Deck Stripping Woes - Want To Walk Away

Wood Restoration
21

I’ve only ever walked away from one job and it was a deck staining job…4 decks at one house. I was in over my head, first year of business. The weather kept on making me have to reschedule and also reschedule house washes. Customer was picky, rude, and a PITA and didn’t understand that you can’t stain in the rain lol

I had two decks left to stain, told the homeowner that everything I’ve done was free, including the 10 gallons of stain. He was from Chicago and had a lake house in MI.

Learned a valuable lesson, avoid customers from Chicago and don’t stain decks. (Or strip them)

If you’ve taken money from them then finish the job.

If you haven’t, explain to them that your having a hard time stripping it and they may will better off using the money to hire someone to come sand it down or replace boards.

I hired an AC repair guy last week to come fix my ac. He came, gave me a quote and came back a few days later with the parts. Once he started taking things apart he explained to me that there was burnt wiring, and things were worst then he thought and recommended that I buy a new AC unit from a larger place in town.

I wasn’t mad or upset at him, actually am glad he didn’t just slap some parts at it and charge me $$ and was honest.

2 years ago I had a mechanic rebuild my transmission in a C3500… two days later he calls me and says hey I’m having some issues with the transmission that I can’t figure out. I recommend taking it to an actual transmission repair shop on the other side of town and I’ll even pay for the towing.

I wasn’t mad, once again I was happy that he was honest instead of giving me a crappy product.

Do what you have to do, but sometime communication and honesty alone can solve lost issues. If you do walk, DO not charge them a dime including materials. Take the hit and learn from it

8 Likes
22

And St. Louis, MO, and Seattle, WA, and Austin, TX, and San Francisco, CA, and Denver, CO, and Boston, MA, and Charleston, SC.

Anyone who tells me they are from one of those cities and owns a lakefront house here gets at least double the normal rate for services.

2 Likes
23

If you are putting a solid stain down (which would probably be appropriate), there is no need to strip. You can go right over the old stain as long as you get off the loose stuff. Sanding will give you a better end product, but it’s tough to sand old wood with raised grain. I’ve been experimenting with the Diamabrush lately. That definitely has the power to rip through the stain. But it does take a little skill.

1 Like
24

Thank you for all the input, gentlemen. I told the customer that the rot areas would have to be replaced before I could do any work.

There were some smaller rot areas that she wanted to just fill with a wood filler. Is that an acceptable way to deal with it? Makes me a bit apprehensive, I would rather they just replaced EVERY board with any rot.

25

Pretty sure its not just a wood filler… you would have to remove all the rot and get to solid wood… then pre treat the areas with a substance that will allow a wood epoxy to adhear to the wood. Then you have to form it, sand it, etc… i personaly cant see that happening for a deck… a window sill or door way, yes.

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26

Walk. Walk. Walk. If you’ve taken money from them give it back and walk

2 Likes
27

Lol I don’t even have my setup yet and I’m so sure I’d never take deck jobs, all you read in this forum are problems problems and problems with those

1 Like
28

Yeah, I had a local guy tell me they were good money so I gave it a shot. Then after I complained about this one proceeded to tell me how much they suck. Haha

29

There is good money in decks, but you have to control the customer. In other words, if they won’t take your advice, then I don’t do them, other than clean.

30

If you’re still trying to work through this the Diamabrush will take everything off. It’s not hard to use but you have to pay attention to what you are doing. Small areas of rot can be treated with Bora-care. It’s expensive so charge accordingly but it will prevent the rot from spreading and you can put stain over it. We used the DIamabrush on a 9x14 walkway a few weeks ago that was caked with who knows what type of paints. We had it down to bare wood in less than 2 hrs and then another hour with an orbital sander and it was ready for stain.

31

Okay, the customer is replacing all boards with rot anywhere on them. Whew. Looks like it’s smooth sailing from here. All that’s left to do is stain.

1 Like
32

That brush is a pretty awesome tool. It makes me want to get into wood restoration.

33

Do you use the dust shroud and hook up a vacuum with the Diamabrush? The instructions say it’s a must, but I don’t see the need. Does it make a difference? I don’t own that stuff.

34

I didn’t use it but I think I would have to give it try because it does create a lot of saw and paint dust. You’d want to wear a paper dust type mask at a minimum IMO. I have bid in on a huge deck and if I get it I will being using the brush on all the rails. It’s a golf course and I can’t have all that dust floating around.

35

There’s a company here in Kansas City called Blast It Clean that does media blasting and has some videos up of them stripping wood with what I assume is very fine media.

I think there’s another company that does dustless soda blasting called Blast Monkey if I remember right. I’ve seen dustless blasting videos that are pretty amazing.

Probably not something you should take on yourself, but if you make a friend with a blast company and they know what they’re doing they can strip a deck in a couple hours without damaging the wood. I think I remember watching a video where a guy sanded some wood using ever finer grits of media.

Partnering with someone that does this and knows what the heck they’re doing could be a time and cost efficient way to go about it.

36

Super fascinating stuff

2 Likes
37

Screenshot_2018-06-18-21-47-11
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Mantel was above fire place the house in the background burnt we removed all the smut on the brick the mantel was burnt and smutty turned out good

38

soda blasting?

39

Yep but u can put different media but soda does awesome on wood

40

Was wondering today if it would work on calcium build up have never tried it we are removing a bunch on a college went thru 8 jugs of f9 all brick??