Deck Refinishing in Vienna, VA

The postwar ramblers and split levels through the middle of town sit on modest lots, and the decks on them are low: a step or two down to the yard, sometimes with the joists a foot or less off the ground.

A low deck with no airflow underneath takes on moisture from below continuously. When the finish goes early on one of those, that is the condition of the deck rather than a coating failure. Where we can get under it we treat the accessible undersides, and where we cannot we tell you what that means for the recoat interval.

Low clearance is also why the stair stringers and the outer joist go first here, sitting in damp soil or on a patio that holds water. If a downspout is dumping water under the deck we point it out, because staining under one puts a permanent wet stripe across the finish.

Vienna still has real nineteenth and early twentieth century stock: 1904 houses on Lewis Street NW, properties on Walnut Lane and Creek Crossing Road, and the Windover Heights Historic District around Windover Avenue NW.

If your property sits inside Windover Heights, the Town of Vienna Board of Review considers exterior alterations visible from the public street, and color is one of the things weighed. A deck at the rear may not be visible. A deck or porch floor on a side elevation in view of the street can be. Settle that before you choose a stain, and we will brush real sample boards while the application is pending.

On the genuinely old houses there is a second issue. Porch floors and steps of that age carry a century of paint campaigns, and the early layers are brittle and chalky. Modern latex rolled over that does not hold. Those get scraped to sound edges, feathered, and primed with a bonding primer.

A film-forming solid stain on a Vienna deck under oaks is the wrong product almost every time. Water sits on the film, moisture pushes up from the damp underside, and it lets go in sheets within two seasons. We are called out to that regularly.

A penetrating semi-transparent stain or an oil wears thin instead of peeling, so the next visit is a clean and a recoat rather than a full strip. The trade is that more pigment means more ultraviolet protection and less visible grain, so on a deck that does catch afternoon sun we go heavier on pigment than we would under full canopy.

Railings last much longer than the deck floor, because they shed water and take no foot traffic. It is normal to refresh the walking boards twice for every time the rails need doing, and we will tell you when yours do not.

Plenty of Vienna homeowners have Brazilian hardwood, and a fair number inherited it and were never told what it was. Ipe is dense enough to sink in water. It will not take an ordinary deck stain, and left alone it silvers to gray rather than rotting.

What works is a hardwood penetrating oil with ultraviolet inhibitors, applied thin into a cleaned and opened surface with the excess wiped back before it sets. Oil left on Ipe stays tacky and collects leaf debris for months, which under this much canopy is a real problem. Cumaru moves more with humidity and shows fastener movement over time.

April coats everything in Vienna in yellow-green pollen, and stain applied over a pollen film does not bond. Refinishing in spring, we wash close to the stain day rather than a week out and watch for a genuinely clear window. Late May into June is usually the better stretch.

Autumn works too, with one caveat. Dew ends the working day earlier than people expect once nights cool off, and a fresh oil soaked by overnight condensation goes blotchy. We stop with time to spare. Furniture, grills and planters stay off for at least a couple of days, longer in cool weather, because a heavy planter on a curing finish leaves a permanent ring.

We do the carpentry ourselves, so rotted boards, stair treads and rail sections get replaced in the same visit with the same crew. Cut ends get sealed before a new board goes down, because end grain absorbs many times more water than a face and an unsealed cut is where the next rot starts.

If more than about a quarter of your boards dent under a thumbnail, refinishing is money spent on a surface problem when you have a material problem. The framing on these decks is often sound, so replacing decking on the existing structure costs less than people assume.

Fredy Vargas walks every deck himself. Virginia contractor license 2705098145. No minimum job, so a landing and a set of steps is real work to us. Ten percent off for veterans and for anyone 65 or over. Call 703-869-0593.