Nothing to do about it now.

You might get Him to counter sink the fasteners,try sanding the worst out and just put the finish on.

Waiting that long was a bad idea more could have been gained fixing the stains right away. J.

The discoloration will come out easily with any over the counter deck brightning wash from the big box store.

Applying stain (transparent or opaque) after using the deck brightner will prevent the discoloration from the fasteners from returning.

Trouble is most deck brightners are oxalic acid base. This will eat up the fastners even faster x 100 if they are non glav. J.

Thanks everyone for the tips. Would the Restore-a-Deck eat up the fasteners also? I was looking at having the contractor use it for prep work.

Sorry, I am a single mom with a young adult child who can not drive due to a medical disability and just do not have the time to do any of this myself. I really did not know that anything could be done to correct it, like countersinking, until yesterday. Hence, my question asking about it. I would have addressed it with the contractor last year but thought we were just SOL due to him not admitting that it is his fault. The construction of the deck is beautiful..he just screwed up with the nails. The deck got done about a month before the snow flew and this summer I have not had time to address it until now.

If I had to accept it as is, then is there a stain that I could use that may lessen the impact? I have a beautiful new deck and I hate to cover it with solid stain plus I do not like the how the stain looks, as well as how hard it is to get it off. Would a semi-transparent just accent the nail stains and not hide them?

The two part system from www.woodrich-brand.com would be a good prep for your project. However the brightner and some scrubing would do it as well there is really nothing to strip off far as old finish goes but you might as well have your worker use both.

Sometimes over use of the prep will cause the non glav fasteners to further rust out,if this is happening , preasure treated pine will react to glav fastners as well sometimes.

Get some samples from the woodrich guys. Dont be so woried over the solid/not solid thing its not a big issue.Quality outdoor finish like woodrich and twp do not have to be striped you just clean and put another coat on.

J.

If you could get someone qualified to state that the nails used were not hot dipped galvanized, I would go after the contractor to replace the deck with proper fastners.

I agree with dooer's comment, but if that is not an option I would buy some quality deck screws, grab my screw gun and start fastening the deck properly at all critical structural points- joists to house/face plates, posts, etc. If the contractor nailed the top decking down that ads insult to injury on top of using nails (and especially interior nails). If the top decking was nailed down I would strongly consider adding at least a single screw per top-board and joist intersection.

It is hard to believe that so many contractors looking to shave time/$ can build decks with improper nails and other amazingly improper and poor workmanship methods and pass inspection. I just finished rebuilding our 10 year old deck after the nails started pulling out which caused the stair case and floor to come apart and sag, railing and spindles coming loose from the deck frame, etc. Whoever built your and my deck is an absolute disgrace to the building profession and should not be allowed to continue to build anything for anyone without undergoing some serious retraining and monitoring of workmanship quality...

There is a way that might work and the costs would be new deck screws and labor--which the deck builder should provide free.

Pull all the deck boards. May need to pull the nails first unless the boards come up with nails in them. Knock out the nails, turn the boards 180(top is now the bottom), set them back in the original place and install deck screws(3" long) in the nail holes.

Brian Sykes, you do realize this was 7 years ago?

I'm also having the same problem. So, I don't like to use nail guns to hang anything on the wall.

@Helen Yang Just to let you know this is a 10-year-old post and what is hanging something on the wall has to do with a nail gun?