three different decks
A single McLean street can hold a 1948 brick cape in Chesterbrook, a 1970s contemporary with cedar siding tucked into a wooded lot, and a 2015 rebuild in stucco and stone. The decks on those three houses have nothing in common.
The cape has a small low deck or a landing off the back, pine, probably added in the nineties. The contemporary has cedar or redwood rails and a multi-level deck stepping down a slope. The rebuild has a large raised deck bolted through a stucco wall, often with hardwood decking specified by the builder.
Three prep problems, three coating systems, three prices. We walk each one and price it on what it is rather than running a square foot number off a spreadsheet. That is the single most useful thing we do at a McLean estimate.
Where the ledger goes through a stucco wall
The rebuild wave that ran through McLean from the late 1990s onward left both traditional hard-coat stucco and synthetic systems over foam. A deck ledger bolted through either one is the detail we look at first, because stucco hides water and gives you no warning until something stains inside.
What we check on a stucco house before quoting a finish:
- The head of the ledger, where flashing should be carrying water out over the face rather than behind it.
- The kickout where a deck roof or a stair roof meets the wall. A missing kickout puts a concentrated stream into the wall assembly.
- Every penetration nearby: hose bibbs, dryer vents, light fixtures. Sealant at those is cheap and is almost always the thing that has been ignored.
- The base, where stucco meets grade, a stone water table or a deck skirt.
- Cracks running down from a window corner above the deck. A crack you can get a fingernail into is a different conversation from hairline crazing.
We do stucco repair as well as painting, so a soft patch found on day one gets cut, filled with a flexible compound and textured to match rather than becoming somebody else's job in three weeks.
Cedar and redwood rails, and the brown streaks that come back
The 1960s and 70s houses in Langley Forest, Chain Bridge Forest and the lanes off Georgetown Pike are heavy on cedar and redwood, and the deck rails and skirting are usually the same wood as the siding.
Cedar has one classic failure and it catches people every time: tannin bleed. Put a light-colored coating over bare or weathered cedar without a stain-blocking primer and brown streaks come through within months. It looks like the finish is dirty. It is the wood coming through the finish.
Cedar is also soft, so it cleans up beautifully with a brightener and takes a semi-transparent well, but it will not survive an aggressive wash. We keep pressure low and let the cleaner do the work. Dark staining around fasteners on cedar is tannin reacting with metal, and it cleans up partially rather than completely. We say that before you see it.
Finger-jointed trim, and the parts of the deck nobody looks at
The 1990s McLean houses used a lot of finger-jointed poplar and pine for trim, and the same material turned up on deck fascia, skirt boards, stair risers and rail caps. It was cheap then and it is thirty years old now.
Finger-jointed stock fails at the joints. The glue lines telegraph through the finish, then they open, then the end grain drinks water and the board goes in a season. On a deck it shows first on the fascia band around the outside and on the rail cap, which sits flat and holds every rain.
We expect to replace some of that as part of the job. Because we do the carpentry ourselves, that discovery does not stall anything: cut out, replace, prime all faces including the cut ends, keep moving. The alternative is filling a failing joint and handing you an invoice, and it looks fine for exactly one season.
Balconies at the Tysons end of 22102
Plenty of McLean deck calls are not decks. The 22102 side is mid-rise and high-rise condominium and newer townhouse communities, and the outdoor surface is a concrete balcony with a metal rail.
That is a different job and a different set of rules. Buildings want a certificate of insurance on file with management. The service elevator has to be reserved. There are hours you can work and hours you cannot, and you do not get to assume a seven o'clock start.
We are set up for that and we can get a certificate to a management company. The work itself is concrete staining or an epoxy coating on the floor, and rail prep, which on a balcony means dealing with rust at the base of the posts before anything goes on. Containment matters more than anywhere else: nothing blows off a fourteenth-floor balcony onto the cars below. Because we have no job minimum, one balcony is a job we will actually take.
Small decks behind the Kent Gardens and Salona Village houses
Not all of McLean is estate work. The postwar brick capes and colonials in Chesterbrook, Kent Gardens and Salona Village have modest decks and landings behind them, often a single level with six or eight steps to the garden.
They are worth doing properly and they are a short job. Wash, brighten, let it dry through, sand the walking boards and the rail tops for splinters, then a semi-transparent. On a deck that size the difference between a good result and a poor one is almost entirely drying time, and drying time is free if nobody is in a hurry.
We will also tell you when the rails do not need doing. Vertical surfaces shed water and take no foot traffic, so it is completely normal to refinish the floor twice for every time the rails need attention.
Working around a family that lives there
These houses are occupied and the deck is usually off the kitchen or the family room, which means the back door is out of use while we work. We tell you which days that is, we keep the site clean at the end of each one, and Fredy checks the schedule daily.
Furniture, grills and planters stay off for at least a couple of days afterwards, longer in humid weather. A heavy planter put back on a curing finish leaves a permanent ring, and a rubber foot can bond to a curing oil and mark the board.
Fredy Vargas walks every deck himself before pricing. You get a written scope naming the products, the number of coats and what is being repaired. Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured, four employees, same crew every day since 2002. Ten percent off for veterans and for anyone 65 or over. Call 703-869-0593.
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