r/Decks • u/cleatusvandamme • 2d ago
Is it time to replace the deck?
This is a bit of a long story.
I inherited my house from my folks a few years ago. The house is roughly 30 years old. Unfortunately, my dad could be excessively cheap and sometimes it would bite him in the ass in the long run.
An example of this is fixing something cheaply and then having to pay more to have it properly corrected.
The deck to the house has been a shitshow of a situation. The original builder of the house did a piss poor job of putting it together. So my dad brought in a guy to build supports to it. A few years later another guy came over and added a railings to it. Over the years he would touch up the stain on it and that was about it.
About 3 years ago, I was able to convince him the boards are 25+ years old and touching them up isn’t going to solve things. Some were close to breaking.
I knew a handy man from the gym and he was able to replace the boards to the deck. At the time I was looking at the posts and noticed how they were cracking. After 3 years, I’m noticing that some other parts of the deck are cracking as well. TBH, I’ve suspected that we probably should have torn everything out and just start fresh.
Last week I tried to do some touch up staining and unfortunately it looks bad. At the moment, I have quite a bit going on and me trying to fix the staining won’t happen. In all honesty, it could be a case where if I did it, I might need a professional to correct my work.
Should I bring in someone to stain it properly or should I just get a whole new deck?
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u/Keeps_Getting_Worse 2d ago
You don't have to "fix" anything. Just finish staining the thing. Get a chip brush and glop that crap on. Cmon.
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u/Commercial-Turnip-49 2d ago
That looks like you've got quite a few years left. Unless you just want to and have extra cash, get somebody out to do the maintenance. Good luck
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u/cleatusvandamme 2d ago
Thanks for the feedback about the deck. I appreciate it!
I thought I’d include a photo of the stain being screwed up.
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u/bigdaddy9901xy 2d ago
Unless you have money burning a hole in your pocket and you just want a new deck, that one looks fine. Just keep up the maintenance and it will be fine for years. Even if you have to replace a board here and there it’s a lot more cost effective to maintain what you have than to replace the whole thing.
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u/Cute-Shape-3842 1d ago
Yes spend all of your money on aesthetics and you will grow old and miserable like me.
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u/Principletrade 2d ago
Some of those 4x6's look like they need replacement going to that egress window, but the deck itself looks like it's probably good for a while if you keep it painted a caulked.
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u/you2234 2d ago
That baby has another 10 years at my house!