Deck Painting & staining serving Hingham and Metro West MA.

Census data counts 66.8% of Hingham's housing units as detached single-family houses, plus another 4.8% as attached single-family units, and 80.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied. Where a house has a deck, a back porch or stairs to the yard, those horizontal boards take harder wear than the walls of the house. Rain sits on them, snow melts on them, and foot traffic grinds the finish off.

Setting plays a part too. The town has 21 miles of shoreline around Hingham Harbor and the Atlantic, and places like World's End, a 251-acre reservation of four drumlins reaching into the harbor, show how much of the town meets open water. A deck that faces open water or sits in full sun all afternoon dries fast and fades fast; one tucked under trees stays damp and grows mildew. Each needs a different plan.

Start with the wood

Pressure-treated southern pine is widely used for decks and takes a penetrating stain once it has dried out. Cedar and redwood weather to gray if left bare and look best under a semi-transparent stain that lets the grain read through. Dense tropical hardwoods such as ipe resist stain absorption and call for a thin oil made for hardwood. Composite and PVC boards are not stained at all; the maker's cleaning instructions apply.

To check readiness, sprinkle water across several boards. Beading means the old sealer or mill surface is still shedding water and stain will not absorb; water that darkens the wood and disappears means it is ready.

Cleaning mildew and gray wood

Stain cannot fix dirty wood. Mildew, algae and the gray layer of sun-damaged fibers have to come off first, using a deck cleaner, gentle rinsing and, on weathered boards, a brightener to restore the wood's color. Pressure washing at close range raises fuzz and gouges soft pine, so a low setting and a wide fan tip are the safer approach.

Hingham's historic-district guidelines suggest mild soap and water for painted surfaces, with diluted bleach first where mildew is present. On bare deck wood, oxygen-based cleaners are gentler than chlorine bleach, which can lighten the wood unevenly.

Choosing a stain family

Transparent and semi-transparent stains soak in, fade gradually and recoat easily after a cleaning. Solid stains and porch paints build a film that hides patched or mismatched boards, but on a walking surface that film eventually wears through at the stairs and doorways and must be sanded before recoating. Moving from a film back to a penetrating stain means stripping to bare wood. Our paint vs. stain comparison goes into the trade-offs.

Decks in historic districts and on older houses

In Hingham's local historic districts, the Historic Districts Commission reviews exterior features visible from a public street, way, place or body of water. A waterfront deck in a district can be visible from the harbor even when the street can't see it. Restaining in the same color counts as ordinary maintenance, but changing colors, or painting wood that was never painted, is the kind of change to raise with the HDC first; the guidelines say unpainted elements should stay unpainted.

Where front porches, steps or railings on the 1,981 housing units built in 1939 or earlier are painted, the bottom layers may contain lead. Scraping them for pay on a pre-1978 house falls under the EPA's lead-safe rule; see our lead-safe painting page. The siding and trim behind the deck are covered on the Hingham exterior painting page.