Deck Building
New decks framed, flashed and footed to the 2021 code this city actually enforces.
Read moreRefinishing
The prep is the job, not the stain
Finish applied over a dirty or glazed surface fails early no matter what is in the can. Cleaning, brightening and getting the moisture content right is where a refinish is won or lost.
Why us
Why test the wood before opening a can?
The gate on staining is moisture content, not the calendar. We check the boards rather than working to a rule of thumb, because a finish put onto wood that is still wet peels, and stripping peeled film is a far bigger job.
- Cleaned, then neutralized with brightener
- Mill glaze and dead fibre removed
- Moisture checked before coating
- Finish matched to the wood age
- Penetrating over film where sensible
- Railing and stairs done, not skipped
Process
What does a proper refinish involve?
1
Clean
Wood deck cleaner, scrubbed or lightly washed. Pressure is a tool here, not the method; too much of it furs the surface.
2
Brighten
A wood brightener neutralizes the cleaner and opens the pores so finish can actually penetrate rather than sit on top.
3
Test
Sprinkle water on the boards. Beading means still too wet or still glazed. Soaking in within about ten minutes means ready.
4
Coat
Finish applied to the boards, the railing and the stair treads, worked in rather than flooded on, and back-brushed where it needs it.
Why the cycle is short here
Sun does the damage, not the rain
Refinishing intervals in North Texas are driven by ultraviolet exposure rather than by wet weather, which is why decks here fail on a different schedule from decks in wetter, cooler markets. With eighteen days a year at or above 100 degrees, a July average high near 96, and very little to break the sun on a flat lot, a south or west-facing deck grays, checks and cups faster than most owners expect. Shaded decks and the boards under a cover behave completely differently. That difference is usually visible on the same deck, which makes it an easy thing to show you on site.
Clean, brighten, coat
Moisture tested first
Railings and stairs included
Covered areas assessed separately
Compare
Which finish and how does it fail?
Every finish is a trade between showing the grain and lasting. How it fails matters more than how long it lasts.
| Finish | Grain shown | How it fails | Recoat | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clear water repellent | All of it | Wears away evenly | Clean and recoat | New wood you want to keep looking new |
| Semi-transparent | Most of it | Wears away, no peeling | Clean and recoat | The usual choice on a maintained deck |
| Semi-solid | Some of it | Mostly wears, can flake | Clean and recoat | Older wood with uneven color |
| Solid stain | None | Forms a film, then peels | Strip, then recoat | Tired wood being made uniform, at a cost |
What we build
Deck work across Grand Prairie
Six lines of work, all of it outdoor carpentry, all of it drawn and permitted through the city's Building Inspections Division before a single hole is drilled.
Covered Decks
Roofed decks and patio covers that put real shade over a west-facing back yard by two o'clock.
Read more
Composite Decking
Capped composite and cellular PVC decking specified for surface heat, color and thermal movement.
Read more
Deck Repair
Rot, racking and loose ledgers diagnosed from under the deck, then repaired or re-framed.
Read moreDeck Staining
Cleaning, brightening and refinishing on the short cycle North Texas sun actually demands.
Read moreOur promise
If the boards are still too wet to take a finish, we will reschedule rather than coat them and take your money. A finish that peels in a year costs you the price of stripping it, and that is a worse outcome than waiting a two weeks.
Service area
Grand Prairie and the rest of Dallas County
Grand Prairie runs long and narrow between Dallas and Fort Worth, so the truck is already crossing county lines most days. Arlington, Irving, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, DeSoto, Mansfield and Midlothian are all inside the normal run, and so is the Mountain Creek side of southwest Dallas. No travel surcharge inside that footprint.
Grand Prairie
ArlingtonIrvingMansfield
Cedar HillDuncanvilleDeSoto
MidlothianOvillaMountain Creek
Fort WorthDallasJoe Pool Lake
Dallas County
01
Staining and sealing
Cleaning and refinishing in the DFW metro typically runs $2 to $4 per square foot, depending on the condition of the wood, how much railing there is, and whether an old film finish has to be stripped first.
More often than in most of the country, because sun rather than rain drives the wear. Rather than working to a fixed interval, use the water test: if it stops soaking in within about ten minutes, the finish is still doing its job.
Until the wood is dry enough, not until a date on the calendar. The target is roughly 15 percent moisture content or lower. Circulating advice ranges from two months to six, which is exactly why the field test beats the rule.
Usually not. Most modern deck stains are also sealers, so a separate sealer coat afterwards is generally unnecessary and can interfere with the finish you just put down.
No, and you should not need to. Capped composite and cellular PVC are designed to skip the finish cycle entirely. If a composite deck looks tired, that is a cleaning question rather than a coating one.
02
Prep and older wood
A smooth, closed surface left by the milling process that stops finish soaking in. It has to be opened up during prep, or the coat sits on the surface and lifts off in sheets a season later.
Lightly, and as one step among several. Pressure alone drives water into the boards and raises the grain into a fuzz that then has to be dealt with. Cleaner and brightener do the actual work.
Grey is usually just weathered surface fibre and comes off during prep, revealing sound wood underneath. Whether it takes color evenly afterwards depends on the age of the boards and how uneven the wear is.
Then it is a film-forming product and it has to come off before anything new goes on. That is a strip, and it is a materially bigger job than a clean and recoat, which is why we quote it separately.
The EPA states that applying a penetrating coating such as an oil or water-based stain on a regular basis may reduce leaching from older CCA-treated wood. On a pre-2004 deck that is a genuine reason to keep up with it.