Beware of Home Depot
Deck Design
Home depot may be a great resource for inexpensive tools, lumber, and building supplies, but think twice before you buy their deck maintenance products. I’m talking about Behr and Restore. Remember those brands, and do not use them on your deck–you will be unpleasantly surprised.
Behr is somehow touted by Consumer Reports as the best decking stain year after year, and many people use it through no fault of their own. Why not use the top rated decking stain? Unfortunately, their best sellers are water based stains which cannot penetrate like oil. While oil stains penetrate, water based stains sit on top of the wood and eventually fail and peel. We restore more decks with Behr failing than any other (Penofin is a close second). If you are thinking about refinishing, give us a call and we can help you make the right decisions.
Restore is relatively new on the market. It claims to protect your deck for up to 10 years and turn it into some sort of composite material like Trex. However, you need to completely sand down your deck before you apply it. I’ve also heard the application of the product is not easy and it requires one gallon per as little as 80 square feet.
Most importantly, I have seen first hand how Restore can fail in as little as one month! Check out the pictures I took–they do not lie. Luckily we were able to remove the old coating and refinish with Boodge. The moral of the story is: before you do anything to your deck, give us a call, we give free advise.
Luckily, we were able to save this “Restored” deck by sanding the failing product completely off the floor and railing cap, and refinishing with semi transparent Boodge stain in the Dark Cedar color. This is a ton of work, but it’s way cheaper than replacing the deck or trying to prep and re-apply Restore. Check out the before and afters, we can be magical!
— Neill McKenzie, Founder
