Got tired of my brown deck. Every time I slathered that cedar colored UV protectant on it, it got to look more like brown paint than anything. Sorry I don't have a full picture of the old deck, I wasn't very proud of it but here's a part of it in the back ground just to give an idea of the ugly color.

The stuff I was using was Flood UV deck treatment and was supposed to last 2 years on flat surfaces and 4 on upright components. Well, the wood on the platform was always starting to turn black before the second year was up. That's why I couldn't use the clear finish, because it wouldn't cover the black, so I had to use the Cedar color to cover up, hence browner and browner.

The deck is only 6 year old green treated wood so probably was only 3rd time I had applied finish. I had to come up with something better in color and less often in application intervals.

Now I'm not advocating using Behr Deckover, it is very good long lasting paint. We did the cement on the front steps and that was 5 years ago and it still looks great. But this it wood now so it might not be as good in that way.

Here's my story:

I talked to the people at Home Depot, told them what I had as far as deck goes and they told me I'd only have to use the wood cleaner and deckover, because the deck was on the south side of the house(?) and the warranty would be good doing it that way. I said are you sure? They assured me it was correct.

When I got home I read the instructions on the cleaner, it said first you had to use stripper to remove the old finish and of coarse use all the protective equipment involved (and I didn't now if it would hurt vinyl siding either so was a little leary about using it.) So called HD back, got a different person, asked him about it, oh yeah he says, if you don't get all the old finish off, the DO will only stick as good as what it's on. You'll need stripper too. Now this is a 100 mi round trip for me to get to HD so I'm getting little perturbed.

Continue to read about stripping, yada yada, let set 5 to 45 minutes, keep wet (?) hose off and if all the old finish didn't come off the first time, do the stripping again! Then use the cleaner and get this, if the finish is too rough then sand everything as needed! Well I thought, if I need to sand smooth, then why do I need to strip anything in the first place? I'll just sand the whole thing.

Add to that, let wood dry 24 hrs after cleaning or rain, plus you need 24 hrs after application of DO before it was rain safe. Plus there was a range of Temperatures and humidity needed to apply and you couldn't be in full sun or have the can in full sun. So what do I need to do, carry an umbrella all the time I'm out there? This is supposed to be a 'summer project' or anytime you want really.

I told them right out that their product was way too complicated and almost impossible to comply with all the rules and conditions and way too much time & labor involved. What could they say, they're only employees, partially trained and all with different answers from each other, but I was polite.

I decided to just go ahead and sand everything down to bare wood, took me 2 days but whatever, I didn't have to buy stripper and gear, mess with chemicals, take chances with the vinyl siding or wait for all the drying times.

#36 grit in the belt sander made it go pretty fast and took all the knots in the wood down to smooth as silk. I also had a 1/3 sheet vibrator sander with 60 grit to get into corners and places the belt sander wouldn't go. It was a job but now it's bare wood looking like new under there (smile).

By now it's been a couple of weeks so I open the can of DO and the stuff is so thick I break the paint stick off, twice, trying to stir up the can. I call HD, ask them if it's too thick and they ask a bunch of questions and then tell me better bring in the cans. Yes, 100 mi round trip. They didn't even look in the cans, they just put them in the machine and shook them up for a few minutes and said, there you go! Grrrr, I had a drill driver and a paint paddle, why didn't they just tell me it needed to be stirred better?

The days I was going to paint forecast said PC, 84 degrees and 60% humidity. Well within the 50-90 degree range with 80% max humidity suggested on the can. Yes you guessed it, although starting out somewhat cooler it got to 93d with 85% humidity and pure sunny hot both days. Rain forecast for Sunday so can't wait either. Need that 24 hour dry time.

DO dried pretty fast in the heat so I kept it moving along trying to do shadowed sides first etc and got the first coat on in one day. Then figured out they didn't sell me enough DO after calculating all I told them and I was going to be short for a second coat so, yes, 100 mi round trip to get another gallon of DO. Good part, I had to wait 6 hrs for a second coat so at least they were still open friday evening and I had to wait until saturday morning to apply second coat so I didn't loose any time that way.

It turned out pretty nice, much brighter and cleaner looking. But next time you see that Deckover commercial, showing them rolling deckover onto rough, cracked old looking wood and then show people dancing in their stocking feet afterwards, don't believe it, it can turn into something much more than that and I don't know if I'd go this route again. The good part, I should be able to go longer than the 1-1/2 years I'm doing it now and I think with the DO, I can just touch up after a while or just redo the flat parts every 4 years or so. The upright part can sometimes go even longer.

I still have to put up the 3 sheets of tan plastic lattice but won't have to do anything to that.

I don't expect or want arguments or advice. This is the way it went for me and will be different if I ever do it again. If someone else can avoid these pitfalls by reading this then more power to them. It you have limited time, unpredictable weather and don't like the use of chemicals, this product it probably not for you. I'm sure Behr has all these stipulations simply to CTA and avoid warranty settlements so if it works for you like it's suppose to, fine, but if not you can end up doing a lot of work for nothing.

Thanks for looking! :-)