Deck Painting & staining throughout Burlington, MA.

According to Burlington's Comprehensive Master Plan, the town grew through subdivisions of half-acre lots, and 20,000 square feet remains its predominant residential lot size. With 70.5% of housing units being detached single-family homes, by Census count, a typical lot of that size leaves room behind the house for a deck, a porch or both.

The first question for any deck is what it's made of. The answer decides whether we clean and stain, strip and restain, paint, or recommend leaving it alone.

Match the finish to the wood

• Pressure-treated pine. Widely used for decks. It has to dry out after installation before it absorbs stain well, and it splits and checks if left bare. A penetrating semi-transparent or solid stain suits it.
• Cedar and redwood. Naturally resistant to decay but they gray in sunlight. A penetrating oil or semi-transparent stain keeps the color; film-forming products tend to peel on these softer woods.
• Tropical hardwoods such as ipe. Very dense; ordinary stain won't soak in. Use a hardwood-specific oil or let it weather to silver.
• Composite and PVC. Not meant to be stained. Cleaning is usually all they need, and painting them can void the manufacturer's warranty.

Wet yards and wetland edges

The master plan notes that earlier development along the town's brooks and wetlands has created flooding concerns, and that FEMA has mapped flood-prone areas in town. It also counts 17 certified vernal pools and another 30 potential ones. If your lot sits near wet ground, the deck framing and lower boards may stay damp longer than the rest of the house.

On a deck like that we pay attention to boards close to the ground, posts and stair stringers, and to mildew in the gaps. Stain can't protect wood that is already soft, so rotted boards get replaced before any coating. A penetrating finish that lets the wood breathe is generally a safer pick than a thick film where moisture comes from below.

How a deck job runs

We start by washing the deck with a wood cleaner, using a low-pressure rinse so we don't raise the grain or gouge soft pine. Old failing stain is stripped where needed and the wood is brightened. The deck then has to dry, usually a day or two depending on the weather, before any stain goes on.

Stain goes on board by board, with railings and balusters brushed rather than sprayed so that runs don't drip onto finished boards. Stairs are done last so you have a way off the deck. Like all exterior coatings, stain needs dry wood and temperatures within the label's range, so deck work is planned for late spring through early fall.

Older decks and painted railings

Burlington's housing has a median build year of 1972 and 62.2% of units built before 1980. A deck may be newer than the house, but painted porch railings, steps and trim on the house can be. If we would disturb more than 20 square feet of that older paint on a pre-1978 home, the EPA lead-safe rule applies; our lead-safe painting page explains it.

If the house siding is also due, our Burlington exterior painting can be sequenced so the deck is stained after the walls, keeping drips off the new finish.