Hi all,

I re-did my 1800 sf deck (two levels) last summer. I got a lot of useful info from this site, so I would like to share what I learned from my project.

My old cedar deck was about 25 years old. The wood was getting very soft and disintegrating. Because of high cedar deck cost, I went with PT. To be precise, it is KDAT.

For the upper deck, I sanded all sides with 80 grit sand paper and painted all 6 sides with Cabot Semi-transparent stain. The upper deck was put down in May.

For the lower deck, I did not sand the boards because it was just too tedious. They were put down in August and stained with TWP Pecan in Sept or Oct.

Things I notice:
1. Cabot color chart does not represent how it looks on the PT wood. Not even close. I chose New Redwood. It looks like Brunt Orange on PT. BTW, Cabot does not have sample stain in pint size. You have to buy a whole gallon. Too much of a gamble... I bought 3 gallons to try out different colors. Crazy.

2. Rain stopped beading on Cabot stain after about 1 month. The wood started to crack from the inside this spring. I don't know if it is because I painted all 6 sides. I was told painting all 6 sides would give max protection. I am not sure anymore...

3. I could only put one coat of TWP on PT deck initially. If I put a second coat, it would not cure probably. I am planning to put on a second coat this spring.

4. The TWP color is very nice. And they have free samples to try.

5. Water still beads on TWP this spring.

6. There are a little bit of cracking in the lower deck. But the cracking is different from that of upper deck. The cracks in the lower deck are the typical PT wood cracks while the cracks in the upper deck look like moisture related.

Overall, I give TWP a thump up and Cabot Semi-transparent a thump down after one season.

This post was edited by scott_home on Wed, Apr 10, 13 at 12:28