Bryan Baeumler
How to renew a wooden deck, resurface a concrete porch,
The season is ripe for busting out those patio lanterns. Let’s just hope they don’t illuminate wood flooring that looks as old as the Kim Mitchell song (it’s 29 this year). “Around this time of the year, the first thing people want to do is sit on their deck,” says Bryan Baeumler. “But chances are, if you put up a deck last year, you used either a cedar, a pressure-treated lumber, or even worse, a composite. And now your deck looks 10 years old. Don’t fret! We can fix this.” Let the host of HGTV’s DIY Disaster and House of Bryan:
In the Sticks help you prep that patio and dust off that deck. Today he answers Star readers’ questions about blotchy deck floors, dull concrete porches and secondary furnaces. Bryan: I have a green treated deck that is eight years old. I have not treated it, but each spring I power wash, and the last two years have cleaned it with REZ, a mildew remover and wood rejuvenator concentrate. Although it does a good job cleaning, I am left with a “blotchy” appearance. I do not want to stain, as from past experiences this is a make-work project that never ends. My wife hates the look and is threatening to have the surface replaced with composite. But the current wood is in too good shape to waste — in my opinion.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
Dick V., Port Elgin Hi, Dick! Wood decks are challenging. Pressure-treated wood is essentially a wood that is impregnated with chemicals to resist rotting and to resist insects from eating it. But over time, those chemicals will leech out of the wood, which means it will start to rot. The sun is beating down on it, so it’s basically softening up those wood fibres and they’ll start to open up and grey. When it gets wet in the fall or spring, those fibres will again open up and more organic material will get in there, which breaks down the wood surface. So, the pressure washing is good, but you have to be really careful when pressure washing a wood deck that you don’t get too close and destroy the wood fibres — you can actually turn the surface of your deck fuzzy.
There are lots of deck cleaners that will renew the appearance of the wood, but eight years old is really getting up there. It’s certainly an adult deck. In addition to power washing it carefully, you could try using an oxidizing cleaner. Apply with a scrub brush and give that deck a bit of a work. You could also put some water sealer on it — that would keep the water from getting into those wood fibres.
Another thing I would suggest you try — if the power washing and scrubbing isn’t giving you the look you desire — is a solid stain. That would certainly cover it up, although it would mean you’d need to have regular maintenance over the next few years to touch up that stain. It’s never going to look brand new again, but that’s the challenge we face with natural building products that are exposed to the environment: they break down over time.
But if you want a natural material, you’re looking at regular maintenance through cleaning, water sealing, staining and things like that. Hi Bryan. We have a twelve-yearold home with poured concrete front steps and porch. We were thinking of getting it resurfaced as the concrete looks pretty dull. We’ve heard about stone tile and some stucco type products that can be used to resurface the concrete. We are looking for something that is resilient to our winters and is low to no maintenance. What would you recommend? Thanks.
Vito L., Richmond Hill Well Vito, one thing with concrete is it’s exposed to the elements. If it was built properly and reinforced, hopefully you don’t have cracking going through it. There’s a bunch of things you can do. You can use a concrete coating and resurface it or you can have someone tool in and colour it, giving it a stamped concrete look. You can even have someone come in and grind the surface down flat and seal it, but the issue there is you don’t want a slippery surface right in front of your door. You’ll want something with a bit of texture in it.
What I’d recommend is giving it a good power wash first. You could resurface it and repour concrete over top and do an exposed aggregate, which is a great non-slip surface and looks great on top. Repouring a slab of exposed aggregate over top or doing some sort of concrete coating and refinishing procedure is going to be fairly low maintenance, assuming the slab below is in good shape and will last a long time. Concrete in itself is grey, but you can also look at staining it — there are products or even companies that will come in and stain it a different colour. You could also do designs in it!
If you are going to do a coating, I would caution you to make sure it isn’t too thin and that it’s sealed really well. If water gets in between the coating and the concrete, it’ll freeze in the winter, which will cause that surface coating to crack. So it’s got to be ground down, cleaned and etched properly, and well-adhered. Hi Bryan. Love your shows! I am building a new home in the GTA and want to put the second furnace in the attic — what should absolutely be considered? And can you suggest an alternative space, i.e. garage? Thanks.
Kira S. Thanks for watching, Kira! Now, if you’re planning on putting the furnace in the attic, it has to be inside an enclosed space. It has to be in a warm zone — a room in and of itself that’s insulated properly. One issue with putting a furnace up on a top floor is you’re going to get some vibrations when it operates. So you’ll want to mount it on a vibration isolator, which would absorb any of the vibrations from the unit.
It’s tough for me to recommend where you should put your furnace. Depending on the design of the home and which room needs heat, there will be a limited amount of distance that a furnace can be away from those rooms. The best thing to do is consult with an HVAC engineer and have them design that system so it works around any issues that may come about. There’s a certain science to where the furnace can be located. You also want to make sure the room is big enough that there’s combustible air for the furnace. Hi Bryan. Our two-storey house is twenty-six years old — I think it’s time to add more insulation to our attic. Even with air conditioning the bedrooms are hot, the main floor is comfortable and the basement is freezing — I try to increase the airflow to the top floor by restricting the airflow in the basement and on the main floor. Plus we keep the fan running on the furnace so that the cold air will not sink to the basement. I place fans to circulate the upstairs air. Plus I point a fan up the staircase to help keep the cooled air on the top bedroom floor. But will adding more insulation to the attic make it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter? Thank you for your help.
Jane W., Oakville Well, Jane, you certainly tried all the right tricks before taking the next step of upping the R-value in the attic. Certainly, leaving the fan running will circulate the air and bring that cool air up from the basement. Adjusting the baffles — by restricting the airflow on lower floors so it pushes the air further to the upper floors — is another way of balancing that system properly. But it sounds like there’s not enough insulation in the attic. What happens in the winter is the heat escapes your home up through the ceiling into the attic and vents outdoors. However, heat does rise, so it will suck all that warm air out of the basement, making it cold. In the summer, meanwhile, the heat still rises in the house, but only to a certain degree. Heat always moves from hot to cold.
So there are a couple of things I’d recommend. Consider upgrading the insulation in the attic to at least an R50. Also, make sure you’ve got proper airflow inside the attic. If there aren’t enough vents and no air moving through the attic, that sun will beat down on the roof, heating that space up ridiculously, and that hot air will transfer down through the ceiling into the upper bedrooms, making them very hot. It will feel like the basement is very cool. But also, when the air conditioning is running and the fan is circulating, it’s taking that hot air from upstairs and transferring it into the basement as well, warming up the entire house. So it works the same way during both seasons, but one is spreading heat and one is spreading coolness.
Another thing you can look at: Lowe’s carries a roof vent that is actually solar powered, which spins a fan that actively sucks that hot air out of the attic and transfers nice, cool air into the soffits. That’s a great idea, too. Bryan Baeumler appears twice a month in New in Homes & Condos. He’s the host of Leave it to Bryan Mondays at 10 p.m. and House of Bryan: In the Sticks, both on HGTV Canada. Send your home repair questions for Bryan to Newhomes@thestar.ca with “Bryan” in the subject line. Contact him at baeumler.ca and on Twitter @Bryan_Baeumler.