7 Tricks For Preparing Your Deck For Staining in East Haven, CT

When you are looking to get your deck stained, it’s important that you realize that it’s not something that you can just dive into without being properly prepared for the work ahead. The problem with this technique is that you will almost always forget to do something and then you might have already started to stain the deck only to find out that there are steps you should have taken first — and it makes the whole staining process that much more difficult. With that being the case, let’s now look at and consider seven tricks for preparing your deck for staining in East Haven, CT.

1. Check The Weather

One of the first things you’re going to need to do before you stain your deck is to check the weather. If the weather is too cold or too hot it won’t be good for your staining so you want to be sure that the weather is just about average — and if it is raining, you can certainly forget about staining that day.

2. Look For Rot

If you go to stain your deck and you discover that you have parts that are rotting or rotten, you are going to have to pause and take care of it. The better thing for you to do is to actually check for the rot well before you start the staining process, and to then either fill in parts that are small enough (there is filler for decks if you can clear out the rot) or alternatively if the rot is extensive enough you will have to entirely replace a plank or two on your deck. The thing you need to bear in mind when you do this is to try to match the kind of wood you have for the deck.

3. Protect Your Plants

Another thing you should do before you lift your brush for the first time is to take steps to protect your plants. What this means is that you’re going to need to lightly water the plants and cover them with plastic so that none of the stains gets on them.

4. Sand Where Needed

It’s going to be important that your deck be as smooth as possible, and if you want that to be the case you have to gently stain all parts of the deck that are going to be stained. The sanding process removes minor imperfections on the deck, which is a good thing because if there is one thing that staining does it is to highlight the qualities and the imperfections of the deck really well.

5. Measure Your Deck

If you don’t want to find yourself with a ton of excess stain, one of the best things you can do is to measure the deck before you stain it. The reason that this is the case is that you can calculate how much stain you are going to need based on the area of the deck. Of course, it’s better to have a little extra stain in case you want to do some touch-up but if you get too much it will just go to waste.

6. Sweep Your Deck Well

It should be pretty clear why you are going to want to sweep your deck before you stain. There can be so many things that land on your deck from leaves to twigs to just basic dust — all of these things need to be removed. If left on the deck, you can expect that your staining will not be quite complete as it will be full of the things you left.

7. Remove Deck Furniture

Lastly, one of the absolute first things you should do when you are getting ready to stain is to remove the deck furniture. This should be exceedingly obvious but you just aren’t going to be able to stain your deck if your furniture is still on it, and of course, it’s going to be a lot easier even to just clean in preparation for staining once you remove the furniture.

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